Oh I do have it, will be keeping it
I have today off, I aim to do some A/B testing and pics to follow. Stay tuned
So managed to sit down today and do a little bit of sound testing. As promised here are some pics;
As you can see, the headphone jack is placed on the bottom, this would be my first gripe. It means when it's clasped on yer hip (via it's clasp) the headphone jack faces the floor, and the controls don't make much sense from this angle either.
I personally prefer using my magnetic clasp to attach my DAPs to clothing, which basically involves just a magnetic name badge stuck on the rear of the DAP and then the opposing magnet placed under clothing on the other side. A dap weighing 40g like this one can easily stay in place, even running. You also get the choice of which way it faces and where to place the DAP also.
Meh... I'll trial it out for a bit before attempting to remove the clip.
Some A/B testing. Pretty tricky with two screenless daps, I had to try and get volume on par and then get them both to play the same song at same time (which is harder than it looks). I did get pretty close however so that flicking the switch left to right was hard to notice a difference (timing wise).
There is an additional button here, I believe it to be shuffle on/off. But the curious thing is that I loaded two microsdcards (one for each player) with the EXACT same songs, same files, same filenames etc, but they
were playing in a different order to one another. I'm pretty sure the Shozy was playing them the right way, it seems as tho the Hippo was shuffling somewhat, even tho i never changed that button, and as u can see I think its in normal mode and not shuffle :/
More experimenting required. Could be the Hippo reads tags and was playing songs in the alphabetical order (thereby omitting the 01, 02 etc of file names).
The Metal Clasp.
This is not a review, I did a 30min sit down and tried to get it closely volume matched with the Shozy, but first impressions are very good indeed.
- The Shozy is much louder, and I had to be careful to bring the volume down to match the Hippo's full volume otherwise you can be fooled into thinking 'louder is better'.
- The controls are much better on the Hippo, better spaced out, easier to push blindly.
- It might be my imagination, but I think the Hippo resume plays and does a 'search/skipping' through a song if you push and hold down 'next' or 'previous' buttons. It also resumes previous volume used (i think). Again i need much more play time with this thing.
- During A/B testing, I could easily tell which device was which at certain times, but it's very song dependent. During hectic heavy metal moments where lots of thrashing and multiple instruments is happening I don't think I could tell them apart blinded. But on quieter moments, intros and other genres there is a significant difference. To me they both have V shaped signatures, very similar and alike, the Shozy perhaps smoother and more detailed, the Hippo slightly duller. But to be honest I haven't decided which I like better yet, 'dull' suggests worse, but I don't mean it in that way.
- Both are hiss free, tho the Hippo + makes more strange noises when changing track and going on/off/pause etc.
- Gapless? I dunno yet, will find out.
- The hippo's 'next track' button is quite a bit more recessed than the rest, meh.
All in all I'm thinking it's perhaps gonna be a 'poor mans Shozy' but it might actually be better, also far more Gym friendly (which is why I initially bought it).
I'll keep u posted as I use it more throughout the week.