[customeauser]

I recognized that when i switched the high gain to low gain used my inears it also stays at low gain when i use the line out.

Whats also curious is that i played an Album with cd 1 and cd 2. After cd 1 was finished, the player navigated to an other Album that i played a few days before...

 

[nijfi]

Hello everyone, new member and first post here. I've enjoyed reading this thread. If I may, I'd like to ask for some help and advise please, related to this DAP.

I hope to eventually buy the ibasso DX120 as my first foray into proper DAP world. It appears to tick all the boxes at my price point as I just want a decent, fairly neutral sounding, music only portable player for my large library of mostly flac files. I love the look of this model, I'm a Linux user and the dual card slot with large capacity seals the deal for me. No need of bluetooth, or wifi.

I intend resurrecting my very old AKG 240 monitor headphones for use with this iBasso. At 600ohms, they'll take some driving, but from all the reviews I've read, it appears the 2.5mm balanced output will pair nicely. I need to repair the cable/jack on the AKG's though as the original cable has now broken near the jack. I'd post pics, but unable to I think on my first post. There are three wires going to the 3.5mm jack....white, yellow and red.

So can anyone help me out with the following questions please?

1) Will this existing cable be able to be connected to a new balanced 2.5mm jack. I'm assuming no as I only have 3 wires, not 4, from what I see so far. So will I have to buy new cable as well as a 2.5mm jack? Any recommendations for the new jack, and if need be, new cable?

2) Any recommendations for a 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male adapter please so I can still connect my headphones to other devices if need be?

3) Do 2.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapters exist so that I can still connect to my hifi? I can't seem to find any. I already have a 3.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapter but didn't think connecting two adapters together to be ideal if I can't find a 2.5mm to 6.35mm. Any thoughts or advice please?


Thanks to all the reviewers of the iBassoDx120 on here so far. It's helped me see the wood for the tress after wading through countless reviews of different models at this sort of price point.

 

[trivium911]

Hello everyone, new member and first post here. I've enjoyed reading this thread. If I may, I'd like to ask for some help and advise please, related to this DAP.

I hope to eventually buy the ibasso DX120 as my first foray into proper DAP world. It appears to tick all the boxes at my price point as I just want a decent, fairly neutral sounding, music only portable player for my large library of mostly flac files. I love the look of this model, I'm a Linux user and the dual card slot with large capacity seals the deal for me. No need of bluetooth, or wifi.

I intend resurrecting my very old AKG 240 monitor headphones for use with this iBasso. At 600ohms, they'll take some driving, but from all the reviews I've read, it appears the 2.5mm balanced output will pair nicely. I need to repair the cable/jack on the AKG's though as the original cable has now broken near the jack. I'd post pics, but unable to I think on my first post. There are three wires going to the 3.5mm jack....white, yellow and red.

So can anyone help me out with the following questions please?

1) Will this existing cable be able to be connected to a new balanced 2.5mm jack. I'm assuming no as I only have 3 wires, not 4, from what I see so far. So will I have to buy new cable as well as a 2.5mm jack? Any recommendations for the new jack, and if need be, new cable?

2) Any recommendations for a 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male adapter please so I can still connect my headphones to other devices if need be?

3) Do 2.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapters exist so that I can still connect to my hifi? I can't seem to find any. I already have a 3.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapter but didn't think connecting two adapters together to be ideal if I can't find a 2.5mm to 6.35mm. Any thoughts or advice please?


Thanks to all the reviewers of the iBassoDx120 on here so far. It's helped me see the wood for the tress after wading through countless reviews of different models at this sort of price point.

1) Will this existing cable be able to be connected to a new balanced 2.5mm jack. I'm assuming no as I only have 3 wires, not 4, from what I see so far. So will I have to buy new cable as well as a 2.5mm jack? Any recommendations for the new jack, and if need be, new cable?

Balanced cables are not magic, each headphone or earpiece has a positive and a negative (Ground) wire, the exact same as a stereo receiver to one channel of a speaker. Most headphones on the other hand share the same negative or ground wire and therefore there are only three wires in this case. Realistically you can likely find an adapter to go to 2.5MM from 3.5mm to separate the two negative wires when plugging into the 2.5mm output of the DX120. This will at least let you access the power output of the balanced output, it just would not get you any additional benefits of the balanced jack. realistically though im not convinced that balanced makes any difference at all other than more power so i dont think it really matters.

2) Any recommendations for a 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male adapter please so I can still connect my headphones to other devices if need be?

you can get these all over the place from ebay, amazon or alliexpress. They are typically made to bond or connect the negative or ground wire from the left and right headphone channel to work in a device that does not have a balanced output.

