[Luke Skywalker]

Here’s a weird one for you. I played the same Tidal track from:
1) my iPhone to the my Focal Bathys using Bluetooth AAC
2) my SP3000 DAP to the Bathys using Aptx

Well it sounded completely different. The most unexpected difference is that the Aptx was significantly louder. No idea why that would be.

And here’s the real kicker. I plugged the 3.5mm wire from the Bathys to the headphone Jack on the SP3000 and the music sounded worse than it did by Bluetooth. Quiet and muffled.

And you guys will love this. I played “Easy Living” by Clementine from the SP3000 to my Vision EXT using the factory cable and tested two versions of the same song:

- Tidal Master MQA
- Qobuz CD quality

This could be a Qobuz commercial. It blowwwwsss away the Tidal version with DAR/Dsd activated.

I don’t even need to use fancy audiophile words. I’d be interested to know if anyone else can do the same test

 

[retnuh]

Here’s a weird one for you. I played the same Tidal track from:
1) my iPhone to the my Focal Bathys using Bluetooth AAC
2) my SP3000 DAP to the Bathys using Aptx

Well it sounded completely different. The most unexpected difference is that the Aptx was significantly louder. No idea why that would be.

And here’s the real kicker. I plugged the 3.5mm wire from the Bathys to the headphone Jack on the SP3000 and the music sounded worse than it did by Bluetooth. Quiet and muffled.

And you guys will love this. I played “Easy Living” by Clementine from the SP3000 to my Vision EXT using the factory cable and tested two versions of the same song:

- Tidal Master MQA
- Qobuz CD quality

This could be a Qobuz commercial. It blowwwwsss away the Tidal version with DAR/Dsd activated.

I don’t even need to use fancy audiophile words. I’d be interested to know if anyone else can do the same test

Iirc the Bathys while using the 3.5mm actually goes through a ADC -> noise cancelation -> DAC -> speakers. So it’s not bypassing all the digital circuits but in fact adding the additional ADC step. I haven’t heard them myself but through reviews I’ve seen they're supposed to sound best over usb-c, then Bluetooth, then 3.5mm. but take this with a grain of salt as I haven’t tested myself

 

[cladane]

As an iPhone, Mac and iPad user- not happening. As and when it does happen, it will be for new models only.

Like that Apple Pencil hover feature being available for m2 ipads only..

Yes, right and one way which keep Apple users continuing endlessly to renew their devices.

 

[cladane]

Of course ,if they are in chinese, the player is not going to translate them , no matter what the language you choose

Well, point is that those subtitles aren‘t originally in Chinese but seem to be translated in Chinese ? by the library app in the SP3000.
There are other discrepancies in the tags management of the app, like accentuated letters, jpeg extensions, <unknown> displays,…
Never seen this kind of bugs in Roon or Audirvana.

 

[godlikegamer]

I not sure you

Well, point is that those subtitles aren‘t originally in Chinese but seem to be translated in Chinese ? by the library app in the SP3000.
There are other discrepancies in the tags management of the app, like accentuated letters, jpeg extensions, <unknown> displays,…
Never seen this kind of bugs in Roon or Audirvana.

I not sure what language did you put in originally... but is not Chinese... is more like the tagging format cannot be read by AK players... this happen mostly for foreign language.... as for Chinese/Korean/Japanese song, I always use a player called Tune Browser for metadata tagging...

 

[cladane]

I not sure you

I not sure what language did you put in originally... but is not Chinese... is more like the tagging format cannot be read by AK players... this happen mostly for foreign language.... as for Chinese/Korean/Japanese song, I always use a player called Tune Browser for metadata tagging...

It isn’t a general bug of the SP3000 player app since many albums are correctly displayed.
It is why I don’t understand what is the cause of those errors.
Many albums are downloaded from Qobuz.

 

[Nails]

Here’s a weird one for you. I played the same Tidal track from:
1) my iPhone to the my Focal Bathys using Bluetooth AAC
2) my SP3000 DAP to the Bathys using Aptx

Well it sounded completely different. The most unexpected difference is that the Aptx was significantly louder. No idea why that would be.

