Lotoo Paw 5000

As proud owner of the largest collection of Grados in private captivity (26 pairs), I inquired of Grado as to what portable amp they found best.  They indicated that the Lotoo PAW Gold and PAW 5000 were better than the traditional DAP/AMP/Headphone combination, so I got this PAW 5000.
 
WOW!  I could IMMEDIATELY hear an improvement on my Grado RS1e and then the HF-2 and several other Grados over the iPhone 5, iPod Touch 6, FiiO X3, and FiiO X5ii that I had been using.
 
 As the documentation was sparse, the operation of two keys labeled ATE/PQME and DAMP were not explained.  A bit of research indicated that ATE/PQME provides a five-band parametric equalizer with several presets (including two adapting it for the AKG K701 and the Beyerdynamic 990)  and six user-specified settings.  A bit more investigation found a setting from Lotoo that further improves sound, and another from a head-fi user that makes some more gentle improvements.  
 
This is the first time that I have ever heard a significant improvement through the use of an equalizer.  I am a convert.
 
Even without the EQ, this is the best DAP that I have heard.
 
I have enjoyed this so much that I am now vigorously trying to obtain its big (and MUCH more expensive) brother, the Lotoo PAW Gold.  It is very hard to find right now.
 
PROS:
 
The sound is significantly better than other players in this price range.  I immediately perceived an increase in soundstage and greater spatial separation of instruments.  
 
The equalizer actually works... perhaps they use a higher-order parametric filter bank (flatter peak, faster fall-off) than the typical Gaussian-shaped second order type.
 
The player has sufficient power to power even inefficient headphones well... 500 mW/channel into 32  ohms.
 
The player is light (110 grams) and small (roughly 3-1/2" x 2" x 5/8").
 
It has a USB3 port, which means that it can download music faster into its up-to- 2TB (when available) micro memory card.
 
The Lotoo PAW 5000 charges through this USB port, which can also use a standard USB2 cable into part of its opening.
 
CONS:
 
The PAW 5000 only plays sample rates up to 96 Ksamples/sec.  It will accept files at higher rates and play them, but it plays them at 96 Ksamples/sec.  
 
Putting album artwork in is a bit dodgy...  cover art must be a .jpeg file of less than 150 kB and must be in the same directory as the songs.  Higher level artists directories (if you use a structure of a folder for an artist with subfolders for each album) will not show any artwork unless you put a picture in it along with the album folders (perhaps of the artist's face?)
 
The player is a bit hard to turn off.  It extinguishes its display to conserve battery life (though you can either leave it on or increase the time via system settings), and you must turn the display back on by pressing the gold button on the front before you can then stop play.  If you quickly need to turn it off, it is simpler to just unplug the headphone, which also stops play.
 
OVERALL
 
I love this player.  Recommended by Grado for its headphones, it has caused me to seek to shell out over 10x as much for the Gold version (even more highly recommended, and found by some to be preferred to such better-known top-end players as the AK240 and -380).  It plays significantly better than my best other player, the FiiO X5ii.  It has convereted me to a user of parametric equalization, to the point that I am developing some software tools to display and optimize parametric equalizer settings and compare them to headphone frequency plots.  I highly recommend this player.

 

 

With thanks

 
to Tony from HiFiHeadphones who provided me a Paw 5000 DAP for review these are a collection of my thoughts.
 

Introduction

 
I made the decision early on in the audition of the DAP to focus my time with it. So I apologise now if you are hoping for a story of me as usual trying out 100s of different combinations with every IEM,bluetooth,full size phone,amp,DAP . You get the picture. 
 
Suffice it to say, time is fleeting, life is too short. I realised just how good the PAW 5000 quite early on in the time I had with it and I got on with the job of enjoying my music with it.
 

The Testing

 
Was done on the move and seated , in loud environments , wired and wireless, with Custom IEMs, Bluetooth and Full Size headphones. Through the headphone jack (minimally) Optically through the Chord Mojo, and then through the Mojo fed to my First Watt F6 50 Watts per channel Mini Beast.
 
The custom IEMs used were the 5 driver ACS Encore Studio Pro.
 
 

 

 
 
The bluetooth headphones used were the Pendulumic Stance S1+.
 

 
 
 
 
The full size headphones used were the HiFiMan HE-6 modified slightly by removing the dust covers on both both cups.
 

 
 

The Sound Quality

 
It may strike you as a little early to let the cat out of the bag. But please assume by this time I have unwrapped , charged and worked out how to switch on the Lotoo Paw 5000 and am now listening to it for the first time. 
I try to be as objective as I can when listening to anything I have been asked to review no matter how must it retails at and despite any other impressions I have read or come across previously. I have to confess that I have had previous experience with the Lotoo - I listened to it in CanJam London , my good friend @Turrican2 has replaced his Ibasso DX100 for this model and this is not even the first time I have had the opportunity to listen to the review model.....
@glassmonkey is my good friend from South East England and had the review model in November 2015 . Together the 2 of us had an extensive listen during a mini meet Micah was kind enough to host and we got through through many many hours of music during that great weekend.
Therefore I come to the listening phase of the Paw 5000 with many preconceived ideas as to how it will sound. Because I already knew the Paw 5000 was a premium product I decided to give no more than a few minutes of listening through the headphone out port of the device. The headphone out port produces more than enough power for my super sensitive ACS Encores . With no EQ set, I found the Paw dull and lifeless.  Please do not feel too shocked by this statement. I apply EQ to every music player I have. So of course, on a flat start this is exactly what I expected.
All comparisons were made between the Ibasso DX100 , owned by myself for 3 years.
 

