[Noony]

One thing that can cause an audible change when playing "gapless", is IF you have applied REPLAY GAIN to your audio files; And you are playing your music with "Replay Gain BY TRACK". The individual files on an album, almost always have different Track Gain, and you can hear the volume rise or drop some as the new track plays... You'd have to play with replay gain BY ALBUM, to have no volume change. Replay gain BY TRACK is great to keep all songs, regardless of source, at close to the same volume. But when Playing an album, switching to Replay Gain BY ALBUM, is the right choice. I no longer have the AP80, so can't remember if the REPLAY GAIN on it has a choice of By Track, or By Album. Anyway, maybe something to try...

Thanks for that. Unfortunately my issue with gapless play has always been audible gaps rather than changes in level. In fact gaps between tracks that are musically separate don’t bother me at all, it’s the gaps that are placed in the middle of continuous performances, particularly orchestral and opera that drive me up the wall. Actually pulled the trigger on the AP80X a couple of weeks ago. Happily the 1tb SDXC and the gapless play weren’t an issue. But unhappily, in spite of the rock solid build quality and even more rock solid firmware, I found the sound quality unacceptable for my requirements. This is not a unit I would advise as a USB transport if you require accurate representation. Replaced it with the Shanling M1S which proved to be much more satisfactory.

 

[Tomm11]

Thanks for that. Unfortunately my issue with gapless play has always been audible gaps rather than changes in level. In fact gaps between tracks that are musically separate don’t bother me at all, it’s the gaps that are placed in the middle of continuous performances, particularly orchestral and opera that drive me up the wall. Actually pulled the trigger on the AP80X a couple of weeks ago. Happily the 1tb SDXC and the gapless play weren’t an issue. But unhappily, in spite of the rock solid build quality and even more rock solid firmware, I found the sound quality unacceptable for my requirements. This is not a unit I would advise as a USB transport if you require accurate representation. Replaced it with the Shanling M1S which proved to be much more satisfactory.

What are you connecting the Hidizs to via usb?
Or, are you saying that you find the sound quality unacceptable when using the AP80 as a DAP?

 

[Noony]

What are you connecting the Hidizs to via usb?
Or, are you saying that you find the sound quality unacceptable when using the AP80 as a DAP?

As I think I mentioned on an earlier post, I needed a new USB transport for Hugo2. My existing Opus 1S is beginning to show its age, and I was looking to get away from micro USB completely. Although I own a few DAPs, I’ve never used them as stand alone devices, they have always been digital transports for external DACs either via SPDIF or USB. And to be honest I’ve never heard one with acceptable sound quality, although I’ve yet to test the relatively recent AK SP3000. Although a source that I trust tells me it’s only a marginal improvement over the SP2000, so it’s unlikely to be of any interest to me. Certainly other high end DAPs such as LPG and Cayin N8 have failed to impress. This unit is probably great walking down the street with a pair of appropriate IEMs listening to something “recent”, but I’m way too far the wrong side of 60 to be included in that!

 

[Tomm11]

As I think I mentioned on an earlier post, I needed a new USB transport for Hugo2. My existing Opus 1S is beginning to show its age, and I was looking to get away from micro USB completely. Although I own a few DAPs, I’ve never used them as stand alone devices, they have always been digital transports for external DACs either via SPDIF or USB. And to be honest I’ve never heard one with acceptable sound quality, although I’ve yet to test the relatively recent AK SP3000. Although a source that I trust tells me it’s only a marginal improvement over the SP2000, so it’s unlikely to be of any interest to me. Certainly other high end DAPs such as LPG and Cayin N8 have failed to impress. This unit is probably great walking down the street with a pair of appropriate IEMs listening to something “recent”, but I’m way too far the wrong side of 60 to be included in that!

