I received a TEAC HA-P90SD this week after waiting 6 weeks. Thought I would post a few thoughts for others that may be considering one, and some advice if you have one coming.
I loaded some FLAC files onto a new SD card and it just kept hanging when starting up. After a lot of trial and error I discovered that it does not like large file names, including directories. If you rip any classical music you will likely run into this issue,
After I got past this, started browsing music through the album selection and kept seeing albums repeated 2 to 20 times. Turns out this problem is caused because an album is created for each "artist", or "contributing artist" tag in the file instead of using the more proper "album artist" tag. After sorting that out I had a few more duplicates to work through. Turns out the album is repeated for each "genre" tag in the music files. To get all of this sorted out I used a utility program to change these "artist" or "genre" to be the same in each track of the album. I did submit these issues in TEAC online support and my hope is they will fix in a future software release since I do not like changing music information, particularly the artist to something like "various". It is like scribbling out the author's name in a book, but I had to do this work around.
After (notice I keep using this word) getting these thing sorted out I must say it has a beautiful sound quality and plenty of power to drive 300 ohm headphones with plenty of reserve even at the lower gain setting.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the user interface is very simple and "DOS" like. I bought a 128K card and loaded it up with 64K of FLAC files and it is a bit cumbersome scrolling to find what you want to listen to. Plus the width is limited so if you see two or three albums that start off with the same words, such as "the best of..." you have to wait a few seconds to see the remaining words scroll by.
All of this being said it does serve a niche that I could not find anywhere else. It plays high resolution music at a high audio quality with plenty of amplification for higher impedance headphones. All in a single portable device that I can take to bed and listen before I go to sleep.
One more observation is that it seems to go through the battery fairly quickly when loading SD cards (which I had to do many times in my learning phase). Once you get your music initially sorted out you won't have this worry. By the way it does take a while to load up a large SD card. The device has a "manual load" setting, so you can begin to listen shortly after turn on, when you have made no changes to the music files.
A few more notes. It is relatively easy to find and select music and change settings with one hand. It does have several output level settings for a sensitive IEM, and also has a "hearing protection" (or some such) setting. Takes a long time to charge so prepare yourself in advance of long listening sessions. I have not had a chance to see if it will charge while playing.
I had most of my music in Apple lossless (.m4a) and it DOES NOT play this format, so I converted everything to FLAC which it plays well, up to 96/24 resolution (but not past). Be prepared for an inconvenience if you want to back and forth with iDevices. I was also able to play some MP3 files with no pain at all.
Also tried digital connection to the USB audio input through my iPhone, without CCK, It was seamless and sounded very good. I did not critically compare the audio quality to the iPhone and have no reason to. If this is your desire means of operation the HA-P50 may be a good choice. For my ears the iDevices have great audio quality but just lack power for higher impedance headphones. Another option is the Sony NWZ-A17SLV paired with a portable amp. I also bought one of these during my long wait for the HA-P90SD and cannot say enough good things about it. Fantastic audio quality and resolution with line output to an amp, and up to 128K SD cards as well, Plays Apple lossless and up to 192 kHz FLAC with seamless operation. Why not an iPod? Memory limitation. HD files eat up space quick.
If you get one my advice is to start with an album or two and keep the ability to backtrack to something that did work. It can be very frustrating and time consuming wading through a thousand files.
Mine is red which is very stunning, and I am sure the black is just as well. No case but several cables for interfacing to various devices. Sorry I cannot remember all of the details because the box is in an upstairs closet.
Hope this helps. Not intended to be a lengthy review but have a little time and thoughts kept coming to me. It is a lot of money to part with and just be prepared to work through some issues before sending it back in frustration.
A strong selling point for me on this device is I can change the battery without sending it somewhere.
I added a few photos so you can see the size in comparison to a Walkman and an O2 amp. Poor quality photo because it was dark and used a flash. Not shirt pocket size but it fits in a rear pant pocket.
