General Information
An upgraded and improved version of the original C5.
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Mrobo C5 2.0
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Disclaimer
This sample was sent to me for the purpose of an honest review. All opinions and observations here are my own based on my experience with the product. I have no affiliation with the company and do not benefit financially from this review. More of my reviews can be seen from the link in my Head-Fi profile or on my blog.
The Mrobo C5 2.0 is available from Penon Audio and is priced at $49.90.
http://penonaudio.com/music-mp3-players/Portable/Mrobo-C5
Also available at Penon's AliExpress storefront.
A little background on me:
Like most people on this type of site I'm a lover of music. In my younger days I spent several years as a hip-hop DJ (using real vinyl and turntables) as well as producting a variety of music on computer using a combination of MIDI and live instruments. I did a Home Studio Sound Certificate at the Milton School of Audio Engineering in Brisbane, Queensland which covered the setup of audio for playback and recording in a studio environment along with other basic engineering principles. Nowadays I prefer to simply listen to and enjoy music.
My taste in music has changed a great deal over the years. For a long time my only interest was in rap and hip-hop music. Now though I listen to all kinds of music including jazz, classical, rock, psytrance, folk and ambient. I listen to music everyday using portable gear consisting of a DAP and mostly IEMs or simple desktop setup consisting of a laptop and DAC at work and my desktop setup at home which is based around my PC or Shinrico D3S with a DAC, often but not always including a tube amp and full-sized headphones or speakers.
My preferred sound signature is fairly balanced with slightly elevated mid-bass and deep well-extended sub-bass, clear and resolving midrange with a touch of warmth and clean, airy treble. I'm not offended by brighter sounding gear but dislike any sibilance. The majority of my music is 16/44.1 flac files as I stopped using physical media (CD/vinyl) many years ago and prefer the convenience of digital formats.
I often list a number of tracks or albums that I have used for testing a specific product in my reviews and they usually relate to things I've been listening to at the time of the review but note that during all my testing there are a number of ADDITIONAL standard tracks that I use for testing various aspects but do not list these in my reviews.
My taste in music has changed a great deal over the years. For a long time my only interest was in rap and hip-hop music. Now though I listen to all kinds of music including jazz, classical, rock, psytrance, folk and ambient. I listen to music everyday using portable gear consisting of a DAP and mostly IEMs or simple desktop setup consisting of a laptop and DAC at work and my desktop setup at home which is based around my PC or Shinrico D3S with a DAC, often but not always including a tube amp and full-sized headphones or speakers.
My preferred sound signature is fairly balanced with slightly elevated mid-bass and deep well-extended sub-bass, clear and resolving midrange with a touch of warmth and clean, airy treble. I'm not offended by brighter sounding gear but dislike any sibilance. The majority of my music is 16/44.1 flac files as I stopped using physical media (CD/vinyl) many years ago and prefer the convenience of digital formats.
I often list a number of tracks or albums that I have used for testing a specific product in my reviews and they usually relate to things I've been listening to at the time of the review but note that during all my testing there are a number of ADDITIONAL standard tracks that I use for testing various aspects but do not list these in my reviews.
Intro
When I learned that I would be reviewing the M5 2.0 I thought I'd be able to just copy the V1 review with some amendments. Well it turns out that the changes are many and quite drastic and a full separate review was in order for the 2.0.
Looking back at my review of the original model I might have been a bit harsh when it came to scoring but that was how I rated it at the time. My biggest gripes were it didn't support all the specified file formats and the default sound setting (EQ Off) which had a +1dB lift on the upper mids and treble and a massive bass roll-off beginning at about 1KHz. That issue was probably about the extent of what I expected the changes in the revised model to be but it turned out to be a lot more than that. I'll just state right now for the sake of the reader that those problems have been fixed but there's still a lot more to cover. With that said, let's get on with it and see if the C5 2.0 is worthy of your consideration in the budget DAP segement.
Specification
- Brand: Mrobo
- Model: C5
- Color: Dark Gray
- Screen size: 1.8 inch display
- Screen features: dot matrix 128 * 160 display
- Language: support multiple languages, default Chinese
- Audio format: MP3, WAV, APE, FLAC
- Charging time: about 5 hours (using 5v / 1000 mAh charger)
- Play time: about 60 hours (headset volume 30 screen protector to play lossless music)
- WAV: support 64BIT 192KHz
- AIFF: support 32BIT 192KHz
- APE \ FLAC: Supports 24BIT 192KHz
- DSD: Supports 1BIT DSD64 3072KHz
- Play Settings: Normal, Random, All, Single Loop Playback Mode
- EQ: rock, pop, soft, jazz, classical, electronic music (sampling rate below 48KHz only support EQ settings)
- Breakpoint playback: support breakpoint playback
- Signal to noise ratio: ≥ 99db
- Volume control: 100 digital volume control mode
- Headphone output: 10mW + 10mW (320hm)
- Only support expansion memory: up to 128GB SD card
- Transmission interface: MICRO 5PIN, USB2.0
- Operating temperature: -545 degrees Celsius
- Dimension: 86mm x 54mm x 14mm
- Weight: 145g
PACKAGING AND ACCESSORIES
(The package and accessories are the same as they were with the original model so for the sake of ease this section has been copied from the V1 review.)
