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.
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.