Chris Lee
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2016
- Posts
- 4
- Likes
- 18
Sorry for my poor English. I know it’s hard for people to test out DAPs in North America due to lack of stores selling these Chinese daps. For your convenience, I just visited a headphone store in Beijing, China where they sell several different daps from Cayin, Questyle, Luxury & Precision, Colorfly, Astell & Kern, Lotoo, Cowon, Opus, etc. I spent over 2.5 hours at the store to test out every DAP they had using their Audeze LCD-2 headphones.
In the end, I narrowed down my preferences between Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII (just released a month ago with newer AK4490EN dac) and the Luxury Precision L3.
Of course, the Questyle QP2R sounded amazing, but the sound still was not “special” enough. The Cayin i5 was not far off, but I did not like the sound of its colored midrange. Opus daps all sounded thin and lacking body, more digital sounding like your Android smartphones with DTS sound enhancer.
Luxury Precision L3 was lacking in bass slam, and using its bass boost EQ- distorted the sound- which I did not like. Also, it was lacking in power and I had to really turn up the volume. I did enjoy its wide sound stage and instrument separation. Compared to the Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII, it sounded slightly veiled and lacked transparency.
Overall, the newest Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII was the best sounding dap I’ve heard, much better than the AK70. It sounded the punchiest, clearest, and most emotional. If there’s one nitpicking, it’s that it did sound a bit bright with my own AKG K450 headphones- but never harsh. The brightness could be due to the fact that the Lotoo was still new and hadn’t been fully burned-in. I also used my Beyerdynamic Bryon earphones for testing. I like the portability and sound of my K450 and it was the only dap able to really control and tighten up the warm bass of my K450. I did like the extra brightness over the L3 because it pushed vocals more forward with a lot of top-end sparkle, which I prefer. It doesn’t have the largest soundstage, but I find many daps with large soundstage will result in laid-back vocals and slight veiling of micro-details.
I was looking for a DAP that had the best sound and portability. I didn’t care if it had a touchscreen, fancy CNC body, balanced output, Wi-Fi, or 8 processors. Not only was the Lotto Paw 5000 MKII better sounding than many fancy Android-based DAPs, it is lightweight around 100g and small enough to fit in your jeans. Its midrange clarity is so good with my budget K450 that it made sound like expensive headphones and vocals were very engaging. Think of how good it would sound with more expensive headphones.
Winner: Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII
Pros:
-bright OLED screen
-clean, detailed sound
-very powerful amp with d-amp tuning for different headphones
-EQ does not distort sound
-up to 2TB storage on single slot (2TB…not joking!)
Cons:
-soundstage not the largest, but sound is very precise.
-bass tight and punchy, but can be a bit lean on some tracks.
-forward, lean sound nature might not appeal to all.
-UI not the easiest to use
-no Wi-fi; other bells and whistles.
For people, interested in a review of the newest Aigo Z6 Pro DAP (released a month ago) with ES9018Q2C dac and ES9016 headphone amp, please let me know. I just purchased one for review purposes as I believe this one of the best-for-the-buck DAPs you can get right now. The more expensive Onkyo DP-S1 uses the same chip and amp, but in dual configuration. You get it in China for 899 yuan, less than $200.
In the end, I narrowed down my preferences between Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII (just released a month ago with newer AK4490EN dac) and the Luxury Precision L3.
Of course, the Questyle QP2R sounded amazing, but the sound still was not “special” enough. The Cayin i5 was not far off, but I did not like the sound of its colored midrange. Opus daps all sounded thin and lacking body, more digital sounding like your Android smartphones with DTS sound enhancer.
Luxury Precision L3 was lacking in bass slam, and using its bass boost EQ- distorted the sound- which I did not like. Also, it was lacking in power and I had to really turn up the volume. I did enjoy its wide sound stage and instrument separation. Compared to the Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII, it sounded slightly veiled and lacked transparency.
Overall, the newest Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII was the best sounding dap I’ve heard, much better than the AK70. It sounded the punchiest, clearest, and most emotional. If there’s one nitpicking, it’s that it did sound a bit bright with my own AKG K450 headphones- but never harsh. The brightness could be due to the fact that the Lotoo was still new and hadn’t been fully burned-in. I also used my Beyerdynamic Bryon earphones for testing. I like the portability and sound of my K450 and it was the only dap able to really control and tighten up the warm bass of my K450. I did like the extra brightness over the L3 because it pushed vocals more forward with a lot of top-end sparkle, which I prefer. It doesn’t have the largest soundstage, but I find many daps with large soundstage will result in laid-back vocals and slight veiling of micro-details.
I was looking for a DAP that had the best sound and portability. I didn’t care if it had a touchscreen, fancy CNC body, balanced output, Wi-Fi, or 8 processors. Not only was the Lotto Paw 5000 MKII better sounding than many fancy Android-based DAPs, it is lightweight around 100g and small enough to fit in your jeans. Its midrange clarity is so good with my budget K450 that it made sound like expensive headphones and vocals were very engaging. Think of how good it would sound with more expensive headphones.
Winner: Lotoo Paw 5000 MKII
Pros:
-bright OLED screen
-clean, detailed sound
-very powerful amp with d-amp tuning for different headphones
-EQ does not distort sound
-up to 2TB storage on single slot (2TB…not joking!)
Cons:
-soundstage not the largest, but sound is very precise.
-bass tight and punchy, but can be a bit lean on some tracks.
-forward, lean sound nature might not appeal to all.
-UI not the easiest to use
-no Wi-fi; other bells and whistles.
For people, interested in a review of the newest Aigo Z6 Pro DAP (released a month ago) with ES9018Q2C dac and ES9016 headphone amp, please let me know. I just purchased one for review purposes as I believe this one of the best-for-the-buck DAPs you can get right now. The more expensive Onkyo DP-S1 uses the same chip and amp, but in dual configuration. You get it in China for 899 yuan, less than $200.
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