[strooper]

I'm curious how many MAX owners do most of their listening through streaming services versus DAC/Internal or Micro SD? I suppose I'm a dinosaur, but almost all my listening is either from the onboard memory/Micro SD when out and about, and from Audirvana playing my RAID-box music collection. Actually, it's not just most, it's all of my serious listening. I subscribe to Spotify to learn about new music and for music as background noise, but anything I like/love I own. Like I said--dinosaur.

 

[Shawnb]

I'm curious how many MAX owners do most of their listening through streaming services versus DAC/Internal or Micro SD? I suppose I'm a dinosaur, but almost all my listening is either from the onboard memory/Micro SD when out and about, and from Audirvana playing my RAID-box music collection. Actually, it's not just most, it's all of my serious listening. I subscribe to Spotify to learn about new music and for music as background noise, but anything I like/love I own. Like I said--dinosaur.

I only listen to music I own. No streaming of any kind for me

 

[radnor]

I only listen to music I own. No streaming of any kind for me

I only stream the music I own... which is now about 90 million tracks.

 

[behemothkat]

I have about 5000 vinyl records at home, some most I love I have as a DSD - so, three 1Tb microSDs are full of albums. But listening streaming services makes a value for me as well - to listen remastered albums, compare to original mastering, old LP pressings, etc.
So, streaming is very important feature for me.

 

[strooper]

I only stream the music I own... which is now about 90 million tracks.

What service do you use? And 90 million? Damn! I thought I was a boss with 8 Tb of flac music. 8 Tb of flac is circa 300,000 tracks or about 1/300th of 90 million. That said, my library of 300,000 tracks equates to about 2.5 years of continuous play music. 300 times that is 750 years worth of music. Like I said, Damn!

 

[radnor]

What service do you use? And 90 million? Damn! I thought I was a boss with 8 Tb of flac music. 8 Tb of flac is circa 300,000 tracks or about 1/300th of 90 million. That said, my library of 300,000 tracks equates to about 2.5 years of continuous play music. 300 times that is 750 years worth of music. Like I said, Damn!

Joking! Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music & ROON.

 

[Infoseeker]

OVERKILL for Z1R????

How does it sound?

The treble is not harsh at all for an ESS device.

My recently acquired Qudelix Bluetooth LDAC dac/amp gives a less forgiving treble sound profile.

My e1da 9038s does a similar good job of having less a harsh treble on a ess implementation.

So far it feels like the Dx220_max has a nuetral-to-warm sound to it. Lower mids are also thicker sounding with more impact. Treble is forgiving and it layers the treble to the rest of the sound better.

The 9038s Gen 3 usb dac/amp being nuetral cold. That has cleaner bass representation. And a cleaner treble presentation, but unfortunately the treble is on the same competing plane of sound as the rest of the spectrum. Has more of a intimate sound; especially for voices.

And the Qudilex is cold (relatively). With very good clean bass as the E1da 9038s. Treble is very very cold/unforgiving, but it does keep the sound layered on its own plane like the Dx220 max (Qudelix in usb-mode, not bluetooth wireless, where it sounds dark and compressed staging).

Astell&Kern ak240 dap sounds a lot like the Dx220 max, nuetral-to-warm without treble harshness. Doesn't layer sound as much. Thus device really has stood the test of time. Ak240 has a really obvious lower treble etch though.

Hiby R6 Pro it is generally warm sounding, thick bass and lower mids. And layers music well, but it doesn't give enough attention to the treble as the Dx220 max.

 

[radnor]

The treble is not harsh at all for an ESS device.

My recently acquired Qudelix Bluetooth LDAC dac/amp gives a less forgiving treble sound profile.

My e1da 9038s does a similar good job of having less a harsh treble on a ess implementation.

So far it feels like the Dx220_max has a nuetral-to-warm sound to it. Lower mids are also thicker sounding with more impact. Treble is forgiving and it layers the treble to the rest of the sound better.

The 9038s Gen 3 usb dac/amp being nuetral cold. That has cleaner bass representation. And a cleaner treble presentation, but unfortunately the treble is on the same competing plane of sound as the rest of the spectrum. Has more of a intimate sound; especially for voices.

And the Qudilex is cold. With very good clean bass as the E1da 9038s. Treble is very very cold/unforgiving, but it does keep the sound layered on its own plane like the Dx220 max.

Astell&Kern ak240 dap sounds a lot like the Dx220 max, nuetral-to-warm without treble harshness. Doesn't layer sound as much. Thus device really has stood the test of time.

