Brief impressions of the LP6Pro
This is my first exposure to an LP player. Having heard so much about the brand. A thank you to
@Damz87 and Luxury & Precision for the Australian tour. It is now several years old but still a current model available to purchase for $3899US
First impressions: The tour unit came "as is" and is clearly labelled "Test sample, not for sale" on startup. It will be returned after the 2 week tour. My first thought was
wow, this is a small player. Portable. Lighter than my SP2000 and perhaps even my m11Pro (stainless steel). In the age where every modern DAP is a monstrosity, this was a refreshing change.
There's no wi-fi. LP believe in sound quality first. Wi-fi introduces unnecessary noise and impediments to sound quality. Or so the Q&A above suggests.
Operating system comments:
The proprietary iOS is simple. Most intuitive and reminded me of the original iPod days of old. Copying music from my MacBook to the internal 64Gb storage was painfully slow. I would love to see a faster USB 3.x implementation and internal memory write speeds. It took almost 30 minutes to transfer <15Gb of FLAC files. Another improvement would be an improvement in human ergonomics
or the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system. Some brands do this better than others where the interface just is intuitive and easy to use.
I would like to see a double tap to 'wake' the screen.
edit: it can be toggled in the menu, thank you @Bosk
As my FLAC are purchased (by me) from the Qobuz music store, the Metadata was not an issue. Albums are sorted by alphabetical order and then by track number. I would not want to have thousands of tracks or albums as you have to manually scroll through each page. But then the transfer speed is also slow. Using an external storage card would probably be the preferred option.
Drivability and sound quality:
This small player packs a punch. I'm driving Spartacus and easier to drive IEM's with a volume wheel of <20 balanced.
With headphones Utopia is at v35 on the balanced 4.4. These are impressions and I am not volume matching. Just a comfortable listening level.
Whilst a portable amplifier and line out may further improve staging it is mostly unnecessary. The P6Pro will likely drive many harder to drive IEM's satisfactorily. I don't own at present to try this out though.
The R2R implementation is lovely.
Bass could be tighter, more dynamic on the Utopia but is more than adequate on the Spartacus and perhaps a DAP drivability limitation. Texture is great though.
There's an analogue warmth to the bass and low mids. Rich and musical. Staging is more intimate than the SP3000 with less air and seperation between instruments. It is not as hi-fi technical as the SP3000 nor Chord sounding as the Hugo2.
The very top end in treble extension is slightly recessed. The upper mids and lower treble region is still very well defined and pleasant. I'm not missing the treble on my Utopia 2022.
Those of you who like warm huggable sound will enjoy the R6Pro. But the overall sound is cohesive and enjoyable. It's a "close your eyes and enjoy the music" DAP.
I'm finding myself impressed what this small player is capable of.
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