[Randius]

Quote:

I really appreciate everybody taking the time out to review this awesome DAP. Scooter has described the sound signature of the DX100 as being neutral; i.e.: faithfull to the recording. So is it unforgiving and brutally honest? The reason why I ask is that I've owned high end speakers that were very revealing and merciless with average recordings. Given what a great palyer this is I'm surprised anybody can find the time to break away. Thanks.

Yes, I find DX100 to be pretty unforgiving in revealing poor recording or ripping. I have some ALAC files ripped from my own CDs and I wasn't able to hear the noise when listening from my iPhone 4 or H120 but was revealed by the DX100. Now I probably need to re-rip the albums to see if that's the problem

 

[scootermafia]

I think you get the most mileage out of really good recordings, but it's not quite as revealing as HD800s which have a habit of making a lot of music sound unpleasant.  It has an easygoing demeanor overall while still being very layered and complex in the sound, it definitely doesn't tire you out to listen to the DX100, it was my happy friend all day today at work.  

 

[rocque]

Apologies if this has already been answered, but has there been any consensus yet on battery life under real-life usage conditions?

 

[scootermafia]

I haven't directly measured it, but I get the sense that it's pretty good.  My projection is 7-10 hours, and other owners' tests are saying 8-9-ish hours too.  

 

[Randius]

Quote:

Apologies if this has already been answered, but has there been any consensus yet on battery life under real-life usage conditions?

So far, I've only gotten around 7 hours of usage, just like what iBasso stated. Listened mainly to 16/44.1 ALACs with a few 24/192 FLACs
 

 

[HiFlight]

Ron, how does the playlist function work? Do you create them on the device or can you create a playlist on a pc and then transfer it to the DX100?

You can create playlists right on the DX100. I don't know if you can make them up on a PC and transfer them. You can also add and remove tunes from Favorites on the device itself, much as you do with playlists. I seldom use playlists as I most often just set my players to shuffle and listen to what comes up or else pick a specific album that I want to hear.

 

[Jalo]

1. How do you select gapless?

2. In terms of organisation, do you just create a folder for each album including art work jpeg?

 

[wolfen68]

Very interested to hear someone's impressions of the DX100 as a balanced source feeding digital output to a DB1 or DB2 to a balanced amp such as the PB2 or SR71b.....
 
....I wonder what trumps...the DX100's internal DAC or the advantages of a fully balanced system from start to finish.

 

[Jalo]

Very interested to hear someone's impressions of the DX100 as a balanced source feeding digital output to a DB1 or DB2 to a balanced amp such as the PB2 or SR71b.....
 
....I wonder what trumps...the DX100's internal DAC or the advantages of a fully balanced system from start to finish.

I've been asking for that for awhile.

 

[xpsg]

I got my DX100 yesterday after a day's delay due to a mixup in delivery address by DHL. My previous setup is a Rockbox Sansa Clip V1 -> iBasso D-Zero -> Stage93 Quads(w/Silver Dragons), so the DX100 is a pretty big upgrade for me.
 
I am a beginner when it comes to audio while being rather experienced with android devices, so my impressions will be less about the sound (there are plenty more qualified members here) and more about the other aspects of the device which ain't really covered here. So if you are looking for impressions on SQ, you can skip this
 
I've used the android debugging bridge to take some screenshots of the OS but the color didn't turn out right, so please pardon those shots.
 

 
 
 
Here are my impressions:
 
Physical Appearance:
I like the build of the device. Feels solid and yet not as heavy as I would expect it to be. The brushed metal back feels "premium" and I definitely prefer the full black look to the silver + black look which in my opinion make it look like those shanzai gadgets you see often. I would prefer the microsd slot to have a cover instead of just being an exposed slot at the side of the device. 
 
Touchscreen Interface/Display:

The screen resolution for this device is only 320x480, which is the same as the older generation ipod touch. Having used the iPhone 4 and now the Samsung Galaxy S2, it's hard to not to notice the comparitively lower screen resolution of the DX100. The touchscreen is capacitive, which is great for the sensitivity and overall feel. The 3 android buttons at the bottom of the screen do not light up, which means you can't see those buttons in the dark. There is no light sensor for the device, so auto-brightness is out too. 
 
The operating system, aka Android:

iBasso used a modified version of Android Gingerbread 2.3.1 as the operating system for the DX100. It takes around 25 secs for the device reach the lockscreen from power on. It takes another 15 secs or so for the flash storage to be "prepared". While most of the OS is based on 2.3.1, the design of the lockscreen seems to be inspired by ice cream sandwich(android 4.0). 
 
The Android Market is included and you can access the market via a wifi connection. I installed a streaming radio app and it worked without a hitch. I tried using custom launchers but ran into usability issues which I described in the music player section below. 
 

You can play music directly from the homescreen via 2 full screen widgets built directly into the launcher. I discovered that the 2 widgets like controls are actually hardcoded into the launcher and not available as a widget should you decide to use another launcher. I think making the controls into full fledge widgets will add flexibility to the device.
 
Music player:
Listening to music on the DX100 is a joy, grappling with the music player is not. While it's mostly functional, it does have a few quirks to the interface. My FLAC tags and album art are not properly recognised and the tagged track numbers are not followed. I am not too sure why that's happening(lack of cue sheet perhaps?) but I will definitely do more investigation on this. MP3 album art seem to work alright. I encountered a device crash when i tried to up sample mp3s using the SRC and had to reboot the device using a pin. 
 
