[Tony1110]

No it's not, the player is more limited than the speed of the microSD card. I have the Sandisk 128gB version and no difference in speed compared to the 64 gB. I prefer the Sandisk because they give me the least trouble, they just work period, then I can move onto the player issues lol. Others seem to also like the Samsung 64 gB cards so that's another option. By the way take your stuff out of the internal and move it to the external cards, leave the extra mem for building the larger library reference which points to your external library. 5gb internal is just too little to do anything serious there.

Thanks. Very helpful.

 

[TheMaestro335]

Hello all,
When I try to reload the original firmware I get a Can not find firmware image or invalid image, installation aborted message? Does anybody have a different copy of the firmware other than the one that is on page1 of this thread?

 

[droid23]

@musicheaven: thanks for clearing that up. I did a quick read through the posted links about the ES9018xxx and the antialiasing filters. Seems, that it will be labor-intensive to tweak them for hardware manufacturers like iBasso and the likes. The only thing which gives me hope in that regard is what the user "twest820" @diyaudio.com stated:
 
Quote twest820:

 The default fast rolloff filter is much the same as the linear phase "brickwalls" found on other DACs. ESS's slow rolloff has a noticeably wider transition band than the slow roll linear phase filters chosen by other manufacturers and hence is a good choice if one is attempting to minimize the amount of preringing the antialiasing filter creates in the output signal.

 

Quote twest820:

Intermediate phase filters with reduced preringing scored better, though not as well as minimum phase filters. Since ESS's built in filters are all linear phase this means the only compete option ESS has against Cirrus and Wolfson in this regard is for one to synthesize one's own minimum phase-ish filter and program it into an ES901x series DAC.

 
My conclusion of the above statements would be, that there is room for improvement because it still seems that it's possible to implement different filters!? If I'm wrong, please excuse me, I'm not a sound engineer^^

 

[M-13]

With all the sound quality contorversy I think people are forgetting how much better the UI is now. The response is smooth and snappy and feels a lot more stable/solid. Good work Ibasso on that. I'm sure they'll continue to improve the SQ. They'll tinker with it until it's the best they can possibly make it. Looking forward to more updates in the future. I'm peronsally happy with the slow filter. I haven't done any in depth comparisons with the fast, but I am enjoying my music while getting some work done this evening... Sig Pro + DX90 is sounding beautiful right now.
 
*Did some quick back and forth with the fast vs. slow filter, and settled on the fast again. That's twice now that I think it's better. I will give the slow another chance or two in the upcoming days. For now, the fast is what I prefer.

 

[musicheaven]

@musicheaven
: thanks for clearing that up. I did a quick read through the posted links about the ES9018xxx and the antialiasing filters. Seems, that it will be labor-intensive to tweak them for hardware manufacturers like iBasso and the likes. The only thing which gives me hope in that regard is what the user "twest820" @diyaudio.com stated:

Quote twest820:
Quote twest820:

My conclusion of the above statements would be, that there is room for improvement because it still seems that it's possible to implement different filters!? If I'm wrong, please excuse me, I'm not a sound engineer^^

No problems understood but the way I read it is a suggestion to ESS to allow users to build their own linear phase filters by baking it into their products so they can become competitive like Cirrus and Wolfson.

 

[Bluebear]

Really before I buy a DAP I would auditioned it and if I like the SQ and signature, I would pay good amount of money for it. I do not want the SQ to change to something that is different which I do not like just because fixing bugs in the firmware indirectly results in changing its SQ/signature. If every firmware changes causes the SQ to change, how are people guaranteed of the quality of the DAP's SQ which they have invested in? Staying on an older firmware is just ignoring the problem because then you are not receiving and enjoying the benefit of the bug fixes which are mandatory for a buggy DAP. Making users pay for an unpolished product and then deliver something that creates more "take-it-or-leave-it" issues later on, forcing users to pick either only SQ or only better UI is not really a good way to promote the product for potential adopters.

 

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

  Really before I buy a DAP I would auditioned it and if I like the SQ and signature, I would pay good amount of money for it. I do not want the SQ to change to something that is different which I do not like just because fixing bugs in the firmware indirectly results in changing its SQ/signature. If every firmware changes causes the SQ to change, how are people guaranteed of the quality of the DAP's SQ which they have invested in? Staying on an older firmware is just ignoring the problem because then you are not receiving and enjoying the benefit of the bug fixes which are mandatory for a buggy DAP. Making users pay for an unpolished product and then deliver something that creates more "take-it-or-leave-it" issues later on, forcing users to pick either only SQ or only better UI is not really a good way to promote the product for potential adopters.