 
 
 
Needless to say this is a DAP to which I am accustomed to the sound of and being that I have owned it for 3 years , that I am perfectly happy with. The presentation of the DX100 (with EQ applied) is a warm bassy smooth sound, whether played optically through the Chord Mojo or through the headphone out or through the Mojo/F6 combination. 
So it followed that I needed to have a shufty through the sound settings of the Paw 5000. There are 2 EQ functions within the DAP ; ATE and PME. There is also a damping filter switch and a hi-lo filter switch. The 4 different combinations of hardware and software can be mixed and matched over a much longer period of time than I allowed myself to achieve the correct synergy. Also the correct synergy is an individual experience. I spent 5 minutes or so , keeping the damping on , the hi-lo filter on hi, the ATE on sweet and the PME on rock. This was a pleasing enough synergy for me. There was enough texture in the voices and guitars and cymbals and enough punch in the kick drum and bass guitar to beat the DX100s more laid back delivery. There I said it; for me , the delivery of Rock Music through the Paw 5000 has more life and excitement than I can achieve on the Ibasso DX100.
Many will prefer the smoothness and refinement of the DX100 for their listening habits; I personally prefer the Paw 5000.
The Paw 5000 was compared in all combinations.Headphone out using the ACS Encore Studio Pros, Optical out to the Chord Mojo , again using the ACS
 
 

 
 
 
and finally the endgame combination of the Paw,Mojo with the HiFiMan HE-6 connected to the speaker taps to the F6 Diy Build "The Mini Beast" built lovingly by my good friend @dill3000
 
 

 
 
 
 
All combinations retained the musical attributes brought by the EQ and filter changes. Whilst extremely difficult to express in words of any real meaning ; each stage of the journey of connecting to ever higher end gear reveals more of the musical presentation of the Paw and highlights the differences between this and the DX100.
 

The Build

 
The Lotoo Paw 5000 is a tiny DAP . It has no internal storage and takes a Micro SD card formatted in FAT32. My 128 GB card worked flawlessly in it. The GUI is a little primitive ; but in it's simplicity it is quick and it is precise. I had a collection of MP3s (sorry Micah!) and FLAC files and everything worked without any pops or clicks. 
The look of the Paw , as you can tell from the title, was uninspiring (sorry Phil!). It is small and plastic and could easily be mistaken for a run of the mill cheap and cheerful DAP.
 

 
 
I have a Colorfly C3 . This DAP is £50.
 
 

 
 
Beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder and one must never judge a book by the cover. I feel rotten going into the cosmetic appeal of a product when I would be hypocritical in saying it makes any difference for me in deciding what audio product I wish to buy. I feel I should put my head above the parapet and state that the design of the Paw could look more elegant and the GUI could have been designed to look and feel a little less basic given where it sits in the marketplace.
 

Conclusion

In reality, the 4 stars are well deserved. There is little to criticise about the Lotoo. After all ; it beat the legendary Ibasso DX100 DAP I have had for a long long time based alone on sound quality. There is no comparison between the Paw and the DX100 in loading time , playability , battery life, recharging time and GUI. The Paw 5000 is light years ahead on these aspects.
The Paw as a great sounding , tiny , quick loading , easy to operate and versatile music player should fit into most people's higher end setups quite comfortably. 

To begin, this review is based on a Lotoo Paw that has been on loan to me, I have no financial gain or otherwise from completing this review, it has been supplied to me to review and will be returned after a short review period to the sponsor.

My initial impressions are regarding the packaging, to me this is not important but we are all guilty of being biased one way or another based on first sight impressions. The box is quite large for what I thought was going to be a small Dap, it is split along the middle horizontally and contains the Dap in the lower half and all the accessories in the upper half, a very neat idea!

From the first listen, I really liked this Dap, it's ability to extract detail is wonderful. Recently I splashed out and bought myself a Shanling M2 Dap, I thought it extracted detail brilliantly, especially compared to DX50 but the Paw takes it to another level, the missing details are laid bare, some tracks that I have known for years took on another story altogether. There is no slurring of words, or instruments being hidden behind another instrument or voice, it all sits in it's own little area waving it's arms looking to be detected but this alone may be causing a small loss of emotion, it seems almost clinical. The more you listen, the more you hear and the more you begin to enjoy the music even greater, almost like hearing it afresh!

Another enjoyable asset for me is the sound stage, it really goes from one ear to far the other side of your other ear, I didn't know my headphones could go that far...