The C5 comes in a simple retail box that for some reason doesn't have any images of the great looking player on it at all. Inside we find an accessory box, underneath which is the player itself.
Accessories include a USB charge/transfer cable, complimentary earbuds, warranty card and a user manual. The included earbuds look great at first but it turns out they're probably the worst I have ever used. They're made of a cheap feeling plastic
* The earbuds provided with the 2.0 look and feel the same (they still sound awful) but these ones don't have the sharp edges. Whether this is luck of the draw or an improvement in the manufacturing process I don't know but you're likely to never use them anyway unless you have literally nothing else available.
DESIGN
On the outside the 2.0 is unchanged from the V1 except that the buttons on the front of the player now have labels and the button labels on the right side have been changed to represent their new functions.
So what you get is a beautifully crafted and very solid feeling enclosure, crafted from all metal and weighing in at 145g.
Starting with the bottom there's a headphone out and a line in. Only thing is the line in has been changed to a secondary headphone out but for some reason the label wasn't updated. It seems that as a result of having dual headphone outs the output power of the unit is now lower. This means the DAP is good for IEMs but won't be sufficient for anything with high impedance. The output power is stated as 10mW + 10mW (320hm).
On the left side (from top to bottom)_ are:
- Button lock
- Reset button
- Micro SD card slot
- Micro USB charging/transfer jack
The button lock is a handy feature. It disables all buttons but the volume can still be adjusted using the intelligent wheel. When turning it on or off you see an animated icon locking or unlocking. Nice.
The right side has (from top to bottom):
- Volume
- Back/Previous
- Power
Here we see some of the changes that have been made since the V1. The volume button used to be the + volume whereas now it simply takes you to the volume screen where you can make level adjustments with either the Rew (rewind) or FF (fast forward) buttons or the navigation wheel. There are 100 volume steps so precise playback levels are easy to achieve.
What used to be the - volume button is now Back/Prevous for navigating the menu.
Finally there is the Power button that used to be the A/B button which was used to loop audio sections (useful for studying language).
On the front of the unit is the 1.8 inch TFT screen featuring a dot matrix display with a resolution of 128 * 160 pixels. Below the screen are:
- Rewind
- Fast Forward
- Play/Pause
- Menu
- Navigation/control wheel
The DAP sits well in your palm and the buttons are fairly easy to access using left or right handed navigation. The control wheel on the other hand is a little awkward to use unless you're holding the DAP in your left hand and I feel it might have been more intuitive at the top of the unit.
Apart from the firmware which will be covered in the next section one of the major internal changes was the removal of the 8GB of built-in memory. Whether they did this to make room for hardware changes or to reduce cost I don't know as it is difficult to find any information about the C5 (either version) and my attempts at communicating with the company didn't result in any answers.
USER INTERFACE
Okay, let's get into the UI of the 2.0 where there are major differences in virtually every area compared to the V1. To turn the device on you just hold the power button for a couple of seconds and it will boot up. This takes you to the main menu (which later can be returned to from any screen via a long press of the Back button). I'll make a table of the various menu lists in a table below. For now I'll just talk about the general user experience.
The UI is fairly snappy and responsive with no discernible lag when navigating the system. The intelligent control wheel comes in handy when scrolling through lists or you can also use the Rew/FF buttons. To play a song you can search via the folder view or the music view which lists all songs, albums and genres etc. When choosing a song to play you press the Play/Pause button and then you're taken to another screen that has Play and Delete. I don't know why it's done like this as it seems to me to add another unnecessary button press to play a song. When on the Now Playing screen if you press the Menu button you get a screen with 3 options: Add to playlist, Play mode and Delete. There are a few annoyances like this in the menus but for the most part it's fairly straightforward.
The screen is fairly clear despite the low resolution and it can be seen in all but the brightest direct sunlight. The player now supports Album Art but because of the screen's low resolution the album cover appears as a tiny square in the middle of the screen which makes it difficult to see. While we're here I'll talk about the Now Playing screen. It has a lot of useful information including (from top to bottom):
- Volume
- Track number/Total tracks
- Battery level
- Repeat/Play mode
- Current EQ setting
- Album/Artist/Song name
- Playback position (with progress bar)
- Play/Pause icon
- Bitrate and file type
The player supports break-point resume but it has the same annoying implementation as on the NiNTAUS X10 where as you power on the unit you'll see a notification asking if you want to resume playback. After pressing yes you're taken to the Now Playing screen and then have to hit the play button to resume. In my opinion it should just be a global option in the main settings that can be turned on or off so when you turn on the device it automatically picks up where it left off. Of course some people might like it how it is and as is the way with all things YMMV.
