Zishan Z3

I own a Zishan Z2 en Z3. I have changed the Opamp for a more lively one and last week I put in a 2600 mAh battery. I have now 10 hours of FLAC and DSD music on a 200 GB Micro SD. I love the Zishan Z3. I use it neutral with no changes in the EQ. I don't understand why you would change the EQ, because it always effects the musicsignal! Fase shifting you know! When you want more bass, then buy a Beats or an other bass-loaded pair of cans. Need more high? Buy a pair of Grado's. I use my Zishan Z3 with the Koss Porta Pro. It's a great set for less than € 100. Not flashy, but I am not flashy. I want good sounding music. An other Opamp also does a lot.
I sold my Fiio X3 because the Z3 simply sounds better and it doesn't cost ages to update the contents of a 200 GB-card when you make changes in the content. It is superfast and simple. I have also sold my Hidisz AP60 which sounded dull and use was horrible. For about € 35 you get with the Z3 a lot of music pleasure. The other Opamp costs about € 3,50 from China and then you have two (also for my Z2 whish I use as DAC for my laptop. The 2600 mAh battery costs about € 12 from China and soldering is simple and now I have music allday.

Update 9 may 2019
I fitted my Z3 in january with the bigger 2600 mAh battery that just fits, but now after using it a while I have problems with readind the SD-card. The Z3 stops, starts up again and refuses to play certain tracks. I opened up het Z3 and I saw that the sd card slot was damaged by the battery and the sd-cardslot damaged the battery. Earlier I examined that the SD-card had trouble to get out of the slot, so the bigger battery is good for long power, but it destroyed my sd-card slot so reading my sd-card is a now a problem. There is also white stuff on de sd-card slot from the battery. It looks as if the sd-card slot was pushed up together with the usb-slot by the thick battery. Maybe chosing a slimmer battery is a better option, when you want to extend batterylife.

Update 13 August 2019
I had to remove the 2600 mAh battery from my Z3. De battery expanded and was damaged by de SD-card sleeve. When I opended the Z3 the back lifted itself a bit after unscrewing only one screw. There was pressure inside and I want to warn you that with the damage I had you possibly may wait for explosion of the battery. I hope that it will not be in your pocket at that time. I removed the battery and put the 1500 mAh-version back.

So my first impresions where mediocre,powerfull sound but drawned in bass,bass bass bass everywhere.
This is not neutrality (like ziku x9 xduoo x2 etc...)
Then i reduced the custom eq second band quite a bit,raised the last band fully and the third from last quite by a bit.)now the mids are more clear and forward and transparent,the treble revieals itself,sparkles and extends much better so the sound opens an "breaths" better and the highs extend properly leaving nothing unnoticed.
Now the player sounds DOPE for it s price of 45$!in my experience the best in the price range together with ziku x9 wich has a litle bit treble and highs extension,beter battery life but loses the contest in subbas department.bass is equal inthese players on zishan its meaty and full of juice,in ziku its dry and full of acuracy.
Zishans soundstage is just great wide and deep ALMOST like the crazy delicate transparent vibrating deep SOUND(stage) my ziku x9 offers with it s amazing "rock" eq preset.
Zishan is more powerfull and Forward In the bass and mids department so i give it my greetings for that.
Amazing player equal to ziku x9.and more powerfull amp.i also used to have xduoo x2 but it is inferior to these two players in al levels,it s sound was more similar to the neutrality of ziku than the pounch in your face that the zishan is.
All in all ,i ABSOLUTELY recomend this player for the money and i am sure that very very few (example ziku x9) can compete with that beast in this price range.
You can "get" by this point that i am an eq kind of guy i always eq my players to get the best out of them,but i use ath m40x.i plan to buy ath msr7 and then i mind setle a bit with my eq mania since higher caliber headphones might not need it who knows.
As farr as batery i plan to plug a powerbank in there and be care free,its 6-7 hours quite poor batt life
Thanks

Recently I upgraded my Zishan Z3 Digital Audio Player (DAP) with the Sparkos ss3602 discrete opamp.

