[silverfishla]

Here are some quick impressions of my initial use of the AP80.

Database Mode
Seems to work much as previous non-touch Hiby OS versions. The Genre menu remains a useless wasteland, since it has no hierarchy beyond Genre, then ALL songs in that genre. Artist still seems to be the Song Artist field, and not the Album Artist field. This makes compilation albums impossible to play without delving into the folder view. The database updates about as fast as the AP60II, maybe slightly faster. I'll have to do a side-by-side test of the same file load to be sure, but the AP60II takes about 5 minutes to parse my usual set of tunes (about 7000 mixed FLAC and MP3), and the AP80 takes not much less time. Definitely faster than a Clip Zip, but you'll definitely want to update the database only when you don't need the player any time soon. On the plus side, unlike the AP60II, you can turn off automatic database updates (AP60II claims to do this, but it updates anyway when you unplug it).

Playlists
Just as with every other Hiby-based player, external playlists are not easily integrated into the database mode. Since this is how all MP3 players worked until the bottom dropped out of the market in recent years, this is annoying. The Hiby R3 introduced the ability to "load playlist" from the /playlist_data directory, although you first had to create one playlist on the player before the OS would recognize the directory (can't create it yourself). I don't have an R3, but based on the discussions in its thread, it seems that I should be able to put standard M3U playlists in that directory, hit "load playlist" and have them actually work in the database mode. So I tried that this evening. All the playlists showed up, after a seemingly endless processing time. None of the playlists have any songs in them.

If I go to the folder view and navigate to those M3U playlists, they all work fine.

Does anyone have any insights on this yet? I'll poke at it some more this weekend, but it's annoying how little love external playlists ever get from the Chinese DAP developers.

Replaygain
Replay gain is finally a setting in Hiby OS. It's hiding in the playback settings menu, which is found inside the Player function, and not in the root menu as in older non-touch Hiby versions. I haven't tried any songs that I know have wildly varying replaygain values, so I'm not sure how well it works, but it has three settings: off, album, and song. This matches the standard ReplayGain settings from the Sansa line of last decade. Yay, finally getting features that were standard in 2005!

Podcast/Audiobook Support
Still nothing. No bookmarking, automatic or manual. No speed/pitch control. No recognition that Podcast or Audiobook is anything other than a genre of music.

About Replay Gain...I think it only works if the RG has been analyzed and set in the Metadata of your song files. There’s a standardized value that it matches by using a program like on J River. You can do all the songs in your database that will match and be somewhat on the same level. At least that’s how it’s worked for me.

 

[djricekcn]

Played around with my friend a bit:

Pedometer is very unreliable one step counted as 5 so don't even bother using it if you were thinking about using it for your excercise. Not sure if an update can fix this since it's most likely hardware thing(?)

Radio, at least from using Seeds, XBA-Z5, EX14AP, Something that came with one of the Galaxy Headphones, something that came with one of the Nexus, IER-M9, and as a LOL TH-900 with a mini adapter, they all had huge static / sometimes clear but break out / or no reception at all. So i can't really say anything much about it but doesn't seem to have real-life usage in regards of it.

 

[Zachik]

Podcast/Audiobook Support
Still nothing. No bookmarking, automatic or manual. No speed/pitch control. No recognition that Podcast or Audiobook is anything other than a genre of music.

Hopefully Hidisz would add support for podcasts / audiobooks as explicitly promised before!
I doubt I would have backed-up this campaign otherwise...

 

[okinear]

Here are some quick impressions of my initial use of the AP80.

Database Mode
Seems to work much as previous non-touch Hiby OS versions. The Genre menu remains a useless wasteland, since it has no hierarchy beyond Genre, then ALL songs in that genre. Artist still seems to be the Song Artist field, and not the Album Artist field. This makes compilation albums impossible to play without delving into the folder view. The database updates about as fast as the AP60II, maybe slightly faster. I'll have to do a side-by-side test of the same file load to be sure, but the AP60II takes about 5 minutes to parse my usual set of tunes (about 7000 mixed FLAC and MP3), and the AP80 takes not much less time. Definitely faster than a Clip Zip, but you'll definitely want to update the database only when you don't need the player any time soon. On the plus side, unlike the AP60II, you can turn off automatic database updates (AP60II claims to do this, but it updates anyway when you unplug it)...

Might be my English... I got lost in your explanation

Which fields are taken into account for the hierarchy and for sorting folders/files?
Artist only? Artist and Album? Others too?

 

[FSTOP]

That's my main IEMs I'll be using with the ap80 as well, great set wish there was a blue option to the device as it would have been a perfect match!

yeah, i wanted and voted for the blue AP80 too, but more people wanted red! Woulda been nice looking, but sound-wise its a good pairing too. I've tried the DMG with the high gain and low gain. It does take a bit more volume on the low gain, but in high gain mode the sound seems a lot harsher to me (treble more glaring), so low gain sounds better to me. Still testing...