There seems to be a problem with creating playlists as adding a new song to one of the playlists will just make all the songs in that playlist the same as the last one added. For example, say I have five songs on my playlist and then I want to add another song, in this case I'll call the song #3. After adding #3 to the playlist when I go to that playlist now I see six copies of the #3 song. So I think it's fair to say the playlist function is completely broken unless you only want to add a single song to it which is fairly useless unless you find it faster than browsing for the file through the folder view.
Although there's an option in the settings to do an Auto upgrade I haven't been able to find any information or download of any firmware versions.
It might sound like I'm being negative here but in fact in general use the player is quite a pleasant experience. I personally always use the Folder View to find the song or album I want and the C5 2.0's interface does this perfectly well. Now, let's take a look at those menus.
| Settings | Language | (20 languages available) |
| Create playlist | ||
| Backlight timer | 10 seconds 20 seconds 30 seconds Always on | |
| Power off | (Off or 10-120 minutes) | |
| Sleep timer | (Up to 99 minutes) | |
| Information | Player information Disk space | |
| Auto upgrade | ||
| Format device | ||
| Factory settings | ||
| Music | All songs Artists Albums Genres Playlists Create Playlist | |
| Folder view | ||
| Play settings | Shuffle Repeat Default volume | |
| Equalizer | Off Rock Pop Soft Jazz Classical Techno |
Battery life
Just like with the V1 the C5 2.0 has a ridiculously good battery life. In normal use you can get upwards of 50 hours of playback on a single charge. I find it really refreshing when compared to my higher end DAPs as the battery life is something you simply don't need to worry about. Unless you're really careless you should never find yourself in a situation where you run out of power.
SOUND
Some readers might find this section a little on the “lite” side after seeing other reviews that wax lyrical about how their DAPs sound with various headphones and IEMs but in my personal opinion that essentially breaks down into a series of mini reviews of those headphones and IEMs… A DAP will have a basic signature (hopefully close to flat) that carries across to whatever you connect to it so while I will cover some pairings and comparisons below, this section will be a very brief description of how I hear the Mrobo C5 2.0.
Anyone who read my review of the C5 V1 will know there was a problem with the default EQ setting (EQ Off). I'm happy to say that's no longer an issue with the C5 V2. As you can see in the graph below, the 2.0 has a much closer to flat frequency response across the board.
Loaded test using the Moni One triple hybrid IEM (1DD + 2BA 16 ohms)
What I'm hearing from the C5 2.0 is fairly neutral and slightly warm with average soundstage for a low budget DAP (highly dependent on your IEMs). It's not the most clear or detailed sound but it's fairly consistent with other players in this price segment. Thankfully the bass extension is much improved over the V1 and the sound is now full-bodied and no longer anemic or drastically deviates from neutrality. The high frequencies are missing some of the air and definition of more expensive DAPs (the Jazz EQ preset improves this nicely) but again it's in line with what I've come to expect in the low budget range. That's not saying the sound is bad at all. For the price I think it's really good and directly competitive with other similarly priced DAPs I have on hand.
Unlike the V1 there's no custom EQ available. It might be a little disappointing for some but I generally prefer to not use EQ, especially when reviewing so this is no biggie for me. Having said that the EQ presets do a good job of altering the sound without any noticeable loss in audio quality and in some cases improving it depending on your preferences so be sure to give them a try as you might prefer some of them over the default setting.
Comparisons
X5 2.0 vs X5 V1 (discontinued):
As mentioned in the main part of the review the sound of the 2.0 is improved over the original. For the most part I find the firmware changes and new button assignments are an improvement except for break-point resume which in my opinion was done better on the V1. On the V1 the player would open at the last playback position of the last played track and from there you can just hit the play button to resume. On the V2 you get the annoying popup screen asking you if you want to go to the last played song every time you boot the device. The V1 also has 8GB of built-in memory which has been removed in V2. This shouldn't be a problem for most as it supports SD cards up to 128GB so as long as you have a SD card available should be a moot point.X5 2.0 vs NiNTAUS X10 ($65 USD from Penon Audio):
When it comes to sound there's very little separating these two and their power outputs are practically identical. I tested the outputs using two identical IEMs (KZ ATR) and with both players at 50% volume the sound levels sounded the same to my ears with maybe less than 1dB difference in SPL. Both players have some advantages over the other and it will depend on which features are more important to you as to which one you prefer since there's really no separating them by sound quality. The NiNTAUS has a proper line out while the Mrobo has dual headphone outs. The X10 has a 10 band equalizer while the 2.0's is 5 - neither DAP has a custom EQ setting.For construction and build both are really good. The 2.0 feels a lot more solid and premium in your hand but at the same time it's much heavier. I find adjusting the volume much easier on the V2 with the control wheel compared to the cumbersome method on the X10 where you first have to press a button to activate the screen, then press the volume button, then adjust using the wheel. The screen on the NiNTAUS is superior (300 * 240 vs the V2's 128 * 160) making album art actually useful and the screen layout is more pleasing (in my opinion). Both have exemplary battery life.
