[Sauntere]

Just Checking.....
 
 
Yep this is the Calyx M thread....

 

[musicheaven]

I thought I was on some other thread. :eek:

 

[OK-Guy]

  Moreover, using Hugo on IEMs is going to be an overkill and defeats the purpose of being comfortably portable IMO. Yes, it has better SQ at a cheaper cost but it is not an end-all-be-all portable audio solution.

 
I'll be using the Hugo pretty much exclusively with IEM's so hardly overkill in this household, the key ingredient to how I want my music relayed to me is the Hugo hi-end sound capabilities & a DAC to die for, it may not be important to your good self but it is to me...  it is highly portable imo as well, I already use a small shoulder-bag to carry my gear as I don't like bulging pockets (IEM Otterbox, DAP, PHA-2 & reading-glasses case).
 
at the end of the day I just didn't want to see a Head-Fi'er maligned for having a different opinion because they prefer owning a Calyx over a overly priced AK240...  I doubt there will be much difference in SQ between them, just a different flavour.

 

[AmberOzL]

   
I'll be using the Hugo pretty much exclusively with IEM's so hardly overkill in this household...  it is highly portable imo as well, I already use a small shoulder-bag to carry my gear as I don't like bulging pockets (IEM Otterbox, DAP, PHA-2 & reading-glasses case).
 
at the end of the day I just didn't want to see a Head-Fi'er maligned for having a different opinion because they prefer owning a Calyx over a overly priced AK240...  I doubt there will be much difference I SQ between them, just a different flavour.

I am sorry but that made me laugh. You carry it with a shoulder bag and it is highly portable?
 
Do you know what is highly portable? Clip+ and a c/iem or Tera Player and a c/iem or any slim-normal (Call it DX50 or ZX1, you name it) sized dap and a c/iem.
 
Hugo+Dap+C/iem is not portable. That's called transportable just like iDevice+Dac+Amp combos some people still use.

 

[OK-Guy]

your minimalist set-up is not my minimalist set-up... see we beg to differ.
 
ps... please wait till I finish re-editing my post Mr Eager Beaver...

 

[AmberOzL]

  your minimalist set-up is not my minimalist set-up... see we beg to differ.

I would still call 1 device + 1 ciem setup is portable. What I call and understand by portable, that dap will enter into my jeans front pocket and I will be able to walk freely, take a bus to go to the university etc.
 
Then again, I understand your point of view. If you are willing to carry a shoulder bag or something similar with you all the time, I see no reason why you shouldn't use Hugo that way.
 
Btw, this is getting way too OT. I am sorry for my part honestly, we gotta go back to Calyx and M and their volume slider fetish.

 

[zachchen1996]

  I am sorry but that made me laugh. You carry it with a shoulder bag and it is highly portable?
 
Do you know what is highly portable? Clip+ and a c/iem or Tera Player and a c/iem or any slim-normal (Call it DX50 or ZX1, you name it) sized dap and a c/iem.
 
Hugo+Dap+C/iem is not portable. That's called transportable just like iDevice+Dac+Amp combos some people still use.

"portability" is a relative thing my friend 

 

 
In then end, what amount one is willing to carry around on the go is highly personal, and no one should be attacked for being willing or not willing to carry around a certain amount.
 

 

[Mython]

   
Hi Mython,
 
... you do seem to have a bee in your bonnet about Astell&Kern

 
 
I'll let jamato8 handle that point:
 
 

iRiver has shown what they think of the consumer. They deserve a salute alright.

 
 
 

---

 
 
 
 

  The vast majority of people who have listened to the AK240 have been completely blown away by it.

 
You mean the vast majority of the people who contribute to the AK240 threads?
 
What about the 'vast majority' of those people who have listened to the AK240 but didn't feel inclined to post their impressions in the AK240 threads, knowing there'd be a lynch mob waiting for them if they did..?
 
 
That's therefore a potentially-skewed sample group from which you are drawing your 'vast majority'.
 
 
As I'm sure you're astute enough to realise, there's a substantial amount of discussion occurring 'behind closed doors', via 'Private Messaging', here on Head-fi, and a surprising amount of the content of those private conversations doesn't necessarily concur with what is being posted in the public threads. Some does concur, some doesn't.
 
I can tell you now that I am not alone in my thoughts that the AK240 sound quality may comfortably be matched by circa-$1000 competitors. Without divulging who I've been chatting to, I can't prove that to you, so I could just be making it up, couldn't I?  ...but I'm not.
 
 
The thing is, no one with an AK240 need feel threatened by me saying that the SQ may be matched by circa-$1000 competitors.    If I was saying this 5 years ago, then there might be cause for annoyance, but this past couple of years, the SQ of TOTL DAPs has improved so dramatically that what you get now is frankly bloody marvellous. In the TOTL sector of the DAP market, it's largely a case of personal taste rather than in terms of one DAP outright sounding 'much better' than a competitor. For a one-box solution, a DX100 sounds superb. So does an AK240. I haven't heard an HM-901 but I'm confident that it sounds every bit as good, and perhaps may even nudge ahead in one or two nuances, given the flexibility of the amp card options.
 