3) Do 2.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapters exist so that I can still connect to my hifi? I can't seem to find any. I already have a 3.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapter but didn't think connecting two adapters together to be ideal if I can't find a 2.5mm to 6.35mm. Any thoughts or advice please?

you can pretty easily make your own, i successful soldered a balanced headphone cable for my hifiman 400i's to plug into the balanced 2.5mm output of the DX120 and they sound great. I also soldered up a standard set of headphone cables for the 3.5mm output.

 

[nijfi]

1) Will this existing cable be able to be connected to a new balanced 2.5mm jack. I'm assuming no as I only have 3 wires, not 4, from what I see so far. So will I have to buy new cable as well as a 2.5mm jack? Any recommendations for the new jack, and if need be, new cable?

Balanced cables are not magic, each headphone or earpiece has a positive and a negative (Ground) wire, the exact same as a stereo receiver to one channel of a speaker. Most headphones on the other hand share the same negative or ground wire and therefore there are only three wires in this case. Realistically you can likely find an adapter to go to 2.5MM from 3.5mm to separate the two negative wires when plugging into the 2.5mm output of the DX120. This will at least let you access the power output of the balanced output, it just would not get you any additional benefits of the balanced jack. realistically though im not convinced that balanced makes any difference at all other than more power so i dont think it really matters.

2) Any recommendations for a 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male adapter please so I can still connect my headphones to other devices if need be?

you can get these all over the place from ebay, amazon or alliexpress. They are typically made to bond or connect the negative or ground wire from the left and right headphone channel to work in a device that does not have a balanced output.

3) Do 2.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapters exist so that I can still connect to my hifi? I can't seem to find any. I already have a 3.5mm female to 6.35mm male adapter but didn't think connecting two adapters together to be ideal if I can't find a 2.5mm to 6.35mm. Any thoughts or advice please?

you can pretty easily make your own, i successful soldered a balanced headphone cable for my hifiman 400i's to plug into the balanced 2.5mm output of the DX120 and they sound great. I also soldered up a standard set of headphone cables for the 3.5mm output.

Thanks for the response.

Regarding your suggestion about using a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter. I recently bought just such an adapter, only to learn from further reading that using such an adapter risks damaging/shorting the amp and should therefore never be done. This does beg the question though as to why such adapters are sold.

Have I misunderstood you about using such an adapter?

I'm only considering putting a balanced jack on the headphones as I need to replace the existing jack regardless as the wires are damaged there. I figured that since I will gain more power and possibly a better sound from balanced then I'd go down that route. I'm happy to replace with unbalanced 3.5mm jack if I can be sure that the unbalanced output on the dx120 will drive the 600ohms comfortably. I'm not set on balanced 2.5mm if that's going to be a difficult job to do on these headphones.

Forgive me if I'm not always making much sense here as I'm new to the idea of balanced vs unbalanced on headphones. I've not tackled any soldering or repairs before either, but just want to get my old AKG's working again without too much expense or risk of blowing up a new DAP.

 

[mbwilson111]

Regarding your suggestion about using a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter. I recently bought just such an adapter, only to learn from further reading that using such an adapter risks damaging/shorting the amp and should therefore never be done. This does beg the question though as to why such adapters are sold.

There are a few sources that have a 3.5 balanced output. Therefore. there are some 3.5mm balanced cables. The adapter you are describing is for using such a cable with a 2.5mm balanced output.

You woulld not use it with a non balanced 3.5mm cable. An adapter cannot separate the combined ground wires.

 

[nijfi]

There are a few sources that have a 3.5 balanced output. Therefore. there are some 3.5mm balanced cables. The adapter you are describing is for using such a cable with a 2.5mm balanced output.

You woulld not use it with a non balanced 3.5mm cable. An adapter cannot separate the combined ground wires.

Thanks for that. That makes sense and explains it.

I can't remember from way back in the thread if you ended up getting the dx120 or not? If you did, what are you thoughts on it nearly a year down the line?

 

[vas-tomsk]

Finally, I did a comparative test of battery consumption for two firmwares - official and custom from Lurker.

Initial data:
firmware - 2.9.121 and 2.9.121-L0
firmware settings - reset to default
files - images of CD-rips CUE+FLAC compression 8
playback order - tracks of images by random
load - standard (2 * 32 Ohm) at the output of 2.5 mm
volume - 35 divisions (comfortable for me)

Compared with the previous test, conducted almost 11 months ago, the player was discharged a little less - 16 hours on the official and 16 hours 30 minutes on custom firmware.

The difference between the duration of work on the official and custom firmware is possible due to the unequal starting charge of the battery, although I tried to charge both times identically.

The discharge indication now starts not after a couple of hours, like the previous test, but almost immediately, that is, iBasso may have fixed their firmware (I wrote to them), but maybe not.

The discharge indication now has excellent linearity.

The fears of some users about the increased power consumption of custom firmware from Lurker were completely in vain - great work, master Lurker, go ahead!

