[kkcc]

  Couple things. It's new. It likely needs run in even if it's not mentioned by the maker so reviews should be taken with a grain. The other is that anything warmer than a DX90 is not for me. Of course the Calyx may end up similarly warm and perhaps just different than some other top players. It's personal but warm in the lower registers like an x5 wouldn't be favored by me.

 
Not sure about the SG demo unit, but FYI the one I tried in Hong Kong definitely didn't seem too new - visible wear and tear on the exterior (and hence my earlier comments re disappointment on the casing material).  Don't know how long or not long it's been run.
 
IMO the M is definitely warmer than the DX90 when I a/b them during the demo.  The thicker sound does have its appeal and slow jazz/pop sounded very pleasing but didn't like how the classical/instrumental tracks sounded, will try some synthesized electronic music next time.

 

[Sauntere]

I received mine last night, and can't say much yet. But its sound is anything but 'thick'. Very very refined, smooth and silky. Resolution is extremely high but never fatiguing. Well if someone used the adjective 'thick' meaning that the imaging is not pinpoint, it makes sense. Every image of instruments and voices has some body around it, but their locations are simply exact. You can know spacial relationships between instruments very well. Listened with Fi-ba-ss.

Really looking forward to reading your impressions. Especially since it is a final production unit and not a demo. Comparisons with other daps would be fantastic.

 

[Bluebear]

  I received mine last night, and can't say much yet. But its sound is anything but 'thick'. Very very refined, smooth and silky. Resolution is extremely high but never fatiguing. Well if someone used the adjective 'thick' meaning that the imaging is not pinpoint, it makes sense. Every image of instruments and voices has some body around it, but their locations are simply exact. You can know spacial relationships between instruments very well. Listened with Fi-ba-ss.

 
What you have described is the clarity and instrument separation of Calyx M. That has nothing to do with whether the sound signature is thick/warm or thin/light. A thick/warm DAP can still be crystal clear and I am sure many who loves Roxanne have claimed that it is thick/warm but also very clear and resolving with its 12 BA drivers per side (albeit it has a bit of rolled off highs). IMO when I find the sound signature to be thick/warm, it means there is a boost roughly around the 200-500 Hz region, +/- 100-200 Hz around that band. If you are curious, you can test it yourself by switching on one of your DAPs/mobile phones and then playback one of your most familiar/favourite music track at no EQ and then go into the EQ and increase the bar around 200-400 Hz upwards by a huge amount. Hear it for yourself. Your ears should definitely detect the sudden "thickening" of the music and the sound gets "heavier".
 
The only issue (besides individual preference to signature) with a thick sound is that it "can" muffle the finer details of the treble, even for a DAP with good clarity/separation. You can still detect/separate the positions of individual instruments in the 3d soundstage, but it will require more effort to strain your ears to catch the high pitch sounds which are drowned out by the thick boosted bass. This is why some would prefer DAPs with more neutral signature, especially if their music collection belongs more to certain genres of music that do not benefit well from boosted bass. IMO the best DAP would be more inclined to neutrality so that it works well for a wide variety of music genre. That way it is versatile and you can load it with anything and still sound good. A slightly warm signature is still fine, but too much of a "thick" sound makes the DAP not very well-suited for all classes of music.

 

[gracky]

Well, I can hear the highest note from instruments (violin, cymbals, highest notes of piano) far clearer than imod (with Pico Slim - by memory, mine has died and Justin didn't respond to my inquiry for repairing - and Xin reference) and can far easily recognize the highest components of music with M. I doubt if you can call imod's sound 'thick'.

 

[headwhacker]

 
What you have described is the clarity and instrument separation of Calyx M. That has nothing to do with whether the sound signature is thick/warm or thin/light. A thick/warm DAP can still be crystal clear and I am sure many who loves Roxanne have claimed that it is thick/warm but also very clear and resolving with its 12 BA drivers per side (albeit it has a bit of rolled off highs). IMO when I find the sound signature to be thick/warm, it means there is a boost roughly around the 200-500 Hz region, +/- 100-200 Hz around that band. If you are curious, you can test it yourself by switching on one of your DAPs/mobile phones and then playback one of your most familiar/favourite music track at no EQ and then go into the EQ and increase the bar around 200-400 Hz upwards by a huge amount. Hear it for yourself. Your ears should definitely detect the sudden "thickening" of the music and the sound gets "heavier".
 
The only issue (besides individual preference to signature) with a thick sound is that it "can" muffle the finer details of the treble, even for a DAP with good clarity/separation. You can still detect/separate the positions of individual instruments in the 3d soundstage, but it will require more effort to strain your ears to catch the high pitch sounds which are drowned out by the thick boosted bass. This is why some would prefer DAPs with more neutral signature, especially if their music collection belongs more to certain genres of music that do not benefit well from boosted bass. IMO the best DAP would be more inclined to neutrality so that it works well for a wide variety of music genre. That way it is versatile and you can load it with anything and still sound good. A slightly warm signature is still fine, but too much of a "thick" sound makes the DAP not very well-suited for all classes of music.

 


On the other extreme thin sounding signature will feel lifeless as if listening through a tin can. In the case of a thick sound, it doesn't always muffle the micro-details it will always depend on the headphone. But I agree that a neutral or close to neutral SQ is best way to go. The sound is thick when they are intended to be thick and sound thin if they should be thin or somewhere in between.

 

[Currawong]

 

I prefer the M and the AK120 for preference over the ZX-1, even after the update. Some people are obviously the reverse. It could be the music I listen to and that I'm using a NOS DAC (with computer up-sampling) at the moment to listen to a lot of jazz, so the smoother presentation is preferable to me.