 

[FSTOP]

Still having problems loading music to my card. Tried reformatting the card inside AP80 (via usb connected to desktop) Tried NTFS and exFAT (no option shown for FAT32, on Win10).
Is there any way to format card in the AP80 (format with the device itself)? Cant find a way, which is usually what i prefer to do with devices, especially my cameras.
The card or AP80 seem to be constantly going on/off, rebooting AP80 while trying to download files to card, giving errors and stopping download.

 

[FSTOP]

Anyone else who ordered the grey AP80? mine looks more silver than the gray pictured. It looks more like the stainless steel version, so not sure if i got the grey one or not, doesnt seem heavy enough to be SS though.

 

[Th3Drizzl3]

Anyone else who ordered the grey AP80? mine looks more silver than the gray pictured. It looks more like the stainless steel version, so not sure if i got the grey one or not, doesnt seem heavy enough to be SS though.

same here. i thought it would be more like a gunmetal type color from the pics posted not this bright silver. its def not stainless. and i also voted blue. but if i knew it would have been this light of a silver i would have got the black. kind of disappointed with the color. and still of course no response to the missing screen protectors from mine.

 

[warrenpokerface]

Still having problems loading music to my card. Tried reformatting the card inside AP80 (via usb connected to desktop) Tried NTFS and exFAT (no option shown for FAT32, on Win10).
Is there any way to format card in the AP80 (format with the device itself)? Cant find a way, which is usually what i prefer to do with devices, especially my cameras.
The card or AP80 seem to be constantly going on/off, rebooting AP80 while trying to download files to card, giving errors and stopping download.

Have you tried to format the card in ext4. The hiby os is based on Linux. I should be able to read ext4 natively

 

[okinear]

From what I've read somewhere, the microSD card should be formatted to FAT32 according to Hidizs themselves. You will need this tool: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

This tool is necessary since Windows by itself only format microSDHC cards in FAT32 file system from up to 32GB only. This tool bypasses that limitation so you could format microSDXC cards to 64GB and above using FAT32. When you use this tool, select the drive letter of your microSD card, set your allocation unit size to 4096, make sure "Quick Format" is checked, then start formatting. This is what i use on my two 128GB cards on my Xduoo DAPs (primarily for Rockbox use, since RB doesn't recognize cards that aren't formatted in FAT32). Give it a try, and see if this will solve your issue.

A bit of a warning regarding FAT32 file system, though : If you're planning to use DSD files which are 4GB and above, better use a different file system like exFAT. FAT32 only has a file size limit of 4GB, meaning you can't put files larger than 4GB in there.

From mono-type about FAT32, page 114.

 

[xLoud]

What is the current shipping status? I am thinking to buy one.

 

[Oletros]

Here are some quick impressions of my initial use of the AP80.
Artist still seems to be the Song Artist field, and not the Album Artist field. This makes compilation albums impossible to play without delving into the folder view.

The more I read about the AP80 the less I like it

 

[Winterheim]

Anyone else who ordered the grey AP80? mine looks more silver than the gray pictured. It looks more like the stainless steel version, so not sure if i got the grey one or not, doesnt seem heavy enough to be SS though.

I had the same impression. Gunmetal gray in the images was darker and I also have other aluminum equipment in gunmetal gray. The "grey" of AP80 looks closer to silver.

 

[Vimtoman]

Did have a few hiccups doing that (usb into AP80 from Win10 desktop drag-and-drop folders), not sure if device was timing out or what.

Yep I did I also with my Windows 10 machine...it would time out to the point where it finally BLUE-SCREENED while doing the transfer and now won't boot! Hmm....

Hiby USB transfer has always been unreliable.
I would suggest reformatting your card and transfer files directly to your sd card.

 

[mono-type]

Still having problems loading music to my card. Tried reformatting the card inside AP80 (via usb connected to desktop) Tried NTFS and exFAT (no option shown for FAT32, on Win10).
Is there any way to format card in the AP80 (format with the device itself)? Cant find a way, which is usually what i prefer to do with devices, especially my cameras.
The card or AP80 seem to be constantly going on/off, rebooting AP80 while trying to download files to card, giving errors and stopping download.

Maybe you could try formatting it in FAT32 via guiformat, not on Windows' own formatter. Try the method I posted several pages ago, as quoted by @okinear above?

What is the current shipping status? I am thinking to buy one.

Buy from AliExpress instead, not from Hidizs' own store, if you want less hassle. From how the things are going, they're probably busy shipping out all the remaining backers' rewards.