This isn't aimed at you personally, piercer, but I would even venture to say that anyone buying an AK240, who actually expects all that extra money to go towards extra sound quality is, sorry to say it, naive. You just aren't going to get 'twice-as-good' sound quality for twice as much money.  "Diminishing returns, diminishing returns, blah blah blah..."
 
So, with that being the case, why am I being challenged by AK240 owners for my remarks that the AK240 SQ does not (to my ears) substantially exceed the SQ of more reasonably-priced TOTL competitors?
 
What AK240 purchaser could not have realised that the gargantuan price incorporates a very fat manufacturer profit, a fat dealer cut, a premium marketing costing, a 'lifestyle device' premium, etc. etc. ?
 
HiFiMan, iBasso, Fiio, and Calyx aren't aiming for any of those things. They're just producing the best performance they can, for a certain pricepoint, and all of them are doing a great job, in each of their sectors, but it's an evolving thing, with lessons learned along the way. What they are getting right, for the most part, is treating their customers with respect, in their pricing strategies, because they understand that if they are to grow, they can only grow with a customer-base willing to support their growth and evolution. iRiver, OTOH, is out to grab as much profit as they absolutely possibly can, and as fast as possible. Are iRiver's A&K DAPs innovative? Yes. Yes, they are. Well done iRiver (if you care to search, you may well find me praising the iRiver development team, several months ago). But are they sufficiently-innovative to embarrass their competition and/or justify charging 2-to-3 times more than the premium offerings of their competitors? Err....NO.
 
The AK240 isn't any more advanced than the Calyx-M, but it's in a flashier package with flashier marketing and near-triple pricing. It may offer wi-fi and D-O, but those things, while useful, cannot accurately be classified as 'innovation', on iRiver's part.
 
I would be interested to hear from any AK240 owner who can tell me what actual technical innovation the AK240 has that justifies it being retailed at 2.5 - 3 times the price of the Calyx-M. I mean innovated by the iRiver team in the AK240 product, not a pre-existing feature that they just happened to choose to include in it.
 
That's not intended as a 'red rag to a bull' - it's a sincere, sober remark.
 
 

  The vast majority of people who have listened to the AK240 have been completely blown away by it. Some people including the reviewers on the review thread even get pretty excited by it - something you seemed to find inappropriate, even though this is a community of people who are excited by HiFi.

 
 
My point about 'the review', and indeed the review thread to which you are referring is that there is quite a bit of gushing to the brim with over-excitability. That doesn't mean the essence of the reviews are incorrect or mean that I don't respect the reviewers who wrote them. They may well have written it with complete personal honesty and sincerity. It just means that sometimes human beings get extremely excited when they get a new expensive toy, and that, when the excitement has died down, and there's an even newer expensive toy being delivered by the postman, the first expensive toy may come to be looked upon with a more sober outlook. That's just human nature, and I'm not judging it; I'm just observing it.
 
The Head-fi archives are absolutely littered with decaying threads, wherein precisely this FOTM behaviour can be seen, and then these products eventually disappear into the obscurity of a black hole of their own making, like dying stars who were once heralded as shining brighter than anything else in the galaxy, but whose admirers have now moved on to the next brightest star, then the next, and the next....
 
 
 

   
So, the AK240 is a piece of high-end HiFi. It exists, people have it in their hands and those that have it, love it.

 
And I'm very happy for them. Really. Good luck to them. May they have many happy minutes enjoyment from it, before they find the next overpriced piece of gear on the horizon.
 
...but seriously, the AK240 is a decent DAP, and I really do hope that everyone who has spent their hard-earned cash on it thoroughly enjoys it, yourself included. All of us, here on head-fi, enjoy beautiful sound, and all of us are seeking 'that piece of gear' that fulfills are audio/musical desires. Everyone's nirvana is different.
 
 
The AK240 is undoubtedly a good-sounding DAP, but, peculiarly, some of those of its fans who see me not gushing about it, seem to feel rather threatened by the fact that I anticipate that its SQ may well be matched by existing or forthcoming circa-$1000 competitors, even though I have said it sounds good. Whether anyone likes to admit it or not, there absolutely is a 'Halo-effect' to 'most-expensive-in-class' pieces of gear, in any arena. This halo-effect can influence otherwise-rational people into doing whatever they can to justify to themselves and others that its performance totally warrants the large sum of cash they paid for it. They're still absolutely honest and sincere, but they are driven by a subconscious need to justify their outlay.
 
If I hadn't actually heard the AK240, then you could quite justifiably throw all of this back in my face, but the uncomfortable fact is... I have heard the AK240.  It sounded very nice, but it did not (to me) sound significantly better than a DX100. My listening was with LCD3 and MG6 Pro.
 

   
the fact that it is very expensive is neither here nor there - we're talking about HiFi
 

 
There are many who would vehemently disagree with you about that, and, with respect, it's that kind of attitude that makes companies like iRiver think (know) they can greedily charge whatever they like, and people will still queue up to empty their wheelbarrows of money onto the company driveway.    Do you think that kind of scenario serves the longterm best interests of the hi-fi community?
 
