[Deviltooth]

There are a number of people here who have given kudos to IBasso for a swappable battery.  It occurs to me that mircro sd cards are very tiny/light and easy to carry/swap.
 
Ideally greater capacity is appealing but practically speaking you can get 10+ hours of FLAC on a 64gb card; you're out of power before you're out of music.

 

[nihontoman]

Quote:

There are a number of people here who have given kudos to IBasso for a swappable battery.  It occurs to me that mircro sd cards are very tiny/light and easy to carry/swap.
 
Ideally greater capacity is appealing but practically speaking you can get 10+ hours of FLAC on a 64gb card; you're out of power before you're out of music.

you don't have that much with 24/192 wav :3
 
aah, never mind. you do get more than 10 hours even with 24/192 pcm so yeah...

 

[Tom Yum Goong]

Quote:

 
But for those of us who understand the SQ difference of very high bitrate files, preferably lossless (ALAC, FLAC, APE etc.), 64gb is absurdly small.  That's why Fiio are being very sensible by offering a single card slot on their relatively mainstream (but decent SQ) X3, but on their forthcoming X5, which is aimed at serious audiophiles, they will be implementing 2 card slots, so users can have 128gb (2 x 64gb) without too much concern, and then 256gb (2 x 128gb) sometime towards the end of 2014.

You must be one of the persons who voted for a 500GB SSD in the X5, right?

I really start to dislike the term "audiophile"...

 

[pOOB73]

Quote:

You must be one of the persons who voted for a 500GB SSD in the X5, right?

I really start to dislike the term "audiophile"...

Especially those who not only "understand" but also can hear the SQ differences (I'm not saying improvements here) of superfluously high dynamic range (not resolution) bit rate and ultra sonic frequencies.

 

[Mimouille]

I too like players with high capacity as I like to have everything with me. The problem with micro sd slots is that reading is quite slow, at least as I epxerienced with dx100, ak100 and ak120, so scans and even browsing are sometimes lagging in DAPs usimg them.

 

[Mython]

Quote:

I love your research work. 
 
Does this mean that the DX100, with its 64gb onboard storage and microSD slot was a fluke? 
 
I'm pretty sure Ibasso settled for 8gb onboard to keep costs down, not because all chinese DAP buyers prefer micro SD cards over onboard storage, but I have been wrong before... Maybe it's the fact that the DX50 is targeted internationally that gives me these crazy ideas, I don't know.
 
Does it really matter? Let's move along.

 
Just to be even-handed about this, not aimed at anyone in particular, James (Fiio CEO) did make some interesting remarks on this topic in the X5 thread (but that was not 8gb onboard memory - it was (as far as I can tell) zero onboard memory. So 8gb on the DX50 does not necessarily mean the same as the implementation James is talking about; 8gb probably really was just a cost-saving measure on iBasso's part, for the DX50, and, considering it only has one card slot (and a micro-sized one at that), it wasn't the wisest move, but should be OK when 128gb MicroSd achieves decent market penetration and pricing:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/661411/fiio-x5-thread-info-updated-on-6-24-13-and-feature-poll-added-for-future-successor/150#post_9447266 :
 
 

 
Sorry, X5 will not carry build in memory because we want to use the newest technology, which DRAM and the Flash is packaged in the same chip. it can help increase the speed and save the space . but it is hard to find such chip with high capacity .
 

 

[Mython]

Quote:

You must be one of the persons who voted for a 500GB SSD in the X5, right?

I really start to dislike the term "audiophile"...

 
Wrong.
 
 
Nice try, but I'm not biting.
 
 
128gb is just about adequate for me (I had this on the DX100); 256gb (2 x 128gb cards) would make me very happy. 500gb is excessive for my current lossless collection, but I look forward to the day it becomes commonplace to see DAPs with 1TB.

 

[Mython]

This really isn't a case of people poking fun at each other. It's a simple, unavoidable, fact that:
 
1) hi-res music is becoming increasingly popular and increasingly available
 
2) The marketplace is saturated with mediocre players (including those from Apple) that will play highly-compressed lossy files and keep the masses contented.
 
3) Buying a DAP designed explicitly with hi-fidelity as the primary goal is laughably rediculous if one has a music collection entirely in highly-compressed, lossy form. That's not me being snobbish or elitist, it's just simple, obvious, logic. Everyone is familiar with the computer industry axiom 'GIGO', so why buy a hi-fidelity player and then feed it garbage?
 
4) NON-highly-compressed files are, by their inherent nature, large. There is no escaping the fact, therefore, that large files require plenty of storage space, if a reasonable library of tracks is to be kept available on the DAP.
 
5) When MP3 players first appeared on the market, capacities were measures in 10s or 100s of megabytes, not gigabytes. The trend towards ever-larger capacities will not stop. The trend towards hi-resolution entertainment (be it audio or video/screens) will not stop.
 