In this short overview I would like to share my opinions and experiences with this upgrade.

Used headphones where AKG K712 Pro and Philips Fidelio X2

LM4562 is the default opamp of the Z3 DAP.
Over time I have tested and swapped numerous opamps in the Z3 with mixed results:
Opa1641, Lt1028 and Muses8820 each have their strengths and weaknesses but are overall not better than the default LM4562.
The opamps that I valued better than the default opamp where: LME49720HA, Muses02, Muses8920, Opa827, Opa1612 and Opa2604. They improved dynamics, tranparency, high frequency extension and where ovarall more natural sounding.
These aspects were further improved by switching to the LT1057, Opa627, Opa2107, Burson V5i or AD825 and I finally settled on the latter (i.e. Analoque Devices AD825) for serveral years.

Recently I upraded my prefered opamp (AD825) with the Sparkos ss3602 which brought improvements in smoothness, detail retrieval and spaciousness.

Although the ss3602 is (in my opinion) the best sounding opamp for the Z3 in honesty I find it a little overkill because the Z3 has its limits and therefore does not utilize the full potential of ss3602.

On the other hand if you want the best possible sound quality the ss3602 deserves to be auditioned.

so i was wrong about the eq on this thing. i was just used to eqs for idiots. the eq is fine but no where near as good as my rockbox on my sony. id recommend rockbox over anything else that ive heard of, and im not familiar with smartphone apps. the battery could last longer.

Personally for me, i dont understand the hype for daps cause i dont hear any step-up in sound quality with my other audio sources. its more like of a sidegrade instead. maybe more expensive and well engineered daps would put a smile on my face. but not this one, but in terms of portability and ease of use this one takes the cake, tho a major downside is the battery life.

Build: i dont see any problem. its easy to dissassemble and quality of materials are good. overall good. it also looks subtle which i prefer, but one problem for other people is that the buttons in the z3 are loose.

Sound: they are on the neutral side at most. bass are full and flat, no bleeds on the low mid frequencies so its all good, the sad part for me is the mid frequencies of this dap, they're too much recessed for me, even pairing it up with my grado which is known for having an elevated mids in its sound signature sounded flat. but having said that, the two of them makes a great combo for a balanced, warm, and lush music listening experience. but another problem is the highs also being shy, resulting to the openness of the sound being narrowed down but not fully eliminated. luckily the details are still here, and its well represented with great resolution. its also has a clean background, no hissing whatsoever.

now for the worst part of this dap, that most of you will not like is the problem in the software. its still in v0.2 so i hope future patches would fix this problem. the problem is. your music will skip a sec before it started playing, its kinda annoying to me since its makes your listening experience incomplete at the very start, it pisses me of so much, even if used as a dac for laptop and phone, the problem still persist.

Conclusion: a lot of reviews here in headfi prefer the sound quality of zishan over other budget daps like walnuts, ruizu, etc. thats why i cancelled some of my order and decided to buy only one dap to test instead, i also got curious about the AK4490 chip, but to be honest, in terms of pure sound quality, my zenfone does the better job in audio reproduction and ive used many many smarthpones in the past this by far is the most clean, detalied, and balanced in all of them. im guessing they're using hi-res dac, but im not really sure, the only upper hand that the z3 have is to power up high impedance headphones and iems up to 300ohms, and being easier to use when travelling. other than that i dont see any advantages for it only lasts 8hours of music playback. Just my advice for people out there whos planning on buying daps for the sound quality upgrade alone, i suggest go to the more expensive ones that would deliever. However i spoke a person here in headfi, and he said z3 is better to be paired up with higher impedance headphones and iems, so maybe, just maybe, my head gears are the ones at fault here. and since i dont have any iems or cans above 100ohms, i cant really tell. i hope other headfier with high impedance headphones and iems would review this also for a complete review of this one.