Ok I have put several hours into it now and have not notice any more stuttering. I think we can safely say that the issue was the drive format, it does absolutely need to be in fat32, exfat may be technically supported but it does not work correctly.

That is actually the very first thing I tried but it will not work in my case. The disk utility in the latest version of OSX would not allow me to do anything with the volumes under rockchip_usb. It might have worked if I would have inserted the sd card directly into a card reader, but my...

No you are totally right, I took your's and Pietro's advice and got it formatted in fat32. I had to connect the dx50 to my windows 7 virtual machine as I couldn't find a comparable mac utility (that didn't cost anything anyway). Using that gui formatter tool I was able to reformat it in fat32...

I did a by the book update, literally followed the directions in the manual to the T.

Good tip! I will give this a go once I get home and let you know whether or not it helped!

Do you mean with the dx50 set up as an external DAC? No I haven't tried that yet. But the exact same files played through itunes using bitperfect on my Macbook Air to the exact same set of B&W P3 headphones does not result in any stuttering whatsoever, plays smooth as butter. It only happens...

I can't because fat32 only supports volumes up to 32GB, I am using a 128GB SD card. Supposedly this thing supports SD cards up to 2TB (when they exist) which would require full exfat support, so that should not be an issue... and if it is then ibasso has lied through their teeth about SD card...

I just got my DX50 last night, got it on Amazon for $180. I am using a PNY 128GB sdxc card formatted in exfat, all my music is in 16/44.1 .m4a alac (and plays fine on itunes with bitperfect). I updated the player to the 1.9.4 firmware and did a factory reset twice after that. Everything is...

I am leaning towards an ibasso dx80 ... it is out of my price range and is not as portable as I would like but otherwise it seems to tick all the other boxes. The price makes me gag a bit, but if it lasts awhile then it could be worth it. It is quite a nice piece of kit as far as I can tell.

I would really like an all in one device, I would rather not have to charge and carry around 2 separate devices. Know of anything like that?

So I am new to all this audiophile gear, no idea what most of the tech specs mean so I am having trouble finding appropriate gear.   I am looking for a portable DAP with a good built in headphone amp. I have a set of Bowers and Wilkins P3's and may purchase a set of P5's in the near future (or...