I'm not speaking moralistically (heaven forbid!) - I'm just asking pragmatically.
 
 
 
There is only one.... *one* AK240 owner that I have observed, here on Head-fi, who has the level of honesty to even-handedly tell it like it is, and I have great respect for that. That person is kkcc, and I know of no one else who has shelled out around $2400 for the AK240 and who can openly engage in constructive critique of it's pros and cons, and indeed, of its relative costerformance ratio without feeling threatened or presuming that my remarks about AK240 this past week must be based on nothing more than prejudice.
 
 
 

   
It is an incredible piece of kit and A&K should be saluted for pushing things forward in this way. Others will play catch up and the whole portable HiFi market will be enriched by it.
 

 
I think that's rather insulting to iRiver's competitors. The AK240 isn't as stunningly innovative as you seem to be asserting. IRiver's competitors aren't all stuck in the dark ages, needing iRiver to show them a light at the end of a tunnel.
 
 
 

---

 
 
As kkcc accurately pointed out, a few pages back, I do not only critique the AK240.
 
 
But a few marauding AK240 owners seem to actively hunt down anyone who's not drinking the same koolaid, as they appear to feel threatened by that, in some way.
 
 
I share Mimouille's view that I hope Calyx show the world that iRiver performance need not be retailed at the price iRiver are greedily charging.
 
There are quite a few people (myself included) who would (broadly-speaking

) embrace A&K DAPs if only they were retailed for fairer prices.
 

   
They think we are ready to pay whatever price they throw out there. Doubling the price vs. your previous TOTL DAP (AK120, which was already overpriced IMO) is showing that quite clearly.
 
HOWEVER, finding that the AK240 is worth the price is just a matter of personal judgment. If the AK240 sounded CLEARLY better than my 901, with all the other benefits (UI, size, battery, etc.), I might have bought it at 2.5k$, even if I find the price a bit insulting. Anyone who bought it and is happy with it, then I amp happy for them, and that includes you.
 
Now if Calyx offers comparable SQ and comparable overall package, than I hope they will make iRiver suffer from their greediness.

 
 
 
You are right, piercer, that none of us truly yet knows how the Calyx-M SQ will stack-up against that of the AK240.
 
But we will know quite soon, and I, for one, am looking forward to that particular showdown with optimism.
 

 

 

[musicheaven]

"portability" is a relative thing my friend 




In then end, what amount one is willing to carry around on the go is highly personal, and no one should be attacked for being willing or not willing to carry around a certain amount.

Wow I can this being used as a weapon, could be deadly someone throwing that brick at you.

 

[Shenook]

Lol sound is only part of the DAP equation and amongst the three you listed it is most likely dead last in all other non sound and price aspects...

really sq and price is the x5 only selling points against calyx and zx1? Despite the fact x5 has LO and calyx does not. Despite having 2 micro SD slots and zx1 has none.....

 

[Retrias]

   
I have the X5 and like it very much. However I don't see how I or anyone can conclude anything quite yet compared to the M because none of us have heard the M.
 
I like the X5 enough that I'm wondering why I will buy the M. But I do expect it to sound better and I am also fascinated by the interface which gives Rockbox active playlist functionality with an elegant presentation.
 
Still it is $800.

no I am just talking for now between the X5 and ZX1 , I prefer warmer sounds rather than cold or bright sounds or even true neutral kind of sound , I still dunno if I will get the M , I haven't like sabre products so far

 

[kkcc]

no I am just talking for now between the X5 and ZX1 , I prefer warmer sounds rather than cold or bright sounds or even true neutral kind of sound , I still dunno if I will get the M , I haven't like sabre products so far

I think how warm/neutral/bright the Calyx M would sound don't really depend that much on its choice of 9018k2m but more on the amp stage. HM901 has dual 9018 but can sound very warm and lush with the new Classic amp board. I won't be surprised if many ess9018 implementation only tends to be more neutral/bright because of the designer wanting to showcase it's analytical capability and superb transparency by coupling it with a less warmish signature.

Ultimately the sig could be more easily influenced by your iem - e.g. my TG334 sounds warm/dark/lush on any player, and I love it with more analytical source.

Imho if you are looking at a DAP in this price range, pre ordering Calyx M should still be a safe bet as worse case you could probably still sell it with minimum loss should you really not like it.

 

[doublea71]

oy vey regarding the back and forth on the ak240...
 
I placed myself on the fence regarding the volume slider...until I try it, I'm going to hold my tongue.

 

[AmberOzL]

  oy vey regarding the back and forth on the ak240...
 
I placed myself on the fence regarding the volume slider...until I try it, I'm going to hold my tongue.

Anyway there is no big price difference between the regular one and pre order one. Shame on you Calyx. 650 for Koreans, 850 for us.

 

[zachchen1996]

 
Anyway there is no big price difference between the regular one and pre order one. Shame on you Calyx. 650 for Koreans, 850 for us.

Indeed, it's a shame, but at least they are kind enough to even give a discount