X5 2.0 vs Benjie X1 ($25 USD):
X1's soundstage is slightly wider and sound has more air and sparkle with slightly better transparency and detail retrieval. The screen is superior on the X1 even though it has the same dimensions and resolution but is in portrait configuration. Album art looks far better on the X1, is larger and the screen seems clearer overall but because of its orientation text is very short and slow scrolling making it more difficult to find the songs you're looking for or reading the Now Playing song's information. Build on both is fantastic but the X1 has very sharp corners making it feel less comfortable in your hand. I actually prefer the simple + and - volume buttons on the X1 for adjusting listening levels. The X1 has a 5 band equalizer and there's also a custom setting available. As with the other DAPs compared the X1 also has a stellar battery life of 40+ hours.
From left to right: Mrobo C5 2.0, NiNTAUS X10, Benjie X1
Pairing
Rather than go through the IEMs I tested separately I'll just say that they all sounded good and retained their individual sonic characteristics. Ones with lower impedance gave the best results as the power output is fairly low meaning you'll often find yourself pushing the volume to near maximum with harder to drive earphones. Even with sensitive IEMs I haven't heard any hisssing or background noise.
CONCLUSION
It's amazing what is on offer in the budget segment of DAPs these days and the C5 2.0 is no exception. It has immaculate build quality, surprisingly good sound, a responsive interface and incredible battery life. It's far from being perfect but manufacturers have to make concessions when you're offering products at such a low price. The button layout could be more ergonomic and the screen quality is below average but you can literally listen to music nonstop for days on end! File transfer speed is also above average and this thing is built like a tank. With the changes and improvements this player has had over the original the M5 2.0 is really worth taking a look at if you're buying a DAP in the sub $50 bracket.
groucho69
I'd be tempted to buy this if I didn't get the Cayin N3
Inasilentway
Great review. Thanks for going through all the hard work of doing this again. I have the N3--and LOVE it--but thus may do the trick for my rather aged audio system in my rather aged auto.
KipNix
Thanks for all the work you put into this review.
Comments
GuywhoLikesHIFI
100+ Head-Fier
Hi Crabdog. Could you do me a big favour?
My C5 v1 won't detect songs on the Micro SD Card, but when I go into the C5's memory, it says there is a card there, and can even tell me how much space is left etc. Putting on music on the card doesn't do anything, but the player can tell me it has files on it, because of the measured remaining space.
Did you ever test whether yours could play music as card.
My C5 v1 won't detect songs on the Micro SD Card, but when I go into the C5's memory, it says there is a card there, and can even tell me how much space is left etc. Putting on music on the card doesn't do anything, but the player can tell me it has files on it, because of the measured remaining space.
Did you ever test whether yours could play music as card.
kggutang
New Head-Fier
Hey there. I'm quite sure you've resolved your problem by now. I have a v1 too. Just go to Settings, then Save Position, then select TF to access your card. Then get out of Settings and into Music. Don't remember how I did it, but going to Music then prompts your player to scan your card and build a database.
Now get out of Music and into Folder View. There will be four libraries that have folder icons and names in all caps. All folders with a file type the player recognizes as music would be under the MUSIC folder.
kggutang
New Head-Fier
Hello crabdog, great review. My 2.0 arrived in the mail recently, except it turned out to be a v1 - my fault really for buying from a shady local 3p vendor. I really should look around myself, but do you think some Rockbox build might work on this? Or can I update the firmware to a 2.0? Any thoughts? I agree with your review on the v1, it does sound awful.
crabdog
Headphoneus Supremus
There is no Rockbox port for the Mrobo unfortunately. The only option you have is to try some different EQ settings.
crabdog
Headphoneus Supremus
Sorry for the late reply @GuywhoLikesHIFI , the new Head-Fi platform makes it near impossible to know when there's a comment on reviews...
But kggutang is right - Settings > Save Position > TF. It's a poor implementation but one that fortunately was fixed with the V2.