 

[MarCo7]

Finally, I did a comparative test of battery consumption for two firmwares - official and custom from Lurker.

Initial data:
firmware - 2.9.121 and 2.9.121-L0
firmware settings - reset to default
files - images of CD-rips CUE+FLAC compression 8
playback order - tracks of images by random
load - standard (2 * 32 Ohm) at the output of 2.5 mm
volume - 35 divisions (comfortable for me)



Compared with the previous test, conducted almost 11 months ago, the player was discharged a little less - 16 hours on the official and 16 hours 30 minutes on custom firmware.

The difference between the duration of work on the official and custom firmware is possible due to the unequal starting charge of the battery, although I tried to charge both times identically.

The discharge indication now starts not after a couple of hours, like the previous test, but almost immediately, that is, iBasso may have fixed their firmware (I wrote to them), but maybe not.

The discharge indication now has excellent linearity.

The fears of some users about the increased power consumption of custom firmware from Lurker were completely in vain - great work, master Lurker, go ahead!

Thank you for doing this, this is practical and useful information.

 

[customeauser]

It would be nice if someone could help me.

Why does low gain stay also at low gain if i switch to lineout mode? Lineout mode saves the Volume switch but not the high gain option.

There is another problem what sucks really, i never had that with oder players. When i want to copy Music to my sd cards i put them in my card reader. But then my pc says "the folder cannot be copied" "there must be a pollution of the Volume"
I think the DX120 manipulates my sd cards. Does anyone had also this problem?

 

[bmnathe]

I updated to FW V2.9.121 and now my player won't boot up - it alternates between the DX120 and iBasso startup screens. I've tried rebooting and factory resetting using the power/volume up startup routine and it won't fix it. Any idea for a remedy?

Update: I reverted back to the trusty FW V2.4.59 and the issue is unresolved. The device is basically bricked - what can I do other than factory reset?

Update 2: I "borrowed" a PC and used the batch tool and it's working again. The newest firmware is still messing up my tags so I'm using V2.4.59 with no issues. I am enjoying the music.

 

[vas-tomsk]

There is another problem what sucks really, i never had that with oder players. When i want to copy Music to my sd cards i put them in my card reader. But then my pc says "the folder cannot be copied" "there must be a pollution of the Volume"
I think the DX120 manipulates my sd cards. Does anyone had also this problem?

Your memory card is formatted in exFAT. Sometimes iBasso DX120 writes some information on memory card. After that, the recording session remains open. The session are closed when you turn off the player. If you removed the memory card from the worked player, then the session remains open. Therefore, your computer cannot work normally with such a memory card. You needs to check the memory card on the computer, which will close the session and remove this error.

To prevent this from happening, I format my memory cards in FAT32.

 

[Happosai420]

I updated to FW V2.9.121 and now my player won't boot up - it alternates between the DX120 and iBasso startup screens. I've tried rebooting and factory resetting using the power/volume up startup routine and it won't fix it. Any idea for a remedy?

Update: I reverted back to the trusty FW V2.4.59 and the issue is unresolved. The device is basically bricked - what can I do other than factory reset?

How are you updating firmware? Are you using the factory batch tool? I had the same problem too and was able to fix it through the batch tool. If you look for my name on this thread, you can find my "adventures"

 

[customeauser]

Your memory card is formatted in exFAT. Sometimes iBasso DX120 writes some information on memory card. After that, the recording session remains open. The session are closed when you turn off the player. If you removed the memory card from the worked player, then the session remains open. Therefore, your computer cannot work normally with such a memory card. You needs to check the memory card on the computer, which will close the session and remove this error.

To prevent this from happening, I format my memory cards in FAT32.

Thanks, that helped me. Now i understand this.


But i have another problem:

ISO files seem to make some trouble on DX120. For an Album in "SHM-SHCD ISO", the order of titles is changed.

And Folderplay doesn´t work as it should be. I have that for an Album in .dsf , also SHCD. When cd 1 ends, it jumps to another Album instead of cd 2.

 

[bmnathe]

Thanks, that helped me. Now i understand this.


But i have another problem:

ISO files seem to make some trouble on DX120. For an Album in "SHM-SHCD ISO", the order of titles is changed.

And Folderplay doesn´t work as it should be. I have that for an Album in .dsf , also SHCD. When cd 1 ends, it jumps to another Album instead of cd 2.

I've had issues with tagging on the newer firmware but V2.4.59 works well for me. Maybe try that one and see if that solves your issue?

 

[magicalmouse]

I have a problem getting my dx120 to connect with my win10 laptop as a dac

i installed the latest dac driver after turning off the need for a signed driver in win10 and it still will connect (i have disconnected the dx120 and then reconnected several times but no joy)

any ideas?

d