6) There will always be a 'tension' arising from the disparity between the current available technology, at whatever point in time, and the requirements of more discerning customers. To mock discerning customers for desiring products which better fulfil their technical requirements is absurd. Such customers should not automatically be mocked and neither should they automatically be branded as elitists or snobs. Some inevitably will be, but a great many just wish to experience the best of what contemporary technology has to offer.
 
 
The entire ethos of this forum is the pursuit of the very best sound quality. In the digital domain, that necessitates hi sampling rates, bandwidth, minimal compression etc. and the trade-off for that is the need for large capacities to hold the data.
 
If you find that requirement worthy of ridicule then I suggest you relocate your contributions to a forum better suited to your less demanding requirements.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Concerning the storage debate, all I have to add is I look forward to the day when a 256 SSD drive becomes affordable enough that it can be implemented into a DAP. I'll probably have one foot in the grave by the time that day comes but I still look forward to it.

 

[eke2k6]

I don't think very many people understand exactly what hi-res means. There are effectively ZERO benefits conferred to the audiophile by 24 bit files, or those with rates of 192 Khz, etc. 
 
The key is that those high bit rate releases are usually better mastered over their 16 bit counterparts, leading people to believe that the improvement comes from the higher rate. Thus, several gigabytes of space is wasted per album, for no effective improvement in SQ.
 
Don't believe me? Conduct this simple experiment...
 
Take one of your "hi-res" files, convert it to MP3 320kbps using the LAME codec (I like dbpoweramp, and they have a free trial). Then A/B the original high rate file with your newly converted 320 (make sure it is the convert of the original FLAC/WAV etc). If you find a difference without doubt, then feel free to put me on your ignore list
 
When you're done listening, read this for a proper explanation: 24bit vs 16bit, the myth exploded!

 

[k1zuna]

So today is 7/31/2013. What's going on ibasso?

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

So today is 7/31/2013. What's going on ibasso?

Read the thread dude, the final specs and pricing  were announced as well as the launch date.

 

[uchihaitachi]

Quote:

I don't think very many people understand exactly what hi-res means. There are effectively ZERO benefits conferred to the audiophile by 24 bit files, or those with rates of 192 Khz, etc. 
 
The key is that those high bit rate releases are usually better mastered over their 16 bit counterparts, leading people to believe that the improvement comes from the higher rate. Thus, several gigabytes of space is wasted per album, for no effective improvement in SQ.
 
Don't believe me? Conduct this simple experiment...
 
Take one of your "hi-res" files, convert it to MP3 320kbps using the LAME codec (I like dbpoweramp, and they have a free trial). Then A/B the original high rate file with your newly converted 320 (make sure it is the convert of the original FLAC/WAV etc). If you find a difference without doubt, then feel free to put me on your ignore list
 
When you're done listening, read this for a proper explanation: 24bit vs 16bit, the myth exploded!

+1
Make sure the encoding is done properly to prevent clipping so the A/B will be indistinguishable. 

 

[Gorillaz]

+1
Make sure the encoding is done properly to prevent clipping so the A/B will be indistinguishable. 

+2
also hi-rez files drain the battery faster because of the extra processing going on the soft/hard ware of the dap

 

[Mython]

Quote:

I don't think very many people understand exactly what hi-res means. There are effectively ZERO benefits conferred to the audiophile by 24 bit files, or those with rates of 192 Khz, etc. 
 
The key is that those high bit rate releases are usually better mastered over their 16 bit counterparts, leading people to believe that the improvement comes from the higher rate. Thus, several gigabytes of space is wasted per album, for no effective improvement in SQ.
 
Don't believe me? Conduct this simple experiment...
 
Take one of your "hi-res" files, convert it to MP3 320kbps using the LAME codec (I like dbpoweramp, and they have a free trial). Then A/B the original high rate file with your newly converted 320 (make sure it is the convert of the original FLAC/WAV etc). If you find a difference without doubt, then feel free to put me on your ignore list
 
When you're done listening, read this for a proper explanation: 24bit vs 16bit, the myth exploded!

 
I was speaking broadly.
 
Somewhere here on Head-fi, I have previously commented upon the fact that I thoroughly enjoy music like Ruth Moody's album 'In the Garden' in flac 16bit/44.1khz, ripped from ordinary CD to FLAC / ALAC. I think it might have been in one of the DX100 threads, and I recall saying that I was amazed at how good the DX100 can make ordinary 16/44.1 sound, through a pair of UM Miracles.
 
So I actually agree with you that much of the information encoded in very hi-res files cannot necessarily be heard as an improvement over 16/44.1, BUT I still steadfastly stand by my remarks about lossy compression vs lossless, even though I am well aware of all the arguments back and forth about 192kbps mp3 supposedly being indistinguishable from a .wav of the same 16/44.1 parameters, etc. etc. etc.
 
And so, on that basis, even a half-decent variety of music at 'just' 16/44.1 will RAPIDLY exceed the capacity of a 64gb memory card if it's in a lossless codec.