[Leonardo Drummond]

I had no idea this thread was still going on. I actually managed to own both an HM-801 (still have it, but trying to sell it) and a DX100 at the same time, and honestly, I couldn't justify keeping any of them. I know this is probably not the best place to say this, but I found that they both could only be justified in very specific situations... I made a review in my blog where I state all my opinions on this, if any of you are interested. It's in Portuguese though, so you'd have to rely on Google Translate! It's also huge because I write mostly for noobs so there are a number of explanations that I have to give: http://mindtheheadphone.com/2012/06/26/hifimanibasso/

 

[autarch1]

I own a Colorfly C4 and use it almost every day. I did own a dx100 briefly but I returned it. I prefer the sound of the C4 but the dx100 has more features. I do miss the ability to create playlists and shuffle my entire collection. Overall, I'm still happy with my purchase of the C4. I not only use it as a portable device. I also use the digital out to an external dac.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

I own a Colorfly C4 and use it almost every day. I did own a dx100 briefly but I returned it. I prefer the sound of the C4 but the dx100 has more features. I do miss the ability to create playlists and shuffle my entire collection. Overall, I'm still happy with my purchase of the C4. I not only use it as a portable device. I also use the digital out to an external dac.

 
The DX100s sound has vastly improved from the original firmware release. It is quite shocking actually how good it sounds now. It wasn't comparable to my DACport LX before and now I can say it very much is in the same class as it after upgrading to 1.2.7 firmware yesterday. 2 things remain that need to be fixed still and I see the unit as near flawless. Automatic alphabetization and the fade in on manual track change. Other than those two the unit is fully functioning. I highly doubt even the new 901 will touch this sound. It is that good.

 

[sbradley02]

Quote:

I own a Colorfly C4 and use it almost every day. I did own a dx100 briefly but I returned it. I prefer the sound of the C4 but the dx100 has more features. I do miss the ability to create playlists and shuffle my entire collection. Overall, I'm still happy with my purchase of the C4. I not only use it as a portable device. I also use the digital out to an external dac.

Yes, the primitive UI is one of my main complaints on the Colorfly (though as said I really like the device overall). It gets the job done, but would like to see some features added:
1. Allow one to see both the internal and SD files as a unified file system
2. Allow for bookmarks to be set. Having to manually go back to the last song that was played is a pain
3. Support gapless playback
4. Show the next song in the main screen
5. While I almost never use EQ, the presets are pretty worthless. Add a user defined EQ.
6. Improve responsiveness of the controls
 
Like I said, I love the device's sound (my #1 criteria), looks and feel, but I am hoping they can make improvements over time.

 

[nc8000]

The C4 does kind of support gapless but it requires that you transcode the whole album to one big file with a cue file but then it works fine

 

[sbradley02]

Quote:

The C4 does kind of support gapless but it requires that you transcode the whole album to one big file with a cue file but then it works fine

Yeah, I was going to do this for a couple of albums but it is a pain. Most albums it is a non-issue for me.
As an aside, are there any good apps to do this automatically?

 

[nc8000]

I did it from within foobar2000. Just select the tracks and then select convert and choose the right options and it produces a wav file with all the tracks and a matching cue file. I transcoded all my hires flac to 24/48 in this way, best compromise between file size (a single file must be < 2GB which is about 2 hours at the resolution) and sq

 

[sbradley02]

Quote:

I did it from within foobar2000. Just select the tracks and then select convert and choose the right options and it produces a wav file with all the tracks and a matching cue file. I transcoded all my hires flac to 24/48 in this way, best compromise between file size (a single file must be < 2GB which is about 2 hours at the resolution) and sq

Still haven't gotten around to doing this.
Do you know what the maximum bit depth and sample rate supported in FLAC are?
 
Thanks

 

[nc8000]

Flac certainly support 24/192 but I have no idea if it goes higher than that

 

[sbradley02]

Quote:

Flac certainly support 24/192 but I have no idea if it goes higher than that

Yes on WAV but not FLAC.
I will test a 16/48 which it should handle.
I tried higher res once, I think 24/96 and I got noise.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

Yes on WAV but not FLAC.
I will test a 16/48 which it should handle.
I tried higher res once, I think 24/96 and I got noise.

Flac does support up to 24/192. Unless you meant the player can't play those files in FLAC but WAV?

 

[sbradley02]

Quote:

Flac does support up to 24/192. Unless you meant the player can't play those files in FLAC but WAV?

That is correct.
Colorfly only supports maximum bit rates in WAV.
I will do some experimentation and see what the FLAC limit is. Their manual doesn't state it.
Doesn't affect me much because I transcode most everything high res to 320kbps MP3 for portable use to get more variety (I know, heresy 

).
My preferred portable format is AAC but Colorfly doesn't support that at all and I had trouble with OGG which it does support.

 

[nc8000]

The C4 only supports 16/44 in flac but 24/192 in wav

 

[sbradley02]

Quote:

The C4 only supports 16/44 in flac but 24/192 in wav

I just got this from Colorfly:
"[size=11pt]Maximum for FLAC are 16 BIT up to 192 kHz[/size]
[size=11pt]16 Bit 44,1 kHz, 48,0 kHz and 96 kHz are standards"[/size]
 
The two sentences are conflicting, but I tested it and the second sentence is correct.
16/44.1
16/48
16/96
All work
No other configurations will play.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

I just got this from Colorfly:
"[size=11pt]Maximum for FLAC are 16 BIT up to 192 kHz[/size]
[size=11pt]16 Bit 44,1 kHz, 48,0 kHz and 96 kHz are standards"[/size]
 
The two sentences are conflicting, but I tested it and the second sentence is correct.
16/44.1
16/48
16/96
All work
No other configurations will play.

Strange. I think you'll have more of a difference with 24 bit opposed to 16 bit in comparison to upping the 44 to 96 or 192. At least that is what I noticed.