Ok. Fair enough. Purely as a digital transport, the AP80 pro sounds exactly like every other DAP I've tried, including far more expensive ones. Im currently using it as a transport for a Topping G5. I think it sounds perfectly fine so I guess we'll just disagree on this one. But as far as how it sounds as a DAP, I'm definitely not a fan. For the record, I'll be on the wrong side of 60 myself in a couple of months.

 

[Noony]

Ok. Fair enough. Purely as a digital transport, the AP80 pro sounds exactly like every other DAP I've tried, including far more expensive ones. Im currently using it as a transport for a Topping G5. I think it sounds perfectly fine so I guess we'll just disagree on this one. But as far as how it sounds as a DAP, I'm definitely not a fan. For the record, I'll be on the wrong side of 60 myself in a couple of months.

Believe you me, I so wanted this lovely little unit to sound right, I really did. Now there is a school of thought that all digital transports sound the same, after all, it’s just a data stream taken from the source file, right? Well I used to think that as well. But unfortunately my ears have been telling me different for some time now, and the AP80 is a particular case in point. Like I say, I really liked the unit in terms of build quality and functionality, so I really wanted to love it. And on initial listening it sounded really good, too good. And it wasn’t long before I became aware of a lower midrange /upper bass bloom that had the effect of causing a thickness in the bass that was obscuring bass detail and texture, particularly in the extreme deep bass on the limits of audibility. Let’s put it this way, I was soooo glad to get back to my Opus after battling through for a couple of days, it was like a breath of fresh air. Now when I replaced it with the Shanling it was almost the opposite effect. The build quality of that is not as good and the software is decidedly shaky, very shaky. But the sound quality, oh my word, well I’m hearing new stuff now that I never heard with the Opus, particularly at the extremes of the frequency range, which usually means an improvement in detail throughout. Certainly I’ve never entertained the idea of going back to the old unit, I’m too busy rediscovering my favourite music. So, do all transports sound the same? Well to my ears they do not. I’m no expert in digital engineering, but I firmly believe manufacturers have a way of altering the data stream to “enhance” the sound. What people like to call “sound signature “ these days, but back in my day we used to call distortion and colouration. As I remember I think even Hidisz themselves refer to this in their blurb, they refer to their USB output as having enhanced “richness” (or words to that effect) over normal USB outputs. Well I wouldn’t argue with that, but it’s definitely not for me.

 

[Tomm11]

I'm not hearing any coloration such as you describe feeding the Topping G5 with the little Hidizs.
Maybe it's just a synergy thing ... or maybe my ears are just full of pig crap. Regardless, I'm very happy with it as a transport for the G5 but I'd be interested in reading how Hidizs intentionally colors the usb digital output. I'll have to see if I can find that information.

 

[Pheromon]

Hello all,

What I didn't find, can AP80 send bit-perfectly stream to the external DAC in OTG mode (like UAPP)? Without upscaling to 48khz (as Android Audio default).

 

[XP_98]

Hello
My ap80 pro worked for 2 years with only few crashes. I didn't use it for a while, but now it crashes every time I try to browse through the files then play one.
I have about 10000 flac files on a SD card.
I tried to "reset to factory", reinstall last firmware, change the Flac files for MP3 files, nothing helped...
Any idea ?

 

[XP_98]

Hello
My ap80 pro worked for 2 years with only few crashes. I didn't use it for a while, but now it crashes every time I try to browse through the files then play one.
I have about 10000 flac files on a SD card.
I tried to "reset to factory", reinstall last firmware, change the Flac files for MP3 files, nothing helped...
Any idea ?

Update : changing the microSD seems to have solved the problem, let's see if it lasts...

 

[rincewind]

Hi All. Haven't logged into head-fi for frickin ages. I just bought an AP80 Pro-X and loaded a bunch of FLAC on to test it. Although my files are named ala "01 song title", all of them have correct tags, and I have playlists for all albums, it's playing songs back in alphabetical order, and for the life of me, I can't find how to change this (other than to set it to random/repeat etc, which doesn't help). I also manually rebuilt the library when I loaded up those music file the first time. Appreciate any help in advance, Thanks.

