hi fellow head-fiers !!!
Ordered a DX100 directly from iBasso, its on the way.
CANT WAIT after reading all the great reviews. I will post my own review soon I guess.
I bought a Colorfly C4 at the beginning and I really loved it. The wooden body, the laser etched logo, the ALPS volume slider. It kinda reminded me of the iRiver H340 I used to have regarding the UI. After buying it I realized the small problems. Lack of a touchscreen was one - if I have 200 songs in a playlist according to genre and I want to play the 100th song ... OMG !!! I ran out of patience. Another is the lack of power. It is rated up to 300 Ohms, so I though of getting a Beyerdynamic DT880 PRO 80 Ohms would be perfect. Man I was wrong. Either I listen to music ridiculously loud or the volume was ... well ok. I made my girlfriend listen to it and she also said the maximum volume was lacking. I wonder what it would do with a Sennheiser HD650. Anyways, people buy it for the sound, which is where Im going next ...
The sound for me was very good, very clear. I have a Samsung Galaxy S (with the wolfson DAC) and equipped with voodoo sound enhancement and I use it with a Westone 4R. Compared to the Galaxy S, the C4 was undoubtedly more clear with a much wider soundstage. The sound was very lush and mellow which I liked, kinda analog and warm sounding. Compared to the H340, it was more mid centric whereas the H340 has a distinct u-curve sound signature with boomy bass. After listening to it for a few days, there was something that was lacking from the sound - the bass. The deeper bass notes were severely rolled off and it made the C4 sound quite lean. From 100hz onwards it was impeccable and waaaay better. But it lacked the full bodied sound of my Galaxy S. It felt incomplete. I was trying too hard to like the sound and then I realized that for £500, I should not have to do so. The plus point of that was no matter what song I played through the C4, the bass didnt distort. Its as if Colorfly added something like a safety factor which made sure the heavy bass songs sounded perfect without muddying up the rest of the frequency range and therefore consequently other songs sounded thin and lacking in weight. Im sure there can easily be more bass without muddying up the midrange and treble. I tried but I couldnt enjoy the C4 too much.
Anyways, after some comprehensive listening, I sent it back and got a full refund and got myself a DX100. Atleast that has a user adjustable EQ so I can tailor the sound to my liking somewhat. Hoping for the best.
P.S. sorry if I wrote too much about the C4 in the DX100 thread but I guess someone can let me know if the Dx100 has any of the problems I mentioned with the C4.