[jmills8]

One member asked me about SS and Onyx Black.
I share my impression.

The current SS is third items(I sell 1st SS and rebuy), all don't have click issue.

I'm having my ss at latest 1.19 and Onyx Black at original FW 1.16.

My inventory includes electrostatic tweeter hybrid iems which need huge amount of power. I listen mainly to classical music and operatic like vocal.

For general comparison, I think Onyx black is on the side of SS much more than cooper version, which is warm, lust, focusing sustain low lower note(increase thick and body)

The black sound is about 10 to 15 percent different from SS.
Onyx Black has more, pleasure treble than SS, SS is more extended, sharper in highest note (trumpet sound), especially in drama or tension movement.

Black treble is leaner, sometimes a bit thit, less structure than SS in highest pitch instrumental.
The brass high pitch instrumental group show more sharpness on SS

SS sound has move tension, stronger attach, quicker transient, the density of note. The note structure seems more compressed in the time domain than Black, which is more release.

On vocal, I feel like SS has more airflow structure representation than Black, but the degree is very minor. Same with woodwind group sound.

One strange thing is that current Black show more visible of lower note vibration, ringing of the piano when listing to Grieg piano sonata.

I like them both, but current SS FW makes it thicker which makes me feel its lack clean in a lower register than Black.

Could you tell me some of the tracks/albums you used to come to your beliefs about the differences of the daps ? Thxs

 

[jscmd2000]

That was a good suggestion by someone earlier, to copy the hex file somewhere when you do the firmware update before installing it. Once you install it, it is no longer available to copy/save.

 

[shadale]

Not possible?Anyone got the 1.16 hex file?

1.16 could be obtained when upgrading from 1.13.

Now, if the owner of 1.13 wants to upgrade, then only the latest firmware version will be available to him, that is 1.19.

get 1.16 in the ways that got 1.18 will not work anymore apparently.

maybe someone has this firmware file, but no one talked about it.

 

[szore]

It's risky, there are security issues. What if you get bricked?

 

[arstango]

It's risky, there are security issues. What if you get bricked?

I consider SP2000 with the 1.19 like a bricked device in terms of sound.

 

[jmills8]

I consider SP2000 with the 1.19 like a bricked device in terms of sound.

 

[Whitigir]

I consider SP2000 with the 1.19 like a bricked device in terms of sound.

Woaaa! LOL! I feel bad for you, but your strong statement made me laugh ... it is bad, and A&K should really do something

 

[DaYooper]

I consider SP2000 with the 1.19 like a bricked device in terms of sound.

That's the thing with opinions, everybody has one.

 

[shadale]

support @arstango!

it may seem ridiculous only when you have not heard the sound on firmware 1.10.

but I’m sad to read the comments of people who don’t listen to the difference and laugh at those who hear. this is stupid! even sadder is that A&K in this company, or vice versa.

 

[DaYooper]

Then there is that 'ol beating a dead horse thing. Nothing constructive can be done by whining and complaining and calling your dap a brick on this forum. And at the risk of repeating myself there are far more here who still think their SP2k sounds awesome even on the latest firmware or whatever firmware they may be running. Furthermore, there are many of us unencumbered by the "golden ear" syndrome. <deleted>

 

[szore]

That's the thing with opinions, everybody has one.

Well Jason is advising against using the older fw, that's all I'm saying

 

[arftech]

Then there is that 'ol beating a dead horse thing. Nothing constructive can be done by whining and complaining and calling your dap a brick on this forum. And at the risk of repeating myself there are far more here who still think their SP2k sounds awesome even on the latest firmware or whatever firmware they may be running. Furthermore, there are many of us unencumbered by the "golden ear" syndrome. And for you and others to infer that those of us who cannot hear the difference are some how deficient is insulting to say the least.

My SPK2 sounds great with the latest FW iteration.

 

[szore]

My SPK2 sounds great with the latest FW iteration.

Mine too.... Plus there will more firmware updates. If its true there is a sound difference, it will be addressed,

 

[T1000]

I don't think we should push the issue any further. Jason and AK have received enough messages about the differences in firmware 1.xx to 1.19 and I am also optimistic that the issue will be resolved with firmware 1.20. For those who are happy with 1.19 and haven't heard the earlier firmware versions, congratulations, the others have the option to switch to 1.18 (as I have).

I am now patiently waiting for firmware 1.20 and thank JasonNYC for his patience, as he has certainly been bombarded with a lot of mails.

I also understand AK for not releasing old firmware versions, although I disagreed with them some time ago.

 

[Samuel777]

I'm hereby sharing a description made by @JerryX here who I would like to great :
@JerryX wrote :
" Hi Jason, hope you can read this message carefully, since my friends using SP1000 and SP2000 also have this issue, and I decide to describe them in detail and hope they can be fixed.

I believe that after firmware v1.10, it is getting impossible for us to transfer new .m3u playlist files or edit existing ones, even with the help of softwares such as Command One on MacOS. This has caused some really bad user experience.
I would like to let you know the possible root cause: In order to support the OpenAPK service, Playlist folder is no longer writable to users, and we have lost the flexibility to manage playlists. There are two issues are related to it:

1. Playlists can no longer be imported from PC/Mac. I read your post last year saying that dev team changes the underlying logic and only .m3u files in Playlist folder can be recognized. It is a good tradeoff to support OpenAPK that avoids reading third-party m3u files as original, user-created ones. However, If I decide to upgrade from SP1000 to SP2000, I have to manually rebuild my playlist from scratch using SP1000, and I can no longer import playlist backups from my laptop. It is really annoying since I have a huge library and it is just time-consuming to browse among folders to add them manually using SP1000. Also, if I divide to upgrade to SP2000, I can no longer re-use playlist files from SP1000 since I cannot import them to SP2000 Playlist folder.

2. Upgrade the micro sd card is also a huge pain. It appears that the internal IDs of micro sd cards are different if they are of different volume. Currently the path name of my 256G micro sd card is named as sdxc-123, while my 512G one is named as 20EB-0FE6, and I used SP1000 to format them without the help of my laptop. This caused an issue that SP1000 can no longer read music files even I copy all my folders directly from my previous 256G sd card to the new 512G one. Previously, if I decide to upgrade, I could simply use text editing software and edited the paths to music files so they can still be recognized by SP1000, so it used to be an easy fix since I can manually replace all sdxc-123 paths with 20EB-0FE, which immediately solved this issue, and SP1000 can locate these files again, so it is pretty smooth to get a new micro sd and I can still listen to music files stored on micro sd card as I used to. Unfortunately, due to the #1 issue I listed, the Playlist folder no longer is writable, which prevents me from editing or uploading new .m3u playlist files. SP1000 can no longer find all music stored on the micro sd card within the playlist, and again I have to manually delete the records and add the same songs from scratch.

These two issues make me hesitant to switch to a larger micro sd card, or upgrade to SP2000, which used to be a rather simple issue. I really enjoyed SP2000 at Canjam NYC and you guys at AK booth were of great help. Could you please kindly pass these issues to the dev team? AK should figure out a solution for users to easily manage their playlists without worrying about these issues, especially for us with huge music libraries. Is it possible that dev team could enable users to not only read but also write to the Playlist folder? ".

I would add two personnel points :
a- Not allow the possibility to add the same song twice in the same playlist file. and give a notification saying that the "song is already in the playlist"
b- When we select files, and add them to a playlist file, it could be good to keep the selection active until we decide to deselect them. That could allow to add in the selected files in a playlist and after copy these files to another folder or etc..