 

[Shonen84]

Hi! I have the older, original AP80. I usually play by album, so I don't get this problem. I also usually use ALAC (to enable cd burning through iTunes from Qobuz downloads). Are you trying to play your entire filelist?

Cheers!

 

[rincewind]

Hi! I have the older, original AP80. I usually play by album, so I don't get this problem. I also usually use ALAC (to enable cd burning through iTunes from Qobuz downloads). Are you trying to play your entire filelist?

Cheers!

Yeah... if I browse by album and then press on an album to play it, the tracks are all played in the correct order. But my normal use case is to browse by artist, then select an album, then (subject to the UI) either play the album (and it starts from track 1 by default) OR selecting track 1 manually. If I select to browse by artist, I've noticed it doesn't do that properly - I have 2 Bjork albums on there atm and it lists her twice instead of having one entry - dumb.

At any rate, I found the best way for me to navigate - by "Files", then (annoyingly) have to select "Micro SD card". Then it simply lists out all my albums (because I have a folder per album) and when I click into an album, I can manually select the first song.

I was hoping the UI would be a bit more clever than that... but anyway, thanks for being a sounding board that helped me find an acceptable solution!

 

[Shonen84]

Yeah... if I browse by album and then press on an album to play it, the tracks are all played in the correct order. But my normal use case is to browse by artist, then select an album, then (subject to the UI) either play the album (and it starts from track 1 by default) OR selecting track 1 manually. If I select to browse by artist, I've noticed it doesn't do that properly - I have 2 Bjork albums on there atm and it lists her twice instead of having one entry - dumb.

At any rate, I found the best way for me to navigate - by "Files", then (annoyingly) have to select "Micro SD card". Then it simply lists out all my albums (because I have a folder per album) and when I click into an album, I can manually select the first song.

I was hoping the UI would be a bit more clever than that... but anyway, thanks for being a sounding board that helped me find an acceptable solution!

The AP80 series are basic devices, but for their size, they have decent sound quality and very good battery life. Can't go wrong with them! Good luck and enjoy

 

[OmniscientNihilist]

all my folders & files are like this: genre > subgenre > artist > year/album > track num/track name

examples:

D:\MUSIC\METAL\A. POWER\Grave Digger\2012 Clash Of The Gods\2 God Of Terror.flac

D:\MUSIC\ROCK\GRUNGE\Candlebox\1995 Lucy\01 Simple Lessons.flac


i keep 'play through folders' option on and play direct off the 1TB sd card

all my metadata has been manually edited and is perfect yet i dont need or use it

i also dont need or use playlists of any kind because i simply delete songs i dont like

i have 27 911 favorite songs, 95% flac

another reason i dont scan metadata is because ap80 can only scan in up to 20 000 tracks max

 

[]eep]

Yeah... if I browse by album and then press on an album to play it, the tracks are all played in the correct order. But my normal use case is to browse by artist, then select an album, then (subject to the UI) either play the album (and it starts from track 1 by default) OR selecting track 1 manually. If I select to browse by artist, I've noticed it doesn't do that properly - I have 2 Bjork albums on there atm and it lists her twice instead of having one entry - dumb.

At any rate, I found the best way for me to navigate - by "Files", then (annoyingly) have to select "Micro SD card". Then it simply lists out all my albums (because I have a folder per album) and when I click into an album, I can manually select the first song.

I was hoping the UI would be a bit more clever than that... but anyway, thanks for being a sounding board that helped me find an acceptable solution!

I don't understand why you use playlists. It just confuses. If you have a playlist in a folder, it will try to find files as is written in the playlist. Any typo or renaming will result in an error.

Just store the files properly as you do, after all tags are correct. Then (re)scan the database and if you don't have funky tags (sometimes there are playlists inside a FLAC container, giving false duplicates) all will be ok.

I would have thought a wizard like you would have figured that out.