The first set of headphones I decided to use were my new set of Aurisonic 1Plus's, they have a beautiful clear midrange but slightly limited in the treble and bass regions, the sound was nice but not great, I could listen to it but I constantly felt the urge to increase the volume to hear a bit clearer. To me they didn't quite gel, nothing too specific but with the 1Plus headphones the emotion was dead.

Next up was the Vsonic VSDS headphones, I use these mainly for listening on my Xduoo X2 when I am cutting the grass, they are crystal clear, a bit intense in the treble and definitely lacking in bass but that I feel is normal for these, one thing I had to do was reduce the volume, the Paw was easily able to push these to ear damaging levels. Again the detail retrieval was excellent, though the treble was strident on the Vsonic, it didn't work that well, I cannot blame the Paw for this, this is a characteristic of these headphones.

Next up was the Trinity Delta hybrids with the neutral filters and foam buds, once they got warmed up they began to work nicely but still they seemed strained with the Paw, the detail was again crystal clear, vocals were detailed and crisp but a slight cupping of the sound was evident and again the bass sounded a bit light, though there was sufficient power to drive the Delta's to painful levels. One album I have that is full of detail and hidden sounds is Jethro Tull, Heavy Horses, I suspect this has been recorded from a vinyl disc as you can actually hear the track before it begins, just like vinyl tends to do. This album has been upsampled to 24 bit and 48khz, for those who say it doesn't make any difference I say, you just cannot hear it! It does make a difference, no matter what is said about the calculations, it doesn't take into account everything that the human ear can hear and I believe in it, so there! Another album that is nicely recorded is Ozric Tentagles, Jurassic Shift, with the Delta's a similar effect was a slight cupping of the sound but again with fabulous retrieval of detail and airiness around the various instruments. I tried these headphones listening to Pink Floyds The Endless River, I personally think this album sounds "computer" recorded, with all the emotion removed and filtered but with the Delta and Paw combination, things began to take on a new meaning, I actually began to like this album!

The headphones that seemed to work the best with the Paw were my Rockjaw Kommands, they gave all the detail without the cuppiness, bass was rumbling along nicely without being over blown, the treble was clear and detailed, not harsh or strident, some emotion was even beginning to creep in, of all my headphones, these seemed best suited to the Paw!

My only pair of full sized heasphones are my Sennheiser HD598's, I thought the Paw would not be able to make these work but here I was very wrong, in fact this is the best I have heard these headphones sound, ever! The only down side was that they seemed to be lacking slightly in bass, normally these headphones can rock but they just seemed very dry, the treble was clear and detailed, again I cannot remember when these headphones produced such a enthralling sound, it was just a shame that the bass was so dried up.

Sometime last year someone put a link for a set of cheap headphones on one of the Chinese wholesale sites, claiming they were great, at approimately £12.00 delivered, I thought they might be worth a listen, well to my astonishment, the Paw seemed to get on with them famously, a nice big soundstage, clear treble, slightly lifted midrange and good clean bass but again slightly lacking, especially in the lower registers. But truely a wonderful sound, more listenable that most of my headphones that I tried with the Paw.

While I had a chance to play, I dug,out my old set of Fischer Audio headphones, normally these are great for bass but lacking in treble but not with the Paw, if anything, the bass excess has been tamed and the treble enhanced to make these sound pretty good, again a tad analytical and definitely emotionless but the soundstage is much improved over their normal operation.

While in my bits box, I found my Hifiman R0's, to be honest, I don't like these at all, they are very lacking in bass, the upper sounds are very clear and detailed but not to my liking, with the Paw they still lacked bass and were crisp and clear, definitely emotionless and boring! To my dismay, when I played Pink Floyd, The Endless River, these things began to work like a proper headphone, even a bit of bass detail appeared.

Mostly this review has been based on how this device sounds connected to my varying sets of headphones and I make no apology for this, if I was looking for a new Dap, this is what I would be doing and it has been truely eye opening. Personally I think this Dap is a wonderful piece of kit, up until now, the Shanling M2 has been my favourite, it replaced my DX50 which had a Fiio E17 and the Minibox E+ setup connected to it to improve the sound. When next I go looking for a Dap, this will be high on my list, in fact before Christmas I was looking at this Dap but after reading some of the reviews of the M2 and the fact that it came up at a good price, I plumped for the M2, if I had of gotten a chance to hear this Dap, it would have been at the front of the wanted list! I like my M2 but it just cannot compete with the Paw for detail retrieval, maybe a bit more emotion is available with the M2 but given the option, the Paw would have been my first choice.

I like how simple it is to work, the UI is logical, the scroll wheel does just that, scroll and nothing else, there are proper buttons to push to achieve what you want to do, from my short time with the unit, the battery seems to last long enough for me and it can produce enough power to run all my headphones to loud enough levels. What more can you ask for? I have not had the chance to try mega buck Daps's like the Astell and Kern's but how much better can they be for all that extra money, if you are looking for a crystal clear Dap that can play music beautifully, maybe with a slight loss of emotion, then have a really good look at this Lotoo Paw, it's worth the effort.