When I browsed to an album via the music player app and played track 1 of the album, I kinda expected the player to play track 2 of the album like any other mp3 player. But somehow the music player does not do that and it will just jump to another song which is not in the album. I managed to discover that the correct album playing behavior can be triggered by using the listing widget from the home screen, but even with that, the track order is reversed. 
 
Another issue I encounter is hearing a pop whenever I forward tracks(file to file). The pop is quite loud on my customs. It happens with both MP3 and flac tracks. As a test, I loaded Neutron Music Player on the DX100 to test for the popping sound. Neutron does not pop, which means it's probably an issue with the music player/direct hardware interface code.
 
My final/misc thoughts:
The DX100 is a good first product for iBasso. While the launch software is not fantastic, most of the quirks are not fatal and can be fixed via software updates in the future. 
 
Bonus:
tried running Rockbox but failed LOL

 

[HiFlight]

1. How do you select gapless?
2. In terms of organisation, do you just create a folder for each album including art work jpeg?

I have not yet discovered a gapless setting. Although iBasso said the DX100 would support gapless, I don't see anywhere in the menus to select it.

I'm not sure how the albums are organized. I just dragged all of my albums from my computer to the DX100 (it immediately shows up as a drive) They are all listed under the Albums icon, but not fully in alphabetical order. Two new ones I added showed up at the end of the list. Also, when playing an album, the tunes don't play in the numbered order, even with the Random setting disabled.

I just completed my first fully battery run following a full charge. It ran for 7 hours and 45 minutes before shutting off. Conditions were: Android sync settings turned off, haptic feedback turned off, Shuffle Play enabled and low gain with the volume set at about 185 except for about 2 hours of play using the line out, during which I used about 90% volume. No EQ, SRC off, and screen brightness set at about 15%. Screen timeout was set to 1 minute, although if I made any volume changes (which reactivates the screen), I turned it off manually. I did make several reboots during the run.

 

[Randius]

Quote:

I got my DX100 yesterday after a day's delay due to a mixup in delivery address by DHL. My previous setup is a Rockbox Sansa Clip V1 -> iBasso D-Zero -> Stage93 Quads(w/Silver Dragons), so the DX100 is a pretty big upgrade for me....
 
 
 

Great to know that you've finally received the DX100 and managed to listen to it. I also find the same problems with the music player, the non-display of embedded album art, playing in reverse order etc. Not a big deal but we should consolidate a list of bugs/quirks and let iBasso know what to improve in the next firmware release. The OS did freeze on me once and I had to reset to get it operational again. 
 
 

Quote:

I just completed my first fully battery run following a full charge. It ran for 7 hours and 45 minutes before shutting off. Conditions were: Android sync settings turned off, haptic feedback turned off, Shuffle Play enabled and low gain with the volume set at about 185 except for about 2 hours of play using the line out, during which I used about 90% volume. No EQ, SRC off, and screen brightness set at about 15%. Screen timeout was set to 1 minute, although if I made any volume changes (which reactivates the screen), I turned it off manually. I did make several reboots during the run.

That's about the same as what I can get from a full charge, did use LCD3 + HD600 for about 30 mins though.
 

 

[jamato8]

I assumed there would be some bugs that would show up, as they always seem to, with Apple products or anything else, and they have the big pockets and look forward to the fixes from iBasso. Otherwise the player is a lot of fun and will soon try out the other amps using the line out of this unit. 
 
I agree, a listing of bugs to fix and send to iBasso would be great. They will be gone long enough for many of the bugs to be found out and they will welcome iBasso on their return. 

 

[HiFlight]

I've been asking for that for awhile.

Very interested to hear someone's impressions of the DX100 as a balanced source feeding digital output to a DB1 or DB2 to a balanced amp such as the PB2 or SR71b.....

....I wonder what trumps...the DX100's internal DAC or the advantages of a fully balanced system from start to finish.

I think that is really going to be a toss-up. I used my DX100 as a DAC feeding my balanced desktop amp and HE-6. Sounded excellent. Then I listened to my MG6Pro and ES3X customs driven directly from the DX100 headphone output and they also sounded excellent. I haven't yet had time to use the DX100 line out to my PB2. Hopefully I will get to that soon. I will say that I think the DX100 has a very spacious and open soundstage with excellent imaging, both of which I normally associate with a balanced system.

 

[HiFlight]

I got my DX100 yesterday after a day's delay due to a mixup in delivery address by DHL. My previous setup is a Rockbox Sansa Clip V1 -> iBasso D-Zero -> Stage93 Quads(w/Silver Dragons), so the DX100 is a pretty big upgrade for me.

...............................................................................................snip...................................................................................................................................................


Another issue I encounter is hearing a pop whenever I forward tracks(file to file). The pop is quite loud on my customs. It happens with both MP3 and flac tracks. As a test, I loaded Neutron Music Player on the DX100 to test for the popping sound. Neutron does not pop, which means it's probably an issue with the music player/direct hardware interface code.

My final/misc thoughts:
The DX100 is a good first product for iBasso. While the launch software is not fantastic, most of the quirks are not fatal and can be fixed via software updates in the future. 

Bonus:
tried running Rockbox but failed LOL

How did the Neutron player perform compared to the iBasso custom player?