My current detail reference album is Julia Fisher playing Sarasate from HDTracks. I should really carry a micro SD card with me to these events as just about every DAP has a slot for one.

Make sure the microSD card is formatted FAT32 or NTFS

If you can test it again, would it be possible to try varied genres?

 
I will do for sure. I should have a suitably varied number of headphones and IEMs here when it arrives too.
 
There is a possibility that the number of hours of use could affect the sound, but in my experience new components can have some harshness in the sound which disappears over time, so I don't think it is likely it. It could be different firmware though.

 

[iohk]

My current detail reference album is Julia Fisher playing Sarasate from HDTracks. I should really carry a micro SD card with me to these events as just about every DAP has a slot for one.

Now this is a great reference - maybe one of the albums of the year? Is there a particular piece / moment of that recording you particularly pay attention to? Which of your set-ups allows you to enjoy these incredible vibratos? Best, K.

 

[Currawong]

 

My current detail reference album is Julia Fisher playing Sarasate from HDTracks. I should really carry a micro SD card with me to these events as just about every DAP has a slot for one.

Now this is a great reference - maybe one of the albums of the year? Is there a particular piece / moment of that recording you particularly pay attention to? Which of your set-ups allows you to enjoy these incredible vibratos? Best, K.

 
The AK240 seems to reveal the most texture of the notes of the DAPs I had here (HM-901, ZX-1 and X5). It will be one of the albums I use to evaluate the Calyx.

 

[gracky]

I'm not sure how much time I can spend in writing my impressions, so I'll write as soon as it comes up to my mind nevertheless I don't have much to tell. 
I'm trying M as a pure source to feed another headphone amp. The amp is April Music Stello HP100 and the headphone is HD600, so you will be familiar with the signature of my cans. HP100 has a reputation of sounding neutral. Its input impedance is 1M ohm so I expect it will compensate my cheap Y cable. (Sorry I don't have an audiophile Y cable right now.) I'm using high gain mode of HP100, volume is at about 9:00 and M's volume is full.
 
The resulting sound signature is surprising. It has much sparkle in highs, is a bit too bright to my taste. So called 'digital sound' and 180 degree opposite to 'thick' one. So the instant impression is it's crystalline. But I doubt if it has more information than directly hearing with Fi-ba-ss. The sound of Fi-ba-ss with M is very gentle compared to this and I'd dare to call it neutral. Considering my preconception about the signatures of Fi-ba-ss and HD600, the result is almost opposite and I'm surprised.
 
Anyway the sound of HP100-HD600 has some (important IMO) common things to the Fi-ba-ss. The most striking common thing is their 3D sound staging. I'd not say if the stage is wide or not, what I can say certainly is that you can know the locations of instruments and their relationships very clearly and with much precision, even though their sound signature is quite different.
 
Another common thing is the feeling of tempo of music. I believe that we tend to feel that the tempo of the same music is slower when the sound has less noise and more information. This is common in both of Fi-ba-ss and HP100-HD600 sound with M in spite of their different signature. Usually, if the treble is loud, the tempo feels faster, but this is not the case with M-HP100-HD600. Very composed and non-hurried tempo while its sound signature is quite treble empathized. 
 
I believe this result implies something about M's sound signature.

 

[gracky]

After a day, M-HP100-HD600 sound became less 'digital' and more liquid while its sound signature is yet high-range empathized. I think my HP100/HD600 required some re-burn-in.

 

[goodvibes]

   
Not sure about the SG demo unit, but FYI the one I tried in Hong Kong definitely didn't seem too new - visible wear and tear on the exterior (and hence my earlier comments re disappointment on the casing material).  Don't know how long or not long it's been run.
 
IMO the M is definitely warmer than the DX90 when I a/b them during the demo.  The thicker sound does have its appeal and slow jazz/pop sounded very pleasing but didn't like how the classical/instrumental tracks sounded, will try some synthesized electronic music next time.

Thanks.

 

[high-fidelity]

Which player is better,AK120 or this ? 
 
And what are the important differences ? 

 

[ohotonge]

I have read extensively all the impressions about M written in Korean. Bottom line? This player is UI disaster of a gigantic proportion. Just unbelievable! You guys don't need to buy this one until Calyx solve the problems(I'm doubt it).

 

[Sauntere]

I have read extensively all the impressions about M written in Korean. Bottom line? This player is UI disaster of a gigantic proportion. Just unbelievable! You guys don't need to buy this one until Calyx solve the problems(I'm doubt it).

 
How about a link to some forums or something... Also, what about impressions on sound quality ?
 
What problems with the UI ?
 
Come on, don't drop in and say something like that without giving a bit more detail. 
 
Thanks

 

[gracky]

The most serious problem is the battery life indicator and auto turn off. When it says the battery ran out (less than 5%) and turns it off automatically, the battery may not ran out in reality and you may be able to turn it on again. Hence the battery indicator is also inaccurate. So I've not estimated actual battery life, but it is seriously short if you listen to dsd files on battery. 
 
No bad news is SQ is very good even when it's fed by a switching power (I'm using an ipod adapter). So I'm listening to hires or dsd files only if it is wall powered.
 
Some say the tracks stop or skip to another unpredictably. I never experienced an unpredictable stop. But I never turned off gapless playing and that may be why I had no problem. I think the reason of skip is accidental touch on the screen, and you'd better to turn off the screen while listening the music (by pressing power button once). 
 
IMO the UI has some usability problem, especially when you have a huge number of tracks, it is not easy to find your destination from the artist menu. But I disagree that the UI is a disaster, it is good workable IMO. Also IMO, another strange feature should be dropped or be configurable. Sometimes the beginning of the first track played fades in. The D&A president says it is for headphone/IEM users, but I think it's pointless.