[dwbeeker14]

I didn't mean to talk anyone out of it. On the contrary I am keeping mine and really love the simplicity, build quality, and performance.

My intent was to help others that are interested and point out some hurdles. Would not like to see someone go through the hassle of purchasing and returning it if they are comfortable with working through the quirks.

I also hope this somehow gives some feedback to TEAC so they can address these issues in the future. I can think of no better way to do so.

It is not for the type of person that loads a new playlist at every opportunity. It is just right for someone like me that likes to listen to an album or two in the evening. I don't know how else I could get this fidelity and power in a single device that I can carry around the house. I also have satisfaction with the price knowing I am not limited by memory size and ultimate battery failure.

 

[cjs001]

Barring the UI issues @dwbeeker14 mentioned, It does sound like a really feature packed and capable portable gear, but I'm surprised by the lack of review or feedback whatsoever anywhere.

 

[kawaivpc1]

  Barring the UI issues @dwbeeker14 mentioned, It does sound like a really feature packed and capable portable gear, but I'm surprised by the lack of review or feedback whatsoever anywhere.

Same here. I can't find a single review about this unit.
Honestly, its UI looks very primitive.

 

[cjs001]

A little bit more digging and I came across this:
CYMBACAVUM

  We didn’t get to listen to it at all, as the operating system froze and crashed repeatedly; turning the power knob to the ‘OFF’ setting couldn’t even turn it off — we had to wait until the battery drained. A very bad sign indeed.

The build quality feels similar to that of the lower cost HA-P50B, with slightly larger dimensions. It would be considered very good for a $299 budget device (as is the HA-P50B), but is starting to show its lumps as a $700 premium DAP device. Worrisome all over.

Ouch...

 

[willyvlyminck]

Same here. I can't find a single review about this unit.
Honestly, its UI looks very primitive.
Teac did not do a marketing campaign for this player, most even don't know it exists. By the way Teac is a part of the Onkyo corporation.

 

[kawaivpc1]

 

Same here. I can't find a single review about this unit.
Honestly, its UI looks very primitive.
Teac did not do a marketing campaign for this player, most even don't know it exists. By the way Teac is a part of the Onkyo corporation.

If they want to compete with iBasso, Fiio, Astell N Kern, they need to fix a bunch of stuffs.
This player looks like it's from the early 2000's.
No UI, bad design, bad battery, no DXD support, no Android, no high capacity storage, etc....
If I were CEO of Teac, I would fire everyone who involved in production of HA-P90SD.
Teac is a big company but this product is clearly worse than obscure Chinese DAPs...

 

[willyvlyminck]

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.

If Apple would release an iPod Touch with 128 GB or more I wouldn't even bother about those Players where the development is for the customers, and are way to expensive for what you get with the exeption of FiiO x1 and x3k

 

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

If they want to compete with iBasso, Fiio, Astell N Kern, they need to fix a bunch of stuffs.
This player looks like it's from the early 2000's.
No UI, bad design, bad battery, no DXD support, no Android, no high capacity storage, etc....
If I were CEO of Teac, I would fire everyone who involved in production of HA-P90SD.
Teac is a big company but this product is clearly worse than obscure Chinese DAPs...

 
 
-The UI is imbedded into the Blackfin DSP chip, that's why it is so simple, this will give better SQ as an imbedded OS won't be using any additional resources that could introduce jitter into the audio processing (this happen's in many other daps, like android based).
-It has a 3500mAH battery, which is by no means small, the short battery life is simply due to it's power hungry circuits, no way around that other than cutting features which would undermine Teac's aim for the dap.
-It has no internal storage because sometimes it's better for sq from a circuitry standpoint, many high end daps choose not to include internal storage, like: 901, N6, Paw, Tera, etc.
 
Your last two statements are just plain wrong. The Teac is a very accomplished product from a circuitry design standpoint. I can agree it's not the nicest looking or most user friendly dap though.
 
By the way Teac and Onkyo jointly developed this dap, so it's got some good engineering behind it! Onkyo are releasing this same dap under the name HA300, only difference is switching from Burr Brown OPA1602 in Teac to Muses 8920 in Onkyo. Personally I think I will prefer the Teac voicing.

 

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

Received a P90sd, let the burn in begin. I'm aware that the P90sd has 1000uF of caps on the amp output as well as several caps in power supply etc, so will need burn in to reach it's desired sound. It looks better in real life than pictures, it's also not as large as pictures led me to believe. Its similar in height to the Pono, 2mm wider than DX90, 2mm thicker than DX90 in middle, but the edges chamfer down and are same thickness as DX90 on its sides.
 

 

[dwbeeker14]

Very well put.  This is some very good hardware.  The software needs some work and I do hope that TEAC follows through with this product because it can be very good.  Actually, once I straightened out the lengthy file names it has not hung up on me at all.
 
While I am here let me explain a few things that I learned since my initial review since this was a learning experience for me and suspect that others are in the same boat, so to speak.
 
I initially did a batch convert of all of my iTunes music from Apple Lossless to FLAC.  This was all new to me so I used all of the default settings in dBpoweramp (by the way I learned everything I needed from this website).  By default the file name is comprised of track number, (contributing) artist, and the name of the track.  After learning that long filenames caused the device to hang I changed the settings to not include the artist in the filename.  I believe that only left a few albums that caused me problems and they were really huge track names from quite old classical CDs.
 
If you have an iTunes library that you want to convert to FLAC in the same manner, most of the trouble you will have are those that fall under the "compilations" folder because they have multiple (contributing) artists.  When you browse albums on the TEAC device you will see an album for each listed artist.  I then used a program Mp3tag to change each song in these albums to something like "various classical" or some such.  I am not hawking either of these products by any means. I just know that they did work well for me. Better programs may be available, but I am limited in my knowledge in this area.
 
