[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

  Judging the value of dap just based on it's chip seems foolish. There's a lot more that goes into making a dap sound good than the type of chip used and consequentially a lot more to the cost than the price of the chip which I suspect in most cases is only a small fraction of a daps cost.

 
In this instance this chip is the entire back bone of the alien's sound, it is what is creating the tonality, etc, all Shozy can hope to do is to hit the performance ceiling of that all-in-one chip with good circuit design, but the chip will remain the bottleneck in performance for all metrics, as can be seen when looking at how the alien measures in RMAA. I am actually well aware of what goes into a dap and how it forms the sound, I have inspected both the Alien's pcb and the X3ii pcb and understand how each of them are composed, I do not simply look at what chips are used and make a conclusion, there is far more to a circuit than that, there is the digital i2s process, clocking, pll, cpu decoupling, power management, power filtering, power supply, grounding, dac stage, iv stage, lpf stage, gain stage, buffer stage, output coupling, LC filtering, might have missed a couple things. Unless you could care to enlighten me on what could have possibly gone into making the alien that one cannot see by eye on it's bare and simple circuit.

 

[musicday]

Guys try to relax, the Gold Alien sounds better than any other music player i tried at the given price.
Trance did you fully burn in your player? Or you complain about the cost of the components inside,but you are happy how it sounds?
A question addressed direct to you my friend:
- Do you think the AK380 has 3000-4000 worth components inside? Maybe 200-300 usd maximum i think.
I rather dobate to Shozy then to AK where the ratio $- value is so much lower than with Shozy Alien Gold.
Above is how i think about this conversation.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

^ Yes I dislike AK greatly, I have seen the insides of AK380, and it is in fact worse than some daps that cost far less. AK are decent daps with a nice exterior, that have insane prices attached. I would rather support shozy than ak.

 

[musicday]

^ Yes I dislike AK greatly, I have seen the insides of AK380, and it is in fact worse than daps that cost far less. AK are just ok daps, with a nice exterior, that have insane prices attached. I would rather support shozy than ak.

You have spoken the truth this time my friend.
Another example look at what amazing Lotoo Paw Gold offers for less money.
Sapphire crystal screen that is 9 gr, 24 k gold plating not 18 k or cheaper version, a truly function battery and the whole finish is remarkable.
For the asking price of Gold Alien one cannot ask for more, maybe some promotional price for Christmas?

 

[Gosod]

  The truth about Alien, a most unremarkable dap...
 

 
 
 
 
Bottom right square chip is the DAC and amp, Cirrus CS42I52CNZ. a budget, low power, space saving combined chip solution that is primarily targeted at smartphones, and no it is not a high fidelity part, 91dB dynamic range, weak inbuilt amp using a simple charge pump circuit. In fact most modern smart phones have a better dac and amp than Alien's...
 
Top right chip next to the sd slot is the memory card reader, GL827L. It has it's own clock which is good.
 
Big middle chip is the CPU, above it the TCXO.
 
Top left chip is the lithium-ion battery charger, TP4056.
 
Bottom left chip is a data flip-flop, for button inputs I presume, CM013B.
 
The smaller black chips are voltage regulators.
 
Nothing on the other side of pcb, just the battery, li-ion polymer, 4.51Whr.
 
Conclusion: I feel ripped off. Alien should cost half of what it does. This seems to be the running theme with shozy products. The insides of shozy magic and aegis are also unremarkable compared to their price, and more importantly compared to competitor products.
 
Aliens circuit is well thought out, but is extremely simple and mediocre in component, the issue is it's price is ridiculous, the Fiio X3ii is at the same price point, and is leagues better, it would also cost Fiio a heck of a lot more to build X3ii than it costs Shozy to build Alien. And it gets worse, why would you buy Alien over the cheaper yet better Xduoo X3?
 
Shozy seem to think they are entitled to higher profit margins for their mediocre designs, and their other products also indicate the same thing. I will not be buying from Shozy ever again, and I see no reason why anyone should when there are unquestionably better products to be had. Shozy reminds me of Hisoundaudio, another rip-off merchant selling mediocre designs for more than their worth.

the battery takes almost the entire player.

 

[msiekkb]

doesn't matter what there are component budget counts only sound signature and SQ.

 

[mochill]

All that matters is the end result

 

[walfredo]

So... I got one of these. ~
 
Is there a way to make work for FLAC?  Mine works for Wave only.  FLAC gets a very weird noise after a couple of songs.

 

[iJay]

So... I got one of these. ~

Is there a way to make work for FLAC?  Mine works for Wave only.  FLAC gets a very weird noise after a couple of songs.

Try to strip the metadata from the FLAC and it will only play FLAC 16/44.1.

 

[Kangeki]

  So... I got one of these. ~
 
Is there a way to make work for FLAC?  Mine works for Wave only.  FLAC gets a very weird noise after a couple of songs.

 
I don't have that problem but I sometimes lose the beginning of the song (when the DAP changes the song for playback).
With the Alien Gold I use only Flac 16/44.1.
Someone told me that converting everything into WAV generally solves most of the encountered issues.

 

[ER4S]

Someone told me that converting everything into WAV generally solves most of the encountered issues.

Right. Alien loves wav more than flac I think.

 

[walfredo]

 

So... I got one of these. ~

Is there a way to make work for FLAC?  Mine works for Wave only.  FLAC gets a very weird noise after a couple of songs.

Try to strip the metadata from the FLAC and it will only play FLAC 16/44.1.

 
Ah!  All my FLACs have metadata.  
 
Will try.  Thanks!

 

[walfredo]

 

 

So... I got one of these. ~

Is there a way to make work for FLAC?  Mine works for Wave only.  FLAC gets a very weird noise after a couple of songs.

Try to strip the metadata from the FLAC and it will only play FLAC 16/44.1.

 
Ah!  All my FLACs have metadata.  
 
Will try.  Thanks!

 
Tried it without metadata and it worked fine.  Thanks gain @iJay 

 

[Gosod]

this unit surprised me greatly.

 

[walfredo]

this unit surprised me greatly.

In a good way?