 
Yea, but rest assured that ibasso usually come out with better sq firmwares each time (not always all the aspects of the sound are better, but at least some aspects are) and they usually keep building on it ensuring that the overall sound is always getting better in some way. Its quite rare for the sq to actually become overall worse. For example, with the next firmware they may combine the best sonic qualities of the last 2 firmwares, making the older firmwares redundant. I have faith in ibasso, they know what their doing. Plus most of us enjoy the rollercoaster ride of different sound sigs between firmwares. Being stuck with only the original sound would be boring!

 

[borrego]

   
My conclusion of the above statements would be, that there is room for improvement because it still seems that it's possible to implement different filters!? If I'm wrong, please excuse me, I'm not a sound engineer^^

 
Well, iBasso didn't do it for its flagship DX100. So I doubt they will do it for the DX90.

 

[borrego]

For those who are interested, the "standard" DAC filter setting on the HDP-R10 (Japanese custom version of the DX100) is the Slow roll-off filter:
 

 

[musicheaven]

  For those who are interested, the "standard" DAC filter setting on the HDP-R10 (Japanese custom version of the DX100) is the Slow roll-off filter:
 

 
No wonder the HDP-R10 (DX100) sounds so smooth

 

 

[headwhacker]

   
No wonder the HDP-R10 (DX100) sounds so smooth

 

 
But DX100 sounds different from HDP-R10 at least from what I can gather from the R10 forum.

 

[musicheaven]

   
But DX100 sounds different from HDP-R10 at least from what I can gather from the R10 forum.

 
One thing you hear about is to tune the player so this is what intrigues me the most, it's hard to say what they are doing exactly when they say they tune it. If I am not mistaken, someone on the X5 thread mentioned it when they were about to release the player. What I would love to do is visit their R&D department and see what they do there to those players including when they design it, but with copyright and patent protection, that's becoming almost impossible unless you work for those companies.

 

[goodvibes]

  I just read in a whitepaper of ESS, that the SABRE³² Reference audio DAC series, especially the ES9018 features "Customizable filter characteristics which allow a user programmable filter for custom roll-off response". Here's the source (PDF)
 
Hmm...If I understand that correctly, this sounds very good and might enable iBasso to tweak these filters after all^^ and I really hope, that this also applies for the ES9018K2M used in our DX90!!??

It probably does not. This is getting really tweaky for a $400 portable player that already uses a great DAC and filter. Building a min phase output filter is now a known quantity. What Sabre is doing inboard at it's input, clocking etc is industry leading and their current slow roll filter is close in character to a Min phase with less overall ring but a touch of pre-ring.
 
The filter thing is compromise. A min phase filter is called that because it trades some phase response (why it's not linear phase) for the complete elimination of pre-ring. The post ring can be minimized with additional filtering but it will always be higher than what ESS is getting from it's particular slow filter. In a WM8741, I prefer it's Min phase option but that may not be the case with ESS. I also prefer almost all other aspects of the ESS for this purpose. It's all trade offs and my absolute preferred DAC type couldn't be implemented in a portable. 

 

[jamato8]

  I made the mistake of trying the new firmware - which is a disaster. 
 
Now I can't go back to the original 2.0.0.  Every time I try it, I get the following error message:
 
"Cannot found firmware image or invalid image.  Installation aborted." 
 
What method are you guys using to go back to 2.0.0? 

You have to use the tool on the first page for Windows. From that tool you can install the original FW. 

 

[musicheaven]

  It probably does not. This is getting really tweaky for a $400 portable player that already uses a great DAC and filter. Building a min phase output filter is now a known quantity. What Sabre is doing inboard at it's input, clocking etc is industry leading and their current slow roll filter is close in character to a Min phase with less overall ring but a touch of pre-ring.
 
The filter thing is compromise. A min phase filter is called that because it trades some phase response (why it's not linear phase) for the complete elimination of pre-ring. The post ring can be minimized with additional filtering but it will always be higher than what ESS is getting from it's particular slow filter. In a WM8741, I prefer it's Min phase option but that may not be the case with ESS. I also prefer almost all other aspects of the ESS for this purpose. It's all trade offs and my absolute preferred DAC type couldn't be implemented in a portable. 

Totally agree, their design has compromises but so are the other vendors, their HypreStream technology is what makes the DAC such a dark background device (extremely low noise floor), their filtering mechanism is there in conjunction with their PLL implementation which is also working in the digital domain. What makes their case interesting is that for an audiophile, it becomes impossible for them to hear (detect) the transitional frequency shifts that happen when the DAC moves from one frequency to the next. They have developed a quick and low noise response time to the shift that is not audible (minimal compared to other sigma-delta dacs). If you have a chance you should watch ESS CEO Martin Mallinson's presentation on the subject, quite ingenious.