Walkdude
New Head-Fier
I have a lot of DSD64 files ripped from years of collecting classical SACDs. They sound fantastic using ifi Zen on my Linux PC. However, listening to DSD on portable devices is pretty marginal: Hidizs AP80 "Pro" has intermittent weird noises and Hiby R3 Pro sounds better but not nearly as good as the ifi DAC + PC. (btw, Hidizs totally does not care about DSD: I emailed their tech support and got a lame, google-translated, response saying my headphones were probably broken.)
I know you can connect Hiby/Hidizs players to the iFi DAC...but that totally compromises the portability and convenience of having a portable player. For the outrageous prices these companies are asking, the built-in DAC ought to be as good or better than ifi's most humble DAC.
I understand that Sony NW-A45 does not "natively" play DSD: it converts it to PCM. Nevertheless, my NW-A45 running Mr. Walkman firmware (Warm tuning installed) sounds better than Hiby and Hidizs' attempts at "native" DSD playback.
I used the same set of Grado SR-80 headphones on all devices.
Anyone have any recommendations for a reasonably-priced DSD walkman (DSD256 or lower is fine; DSD512 and above is just absurd....) ?
I know you can connect Hiby/Hidizs players to the iFi DAC...but that totally compromises the portability and convenience of having a portable player. For the outrageous prices these companies are asking, the built-in DAC ought to be as good or better than ifi's most humble DAC.
I understand that Sony NW-A45 does not "natively" play DSD: it converts it to PCM. Nevertheless, my NW-A45 running Mr. Walkman firmware (Warm tuning installed) sounds better than Hiby and Hidizs' attempts at "native" DSD playback.
I used the same set of Grado SR-80 headphones on all devices.
Anyone have any recommendations for a reasonably-priced DSD walkman (DSD256 or lower is fine; DSD512 and above is just absurd....) ?
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