Hiby R6 Pro it is generally warm sounding, thick bass and lower mids. And layers music well, but it doesn't give enough attention to the treble as the Dx220 max.

thanks! how does it compare to hugo 2?

 

[Infoseeker]

Hugo 2 has similar sound profile as Dx220 Max. The slightly nuetral-to-warm sound. Where there is some extra thickness too lower mids and good treble extension representation. Hugo 2 presents bass with more wetness and not punch though (Hugo2 had a very dynamic/impactful subbass, especially synth stuff, but not impactful midbass).

Where the differ is the Hugo 2 adds imaging & some intimacy to the voice range and soundstage.

 

[DarginMahkum]

I guess so

No but seriously, I think it's cool what the modding community is doing, but it has to be brought to the table in a tasteful and respectful way. If I was iBasso I would be pretty pissed off by these lavish claims that simply changing some caps or other similarly simple mods makes whatever they've done sound soooo much better. Time and time again this happens and people now start believing because of those claims that iBasso is not designing these products well. Modding a few devices or developing/manufacturing things at scale are completely different things that require very different trade-offs and decisions.

EDIT: and I should add, I've yet to see any objective validation of these mods that shows the changes haven't completely tanked the carefully designed audio performance.

That is pretty much the thing, when I mentioned that it is a hit against the credibility of iBasso. I understand the fun part of it, but if the company with years of experience is being judged so quickly even long before the so praised burn-in period end, as lacking the qualities of some hardware hacks people figure out in minutes of time, that is definitely not good. There is a credibility issue for the company and/or the mods. A considerable part of the cost of a product is the engineering time costs spread over time. Which cap was used, is one of the last things that would add up to the costs for a unit that costs close to €2000. And for a company acquiring these components in bulks is cheaper than a few people buying 2-3 of these pieces.

There is another point, though. There is a different attitude in this forum. When I got my FiiO unit, although it was very refined, I collected some ideas that can improve my usability of the device, sent FiiO the list and some of them were implemented with the next beta firmware. They collect the software ideas of what the users want to see over Facebook and try to implement them. I have seen ifi people here. James from FiiO was here (I saw his name below in the list of users) probably reading the possible M15 feedback, Hiby is bringing out R8 and Hiby rep on their forum is making jokes talking about their product.

This expensive product is not just bought by a few people that want to enjoy their mods, but also by users that want to enjoy it as it is. 1000 units and the number of mod candidate units is definitely significantly small number of it. I am sure 95% of the buyers depend on the inherent feature set. Software is what can still be updated by the company, that can influence the usability of the device. That kind of an approach here, that someone wants to see some simple logical refinements (like adding the USB DAC shortcut and cleanup of shortcuts that don't make sense) is what makes this product to a larger group more appealing. It just becomes more refined.

I would expect iBasso value these feedbacks, including the ones about the mods, rather than going silent. A few people might be happy about the small world they created, but I am sure since the mod talks and other criticisms taken completely off-the-rail of the original intention, they lost several customers.

 

[Shawnb]

Ibasso also has a software forum have you tried posting in there?

 

[DarginMahkum]

Ibasso also has a software forum have you tried posting in there?

Where is it? First time I am hearing about it.

 

[ExpatinJapan]

One here for DX220

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/dx220-thread-for-software-requests.906199/

one here of DX200

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ibasso-dx200-bug-thread-post-any-firmware-bugs-issues-here.838997/


Maybe make one for the DX220 Max.

 

[radnor]

Hugo 2 has similar sound profile as Dx220 Max. The slightly nuetral-to-warm sound. Where there is some extra thickness too lower mids and good treble extension representation.

Where the differ is the Hugo 2 adds intimacy to the voice range and soundstage. Where it synnergizes well with the Hd800s in correcting its far away sounding flaws a step.

Which goes deeper? Has meatier sound? Hugo 2 or the max?

 

[Infoseeker]

Which goes deeper? Has meatier sound? Hugo 2 or the max?

Honestly after hearing the bass on the E1DA 9038s gen 3 and Qudelix. The hugo 2 and Max are on the same tier for bass.

E1da and the Qudelix have such clean bass that you can feel there is less bass from presentation (if you are used to otherwise).

But the Max/Hugo 2 are better in all other ways. I imagine there is some balance that is made.

Hugo 2 has extra intimacy, which is perfect for my Hd800s. My personal preference goes to the 220Max for all else.

Depth presentation wise, the Hugo 2 wins over the Dx220MAX.