I've had my eye on the Titan for a while now, largely because of the storage capacity, but the price had put me off. Just before Christmas it hit my price point, probably because of the newer AK models, and I decided to treat myself, I'm really glad I did!
 
I already own an Ibasso DX-100, which is far and away the best portable player I've ever had, and I didn't want to pay another large chunk of money for something that may not be an upgrade. My music collection now requires more storage than is possible on the DX-100 even with a 128GB card. Regular changes of micro sd on the DX-100 can set you back a good few minutes of listening time and the prospect of being able to have all my music on one device all the time is very appealing.
 
Going from the DX-100 to the Titan is NOT an audio upgrade. The two devices sound different, the DX-100 has much more power and does a much better job of powering full sized headphones without additional amplification, but on the in-ears I use most often when on the move in the winter, that doesn't matter so much. The audio quality of the Titan is pretty decent. I found it less bassy but slightly more detailed at the high end than the DX-100 so I'm really happy with either. What is so much better on the Titan is the day to day usability. The time from pressing the on button to ready to go is measured in seconds not minutes. Even with 320 GB of music, there is very little waiting for anything, once you disable the auto library scan (the scanning is a lengthy process and only necessary if you add or remove songs). The third major practical advantage over storage and speed is battery life, I get 6-8 hours from the DX-100 which will do me 2 but not three days. The Titan takes me through the week on a charge without difficulty, I'll work it out in hours at some point, but it's ample. When it does need charging, using a micro USB charger is a significant advantage as both my phones and assorted other devices use the same, so no additional carrying there. The UI is fine, though I never had any issues with the DX-100 though others did.
 
In short it's smaller, lighter, faster, has a better battery life and can store 192GB more music than the DX-100. If I had to chose one on audio quality alone, I'd pick the DX-100 but for every day use on public transport with IEMs the Titan is first in the backpack.

I have a large CD collection and no CD player (apart from the drives on my PCs) and as a result I haven't listened to some of my music for a long time. It's been sitting in boxes with me raiding to do the odd rip. Last time I looked at devices to integrate my CDs into my digital collection the prices were way beyond my means, so I was really surprised to see what looked like a capable piece of kit at an affordable price. I bought the X10 without a HDD as I had a decent 3TB available for use.
 
What's included
the X10
the power adapter
a USB cable
a bit of documentation
 
What I added
A 3TB HDD
a downloaded CD database
 
Setting up
The physical HDD install is tool free and very easy. It took a couple of minutes to fit. Once in the HDD formatting was straightforward and didn't take too long either. The manual said a CD database was included on a disc but I didn't have one so I downloaded it via the Cocktail Audio website and installed it via a USB stick, again very quick and easy.
 
Once this setting up was done I added the X10 to my home network via a standard cat5 network cable (wireless is possible with an optional USB dongle). With a couple of tweaks it appeared as a network device and a media device.
 
Final set up involves choosing the ripping format and quality. I went for FLAC and the highest quality settings, well if you've got 3TB to play with, why not?
 
Ripping
Ripping CDs is very easy. Stick them in, press a couple of buttons, add cover art if you want and there you go.
 
Results so far 35 Albums ripped, the vast majority perfectly. So what are the problems with the tiny minority?
 

• Some cover art was not found. Cover art can be sought from several sources, though I've only ever managed to get any from "allcdcovers" with no joy using the other choices. It's possible to search your own network for images so I may be able to add this later.
• Three discs were not correctly recognised. When the disc info comes up, but doesn't match your disc, you can scan through a list of other possibilities. In my case I found two out of the three were listed and selecting these gave me the correct details. One disc remained unfound.
• Three tracks didn't rip. This is probably disc damage, I'll try ripping using my PC and post results.

 
Playing the music
So far I've tried two options: using the headphones socket and playing from my PC over the network.
 
The Headphone output is fine. It's a 3.5mm socket and has enough power to comfortably drive my Ultrasone Signature Pros but I don't think it could manage anything too demanding. The sound isn't at all bad and provides perfectly acceptable listening.
 
Playing via PC is a doddle. I use foobar as my player of choice.  I added the X10 to my database in foobar and then the search works fine. I used the same headphones to listen to the same tracks via Schiit Bifrost Uber and Lyr. It's no surprise that this set up sounds significantly better, it would be odd (and unnerving) if the X10 outperformed the Schiit combo, I'm impressed that it's as close as it is.
 
There are a couple of other ways to play I haven't tried yet: speakers and directly into the Bifrost via optical. I'm not worried about speakers, I haven't got any and I'm not looking to change that so I'll leave others to test this. I will run it directly to the Bifrost, in fact I'm unlikely to run headphones directly from the X10 in any case. As all my digital music sits on NAS, and the X10 can access the NAS, I could easily have the X10 as my player front end and listen without switching my PC. I have a friend who is seriously considering this as a one box digital music solution with no PC at all. If that's the case, you can also add music via USB from a stick or external drive, it'll even allow you to play internet radio.
 
Summary
If you have a lot of CDs and want to get them into your digital music system, or you want a stand music system that takes the hassle out of managing all you CDs then this could well be the answer you've been looking for. I'm about 5% through my CD collection and I'm not looking back.

I bought the Bifrost to complete my home audio system. This started with me listening to my portable player at home, followed by open headphones, then headphone amp and finally HDD based music and the DAC.
 
The more home listening I did the more I needed something to link my HDD full of high resolution music to my lovely LCD2 headphones. As I'd been using a Lyr amp for some time, the Bifrost was the obvious solution. Fortunately, computer has optical audio output so I could get away with the basic bifrost without the USB option, so for me the USB as optional is a money saver rather than a cost.
 