And here’s the real kicker. I plugged the 3.5mm wire from the Bathys to the headphone Jack on the SP3000 and the music sounded worse than it did by Bluetooth. Quiet and muffled.

And you guys will love this. I played “Easy Living” by Clementine from the SP3000 to my Vision EXT using the factory cable and tested two versions of the same song:

- Tidal Master MQA
- Qobuz CD quality

This could be a Qobuz commercial. It blowwwwsss away the Tidal version with DAR/Dsd activated.

I don’t even need to use fancy audiophile words. I’d be interested to know if anyone else can do the same test

Interesting, I haven’t tried anything like this, however having Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions, I prefer Qobuz. First thing I noticed with Qobuz is the same tracks are louder than Tidal and CD quality on Qobuz soonds better than MQA without using DAR I think.

 

[Nails]

Just paired it with my Focal Bathys. Sounds amazing… better than with my iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Interestingly it automatically chose Aptx rather than AAC. There must be some “order of priority” programming that tells it the sound will be better.

I tested multipairing with my iPhone and it chose AAC for the SP3000. Noticeable drop in sound quality.

Wish I had some Bluetooth headphones with LDAC to see how that is.

So do you guys do a lot of EQ? That’s something that I haven’t done much of with any of my gear. It’s cool that they have a built-in preset for Odyssey EQ. Would be nice if there was a way to import custom profiles for different IEMs

Regarding the EQ, I don’t like the Odyssey setting when using Odyssey’s at all. I think the sound is best without. It’s probably due to my old ears lol.
In general I find the EQ just restricts frequencies so you need more volume, maybe I’m just too lazy to set it up properly but I haven’t found any need to, all the music I listen to sounds just awesome as is.

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Interesting, I haven’t tried anything like this, however having Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions, I prefer Qobuz. First thing I noticed with Qobuz is the same tracks are louder than Tidal and CD quality on Qobuz soonds better than MQA without using DAR I think.

Here is something crazy I found today. If you have flac’s bought from Qobuz and load them on a card, the DAR upscales them to like 5.6 MHz or even 11.2 I think (my SP3000 is at home so I don’t have it in front of me at the moment…) if you have it set on the DSD option. It’s subtle but I think it sounds better than playing the exact same track through the AK Qobuz app

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Regarding the EQ, I don’t like the Odyssey setting when using Odyssey’s at all. I think the sound is best without. It’s probably due to my old ears lol.
In general I find the EQ just restricts frequencies so you need more volume, maybe I’m just too lazy to set it up properly but I haven’t found any need to, all the music I listen to sounds just awesome as is.

Totally agree my friend. It would drive me crazy to keep adjusting the EQ. Like we the eye doctor “better 1 or better 2”

 

[Nails]

Eye doctor better 1or 2?, yeah its often same-same lol

 

[digger1914]

Here is something crazy I found today. If you have flac’s bought from Qobuz and load them on a card, the DAR upscales them to like 5.6 MHz or even 11.2 I think (my SP3000 is at home so I don’t have it in front of me at the moment…) if you have it set on the DSD option. It’s subtle but I think it sounds better than playing the exact same track through the AK Qobuz app

I am currently playing a Qobuz downloaded file with DAR and it is playing at 12.2 MHz. The classic A New World Record!

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Wow it must have been 12.2 and not 11.2. Kicking “men at work” @ 5.6 Mhz

 

[Dionysus]

All AK player going back x amount of years, have lousy eq settings, I remember the sp1000 had a eq setting for the JHAudio Layla, and it too had a lean towards quieter frequencies. The parametric eq is not why you would ever buy an AK player imho it’s the one feature set I’ve never grown to like on any iteration dap from AK.

The default sound sig is were its at, even the dac filters are almost impossible to distinguish one from another.

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Definitely a good first DAP for this little cowboy!