[dennisopk]

  i have tried all of them but never have a serious compare. but one think i know walnut will crush them all. the only cheap things beat walnut is probably Nintaus X10 and Teri G1. it's not cheaper but still afordable.
smells like indonesia. what format are you using for walnut ? is it freeze for a long time ?

No, Malaysia, I use WAV without Tag done by foobar. freeze for a long time, done partition by Mini Tool Partition app.. I just redo a new partition/format on it now the card show 948MB only. Load some music and listening to it on the foobar now.

 

[vapman]

I'm sad to see sellers are sending out so many junk cards 

 not that a free card with a $30 player should be expected to last very long anyway...

 

[bigbro]

I had a bit of a wonky jack myself, I noticed when it was in my pocket that if I knelt down or put pressure on the jack it would crackle.
 
It was an easy fix though, just pop the hood and press down on this bit of metal in the photo below.
 
Do it without any headphones in, same works on the line-in too behind the LED.
 
 

 

[dennisopk]

  I had a bit of a wonky jack myself, I noticed when it was in my pocket that if I knelt down or put pressure on the jack it would crackle.
 
It was an easy fix though, just pop the hood and press down on this bit of metal in the photo below.
 
Do it without any headphones in, same works on the line-in too behind the LED.
 
 

Wow! it works, now all the jacks are tight fit, Thanks @bigbro for the tip. 

 

[kfarndog]

I have had a couple weeks to test and do some critical listening with the Walnut v.2 and this really isn’t intended to be a full review of the Walnut, just my thoughts / opinions / tips.

 

First off, let me say that the Walnut is an extraordinary piece of kit for $20.  I converted some select files to WAV and put them in the one album / one file method suggested elsewhere on the forum.  Thanks for that thumb and button-saving tip. 

 

Thus far, I have resisted changing opamps and have used the Walnut in its standard configuration.  I have listened to a wide range of music on the Walnut including classical, jazz, vocals, opera, folk, alternative rock and metal.  I used recordings and headphones, IEMs and earbuds that I use extensively with my desktop setup and other DAPs.  I was just looking for what in my meager collection shines with the Walnut, and should only be taken as my two cents worth.

 

The Excellent:

Sennheiser HD 25-ii (headphones) – these hands down provide the best synergy with the Walnut of all the headphones I tried.  Great depth and width to the soundstage with a fantastic analogue sound.  Needledrops have a great tube-type sound to them with the Walnut.  Makes me wish I had some Grados still to try with the Walnut.

 

Rose Masya (earbuds) – very balanced with great bass, mids and treble.  The soundstage is always excellent with these earbuds (wide and deep) and continues to be excellent.  Excellent clarity and I heard things in the recordings that I hadn’t heard.

 

Beyerdynamic 990 250ohm (headphones) – the Walnut provides sufficient power to drive the all-around excellent headphones.  Very nice spacious soundstage.

 

The Good:

VE Zen 2.0 (earbuds) – these are borderline excellent category with the Walnut.  They are well balanced but lack the clarity of Rose Masya and Sennheisers above.

 

Beyerdynamic DTX350 (headphones) – these provided a nice experience out of the Walnut.  Good clarity and soundstage, but a little bass heavy and lacking the analogue sound that I prefer.

 

Vsonic VSD1S (IEM) – very nice balance from the Walnut leaning to the bass-heavy side.  Still the best IEM I tried with the Walnut.

Shure SRH440 (headphones) – usually balance and smoothness are the hallmark of these Shure headphones, but Walnut brought out the treble more than usual.  Below average soundstage.

 

Koss Portapro (headphones) – the synergy here is bass-heavy, but the PortaPros provide a good analogue sound.  The soundstage is very narrow and closed in.

 

Toneking Tomahawk (earbuds) – a little fatiguing with the treble, but overall decent synergy and analogue sound.

 

The Fair:

VE Monk Plus Candy (earbuds) – still thin sounding but a little smoother overall sound than the regular Monk plus.

 

VE Monk Plus (earbuds) – these are thin-sounding with the Walnut.  Lacks the clarity and bass that other headphones and earbuds provided.