I can't compare the sound with any other DAC, but the quality of playback is far better than when I connected my PC to the Lyr via standard audio connectors. The gain over IBasso DX-100 to Lyr via its line out is greater in convenience terms than in audio terms and certainly less of a leap than the gain from PC to Lyr direct.
 
My only minor quibble is the power switch is not easy to use, being placed right at the back, so I tend to leave mine on for more time than I would like.
 
In short, I now have easy access to my 250 GB of mostly high resolution music straight from desktop to ears and the Bifrost is a great, cost effective, neat link in my digital music chain. I would happily recommend this DAC to anyone.

After a year of happy, I've finally got around to writing this review.
 
After a few months listening to my IBasso DX-100 through LCD2 directly I decided I wanted to see if and amp would really make much difference, and I'm so glad I did. Although I'm tempted to say there's no comparison, in short there is - the sound is an awful lot better when amped. I chose the Lyr after reading and consulting with many of the very helpful people here on head-fi and there was a good degree of consensus that the Lyr LCD2 combination would work well. I then spent a mind boggling two days trawling through the Lyr tube-rolling thread and nearly changed my mind, I wasn't sure I could cope with the volume of decision-making tube-rolling offered. In the end I put that to one side and just asked Schiit which of the basic valve offers I should start with. When I got a very friendly reply in a couple of hours I knew this was a company I wanted to buy from (incidentally, their website is very entertaining and worth a visit in itself).
 
I can't make any comparisons with other amps, I've not listened to any and I'd be wasting time trying. I'll just say this, for the music I listen to, which includes a lot of 20th century American composers (Ives, Gershwin, Copland, Steve Reich); baroque (Bach et al); and female vocal (Dusty, Roberta Flack); it really works well. The sound feels very open but rich; the detail is very good, particularly with human voice or voices. Brass is bright without being harsh and piano and strings feel powerful. On my rare journeys into bass, I'm never disappointed and if I need a good headbang there's enough oomph to rattle the windows (the joy of open headphones).
 
I no longer use my DX-100 as a source at home, and have pared the Lyr with a Bifrost DAC straight from my computer and there's something very pleasing about the pair of them neatly stacked on the shelf.
 
My current setup is PC - Foobar 2000 - optical out - Bifrost DAC - Lyr - LCD2
 
I sometimes use other headphones and I have to be careful not to set the volume too high (I don't go over 1/3 power on my Ultrasone Signature Pros) because the amp is very powerful. I try to minimise my tube-rolling but I do keep an eye on the rolling thread and make the occasional ebay purchase and I'll swap from time to time but it's not by any means necessary. 
 
In short, I think it looks good, sounds great and would happily recommend it to anyone who want to get into serious audio without taking out a mortgage.

I've found myself unable to use custom IEMs and needed to find some high quality portables for my three hours a day on public transport. After lots of research and some excellent help from assorted head-fiers, I settled on these.
 
My music tends to be expansive american 20th century (Copland, Ives, Gershwin), more minimal (Reich, Stockhausen, Ligeti), and female vocal (Dusty, Roberta Flack).
 
I've been listening to the Sig Pro non-stop since they arrived, and for my head they are as comfortable as any I've worn. My main home headphones are LCD-2 and I love their sound which seems to work very well for my preferred listening, I didn't expect the new ones to match the LCDs, and they don't, quite. But they are remarkably close. They have quite an open feel for a closed headphone and the Copland and Gershwin feel very spacious. I'm not a major bass head, but I dug out some meatloaf and felt really nice, absolutely bassy enough for me but still strong on the voice. Brass sounds really good, bold and bright - just the way I like it.
 
Next step, going portable. This was the main reason for buying them so I really needed them to behave nicely with my IBasso DX-100. And they really do. To my ears, they actually work better with the DX-100 than the LCD-2s. They more than match my ACS-T1 CIEMs for comfort and clearly exceed them for sound quality on everything I've listened to so far. They only fall short of my perfect portable headphones in two respects: sound isolation and noise leakage. They aren't bad at all but they don't compare to CIEMs (I guess nothing you stick on your head as opposed to in your ears is going to...).
 
The overall package you get for your money is nicely assembled. The case has a sturdy feel and enough space for my DX-100; the interchangeable cables are useful, as I prefer shorter for commuting and longer when I'm settled somewhere; and I hope to get hold of the cable with the inline microphone to try to use them as a phone headset. 
 
All in all I love them, and if I was only allowed one pear of headphones for all my needs (perish the thought), I'd pick these.

Bought as part of my upward spiral into high quality portable audio. I wanted something to surpass my Cowon J3 and the DX100 certainly achieves that.
 
The sound quality is better than anything I've ever heard. This is not, of course, an exhaustive list, nor do I have any home audio to compare with. I'm not really an audiophile but I listen to 2-3 hours a day while I commute. With this and my ACS T1 custom IEMs, the rest of the world just vanishes into the background. It's just as well I get off at the end of the line or I'd miss my stop every day.
 
The interface has not been well received, but coming from a J3, it's certainly no worse, and as someone who's been using Android for a while now, I found it pretty straightforward. I'm getting about 8 hours battery life, which is safe for two days of my use, but does mean I need to charge much more often than the J3. 
 
How good this would be for you depends on what you want. My only need is to listen to good quality music, one album at a time, for as long as my journey takes. The DX100 has given me more pleasure whilst fulfilling my simple needs that I thought possible. It wasn't cheap, but I've found it to be worth every penny.