About me:
My name is Noel aka. FUYU, I'm 19 years old and an avid lover for everything technical.
While everything subjective, I like to explain in more rational enclosure with graphs and technical prowess. I care about facts and facts only, meaning no fancy 300$ cables and value by price-to performance.
While everything subjective, I like to explain in more rational enclosure with graphs and technical prowess. I care about facts and facts only, meaning no fancy 300$ cables and value by price-to performance.
Preamble:
Looking down at the vast landscape of Head-Fi and audio technology in general, I have noticed quite a few things over the past two years. Firstly, the crazy products, which sometimes defy common sense and secondly the people who are actually buying them. Now, I get that everyone is inclined on buying whatever they like, but it seems to me that people just don't know what they are using it for.
Maybe it is out of jealously or just my rational senses kicking in, who knows. Out of pragmatism, I have imposed myself with a "don't spend more than 300€ on a singular product" rule, which to this day still remains. However, this also means that I have never fully owned a truly "High-Fi" product. Now today, I will look at the M1Pro from Soundaware. A 750$ DAP. In this review, I will ask following questions:
1. What are the main differences between low and high-end DAPs
2. What do you gain/sacrifies buying such a product
3. How much difference is there in sound
4. Would I buy the M1Pro, personally?
For that reason I will thoroughly compare the M1Pro to the 100$ Xduoo X3. (review here)
Enter M1Pro
(This Product was sent to me for evaluation and reviewing purposes. I'm not affiliated with Soundaware in any way. Consider some inherent and subconcious bias in this review.)
Official Esther Thread:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/750875/soundaware-m1-pro-portable-player-with-proprietary-fpga-architecture-review-tour-started
Specs:
Build and Accessories:
Overall, you get the Esther, a USB cable + wall charger, a USB card reader, some stickers and the manual. I also got a 16Gb Samsung mSD card loaded with some sample music, although I'm not sure if the retail version comes with a card. In the review version, the wall charger is missing, although I got an extra coaxial cable as compensation. So keep that in mind. Another thing I found to be obscure was the lack of a case or pouch. While I can forgive this not being included with the Xduoo X3, I just cannot overlook the fact that it is missing here.
Build is excellent. The Esther is build out of a brushed aluminum casing from top to bottom. The texture feels quite pleasant without any blemishings or errors in production. With a weight of 175g and measurements of 115x55x15mm, it does feel quite substantial in my hands. The M1Pro tends to generate some heat when being used, although I never found this to annoying or hindering. However I don't recommend jogging or doing sports with the M1Pro. For obvious reasons.
I.O. is quite good. Soundaware’s offering has 11 buttons, which are all being distinct from each other, albeit somewhat cramped around the Play/Pause button. They feel slightly mushy while pressing down, though deterioration will not be an issue. The M1Pro features three 3.5mm (1/8’’) inputs adding flexibility for almost anyone. The bottom end features a Micro-USB port and a dual MicroSD slot. The dual SD-card slot is nice to have, though rather standard affair at this point.
The M1Pro features an IPS screen with decent viewing angles and very good brightness-levels. Colour reproduction is superb, typical of an IPS. The Hardware aspect of the M1Pro is near flawless, as the battery run-time comes just short of around 9 hours, which is slightly above average and much better than a rockboxed Xduoo X3, for instance.
User Interface:
Soundaware took the leap and created a firmware (Linux based) from scratch. To me, this is the area where Soundaware has to makes some improvements. The UI is quite sub-par, but does show some potential along the way.
I’ll start off looking at the Options menu. While adequate for most, I found the amount of options to be lacking. It does have most fundamental stuff like Language (though only English and Chinese), Screen-brightness and various settings for sound (Gain, Roll-Off, et al.). However compared to the vast interface of Rockbox it comes of as disappointing at best. For instance, adding new tracks are not auto-compiled into the storage, but must be added via. The Scan Music option. Now, the M1Pro has no big fundamental errors, but various small quirks which add up hindering the overall experience. My biggest gripe was with the playing mode of the player. After selecting a track you are launched into the playing mode, which has all information displayed. The Layout does look weird, I might add. Pressing the DOWN button changes the play-mode and pressing UP will display the album-art in it’s full glory. Sadly, this nice looking album-art locks the rest of the options and only displays the Title and Artist.
Not game-breaking per se, but it slows down the experience. And speaking of slow: Fast-Forward and rewinding is painfully slow. One second per 4.5 seconds of skipping. Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to rewind constantly. I like certain parts of tracks for than others. Streamlining and improving responsiveness is my biggest advice to the guys over at Soundaware.
Sound-Impressions:
Now here comes the best part. The Sound. On a technical level, the Soundaware is quite amazing.
I personally use almost exclusively low-impedance In-Ears, which obviously the player has no issue running to their fullest potential. I have been using the High-Gain option for most of my testing, even with more sensitive gear. Hiss was never an issue, albeit noticeable at start-up or when plugging in some IEMs. What impressed me the most was the capability of driving some seriously big names.
I plugged in my Fostex T50rp out of curiosity: And the results were nothing short of impressive. It had quite decent head-room remaining and sounded full-bodied. Same with the Sennheiser HD600.
Both pairings were ideal, because of the more “neutral” signature. While my Xduoo X3 can drive both Headphones to audible levels, it lacks dynamics and sounded quite bad in comparison. Now, I am not running high-impedance headphones from a portable DAP anyway, but if you fancy the options, the Esther might be something to look at. I was more inclined on knowing, how both differentiated when paired with my IEM collection:
The Soundaware M1Pro is warm sounding with good special capabilities, albeit not overly out of proportions. It reminded me of some older tube-amps I had listened to back in the day. Compared to the lower-priced competitor it does add some extra colouration to the sound, which I don’t really approve of. Extra dynamics were welcomed and overall sound more realistic to the more flat sounding X3.
But I’m speaking of a difference of a mere percentile. I’d honestly invest into the X3 and a 650$ IEM, rather than a Soundaware M1Pro and a 100$ IEM. The former will prove significantly better sounding.
I also tested some of the features, like roll-off and jitter, which I experimented with quite a bit. Unfortunatly, I cannot hear much of an audible difference. YMMV or course.
Final Thoughts:
A 750$ DAP. For anyone, but the most audiophile people out there will sound ludicrous. Including myself. There is a reason why I don’t invest more than 300€ for a single product. Because the law of diminishing returns kicks in. And it seems to be even more evident, when looking at the vast landscape of DAPs. I still remember the PONO player and this infamous review. The Soundaware M1Pro is quite similar in that regard, although miles better (and 2x more expensive). For anyone looking at the best bang for your buck is obviously not welcomed here. But for anyone else with a 750$ budget, I can whole heartly recommend the Soundaware M1Pro. A spacious sounding TOTL DAP with almost endless power to boot.