 

Etymotic HF5 (IEM) – these IEMs are generally well balanced across the board.  My biggest takeaway from them with the Walnut is that they sound muffled and that they are only slightly better than the Final Audio IEMs below.

 

Final Audio Heaven IV and VI (IEM) – these IEMs are usually my go to for excellent balance, sound, isolation and soundstage.  Unfortunately, with the Walnut, they are nothing but shouty in the treble and very quickly fatiguing.

 

Audio Technica IM50 (IEM) – far too boomy out of the Walnut, any details were quickly lost.

 

JVC FXD70 (IEM) – the drivers in these IEMs tend to be a bit shouty in the treble and while the Walnut is better than some sources still not the most enjoyable listening experience out there.

 

The Ugly:

Audio Technica CM707 (earbuds) – just awful out of the Walnut.  Sounded like I had two balls of cotton in my ears.

 

[Ruben123]

I think I am unlucky as I am one of the 150 buyers surge of orders, got a jack input problem, it can't grip tight on some 3.5mm jacks, some others are OK. I took out the PC board the soldering looks good. Lucky my fav monk+, qian39 , SHE3800 and TY Hi 32 are tightly fit, hard shake them jacks, no problem. Others plug in, slight touch of the wire near the 3.5mm jack the sound run. Could it be the quality of the female 3.5mm input jack? I have to use the short extention wire from my HD681Evo to play the other earbuds since the wire jack is tightly fit.
His gifted SD card is corrupted as well cannot use it after new partition and format. After playing a few newly loaded songs the walnut freeze
I told CKLewi about my problems awaiting his answer. Anyone got the same problem on the walnut?

Got the same problems as you, also from CKLEWIS but I don't know if the jack is his fault. It's your volume as high expected?

 

[Ruben123]

I had a bit of a wonky jack myself, I noticed when it was in my pocket that if I knelt down or put pressure on the jack it would crackle.

It was an easy fix though, just pop the hood and press down on this bit of metal in the photo below.

Do it without any headphones in, same works on the line-in too behind the LED.

great thanks, let's try

 

[vapman]

  I had a bit of a wonky jack myself, I noticed when it was in my pocket that if I knelt down or put pressure on the jack it would crackle.
 
It was an easy fix though, just pop the hood and press down on this bit of metal in the photo below.
 
Do it without any headphones in, same works on the line-in too behind the LED.
 
 

IF this solves the loose jack problem I will make a note of it in the FAQ so new owners will feel more at ease. Still, i'm fairly certain this is more a result of the sudden 150~ order long queue
It is possible he is searching for a better factory to produce larger runs of these boards.

 

[dennisopk]

Got the same problems as you, also from CKLEWIS but I don't know if the jack is his fault. It's your volume as high expected?

I have already fix the problem, see @bigbro post, as for the volume, got no problem., I press the digital volume on the next button all the way. The volume pot is on the 3 o clock position and it is already very loud with most of my earbuds. 

 

[vapman]

If we get a couple more confirms that this fixes the recently loose jack issue i will be more than happy to add this to the FAQ

 

[Ruben123]

If we get a couple more confirms that this fixes the recently loose jack issue i will be more than happy to add this to the FAQ

Will try it out later today!

 

[music4mhell]

Guys, i converted some flacs to wav through foobar and also i removed all tags..i can confirm that after conversion..

but still i am getting small spark sound during playback in walnut player..

am i missing something ?

 

[noknok23]

I had same. It just need some burn in

 

[music4mhell]

I had same. It just need some burn in

Thanks for reply..
i will report back after 2/3 days then after full burnin

if it goes away, i will order 2 more walnuts ..

 

[peter123]

Just a tip if anyone is interested. I'm using MediaMonkey to convert and sync music on the card for the Walnut and it works great. MM has the option to choose what kind of files you'd like to convert to which format ie you can choose just to convert flac and not MP3 when transferring files in different formats.

What I do is just to name the SD card Walnut and just mark the albums I'd like to add to the card, set all flac files to be converted to WAV and MM does the rest and all files plays without any issues. To me this is great as I've used MM for years and am very happy with it.