Then I had maybe 4 albums left that gave me multiple albums and these are of the "greatest hits" variety.  For example, Charlie Daniels, and The Charlie Daniels band are both tagged as artists.
 
The last bit of trouble was a Grateful Dead album that used a different genre for a few of the songs.
 
For the record I did keep my HA-P90SD although I could have sent it back and maybe paid a re-stocking fee.  But as I said before I do not see an alternative product that could give me this performance (fidelity and power) in a single package - at least not when I purchased it.  I don't like the idea of keeping a special copy of my music, but then again it is worth it to me.  Yes the user interface is simplistic but finding an album is no problem at all. I also like the idea that all music is stored on an SD card.
 
Also, if I feel the need to be more experimental I have the option of digital USB from my iPhone.  This works very well from the standard lightning cable (no camera connection kit required), and I am quite certain USB from a computer or Android device would work just as well.  However, if this is your preferred configuration you may want to consider the HA-P50 at about 1/3 the price.
 
I apologize for rambling in a reply to this thoughtful posting.  I also appreciate the hardware selection and engineering that went into this device.  Though not the place, I should probably add that my headphones of choice with this device are HD650 at 300 ohms, and DT880 at 250 ohms.  In my opinion, it seems to have been designed with power needs of these in mind.  It has several power settings for lower impedance headphones, but you then wouldn't need a device of this capacity.  I believe that this device will pave the way for similar performance devices, but we may have to wait a year or two.
 
 

 

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

I'm really liking the sound so far, it seems holographic and airy, but with authority. The sound is warm and smooth with a certain musical/emotive quality. Straight of the bat it's pairing immensely well with the JVC FX1100. I'm so glad I got this Teac, it's shaping up to be my most liked sound amongst my daps.
 
Now on to the bad. It is not nice to hold, it has a weird shape, with pointy bit's... It doesn't recognize any of the album/artist tags and just displays all my songs in one list... And there is no folder browse... 
 
Conclusion, so far it's crap to use, but sounds great. Interestingly for me, it sounds good enough to forgive it's huge faults, but I just happen to really like it's sound, if you weren't so inclined you would probably feel quite bitter about this thing lol. Given it's failings in size, shape, UI, FW and it's cost etc, the only thing it has going for it is it's sound and input options. For Teac releasing this at $600 was risky, I just can't see it taking off because most people value form and function just as much as SQ. I just bought for the SQ, and the Teac delivers. From first listen I knew it was my favorite sounding dap compared to dx90, pono, zx1, qa360.

 

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

I've been listening to my P90 far more than my other daps, I'm in love with its sound I must say. I've been thinking it might be to do with being the first dap I've had with a burr brown dac, It's got an analog quality which other daps using dacs like CS4398 or ESS9018 just don't have for me. This dap has made me real interested to see if other daps with burr brown dac's will be similar, I'm going to purchase the Fiio X5ii when it comes out and I've been going burr brown crazy, and even looking at daps like Cowon P1, AR-M2 and Hifi MA9. The crazy part is I am actually fully happy with the P90's sound, so me looking at other daps just proves I have the audiophile disease lol.

 

[shakur1996]

  I've been listening to my P90 far more than my other daps, I'm in love with its sound I must say. I've been thinking it might be to do with being the first dap I've had with a burr brown dac, It's got an analog quality which other daps using dacs like CS4398 or ESS9018 just don't have for me. This dap has made me real interested to see if other daps with burr brown dac's will be similar, I'm going to purchase the Fiio X5ii when it comes out and I've been going burr brown crazy, and even looking at daps like Cowon P1, AR-M2 and Hifi MA9. The crazy part is I am actually fully happy with the P90's sound, so me looking at other daps just proves I have the audiophile disease lol.

I think Cayin N6 is also using Burr Brown two DACs.

 

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

I think Cayin N6 is also using Burr Brown two DACs.

 
I'm not a fan of the internal design of N6, firstly I truly believe that dual dac's are utterly useless in a dap and is only done for marketing, dual dac's in a dap can actually reduce performance. Secondly the number of opamps used in the N6 is completely unnecessary, again done for marketing, and again can reduce sound quality. Each opamp you add is also adding in it's own noise and distortion figures also, and all opamps have a sound sig, the more you add the more you needlessly color the sound. Not that it will sound bad, I'm sure the N6 sounds great, but it's not my idea of a reference design dap. Opamps should be used as sparingly as possible imo, several daps are using some discrete circuitry to lessen opamps used which will have better performance than opamps (Pono, AK, Calyx, QA360, P90, maybe Cowon). Some form of discrete circuitry also shows engineering skill.  So these days I only look for daps with single dac and some discrete circuitry, it shows that engineering was placed ahead of marketing and ease of design. X5ii doesn't have any discrete circuitry and uses opamps instead like most Chinese daps do. P90 does have some discrete circuitry to replace some opamps, only has very few opamps and is single dac. I truly doubt the X5ii will sound as good as P90, as P90 is ahead in several areas using Blackfin digital signal routing/processing with imbedded OS, both of which will benefit SQ along with the discrete circuitry.
 
The more I think about it the more I realize I don't need any new dap as the P90 is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of its circuit layout, even Cowon P1 probably won't be as good as P90, Cowon doesn't have analog volume like P90 and the P90 Blackfin digital routing is a big deal for SQ (Lotoo Paw Gold is the only other dap that uses Blackfin). But P90 is ugly to use and hold, SQ was put above usability. I pretty much just load my songs onto P90 and let it play randomly because it is not fun using the UI, but the P90 sounds good enough that I don't care about my other easy to use daps.

 

[SounDFeVeR]

Can't agree more your opinion T.R.A.N.C.E.