[twister6]

A device with only 128gb of internal storage is ridiculous and especially at that price point. Pass.

Just curious, so an open Android DAP with desktop quality quad-DACs and 1.128 TB of combined storage instead of 1.512 TB is a deal-breaker? Or is this just out of principle?

 

[jdan1457]

I'm surprised no one's said anything about a snapdragon 660 and Android 11 in this device. The 660 is from 2017 and A11 is 2020. for a $3500 flagship device is crazy. Its not even for sale yet and its hardware and software is already obsolete.

 

[aaf evo]

I'm surprised no one's said anything about a snapdragon 660 and Android 11 in this device. The 660 is from 2017 and A11 is 2020. for a $3500 flagship device is crazy. Its not even for sale yet and its hardware and software is already obsolete.

They aren’t obsolete though. It’s not smartphone specs but no DAP will ever be, if you need that then you’re better off using your phone. All of the music streaming services will work on android 11 for years to come. For example, Spotify requires android 5.0 or higher as of this current time. Apple Music needs android 6.0…

DAPs get outdated faster by their manufacturers releasing newer products rather than losing support for an older android version.

 

[jdan1457]

They aren’t obsolete though. It’s not smartphone specs but no DAP will ever be, if you need that then you’re better off using your phone. All of the music streaming services will work on android 11 for years to come. For example, Spotify requires android 5.0 or higher as of this current time. Apple Music needs android 6.0…

DAPs get outdated faster by their manufacturers releasing newer products rather than losing support for an older android version.

Yeah I'm pretty surprised they'd go for the bare minimum though, on a flagship device. Seem like lots of other cheaper DAP's are using more powerful SOC's and Android 12.

 

[aaf evo]

Yeah I'm pretty surprised they'd go for the bare minimum though, on a flagship device. Seem like lots of other cheaper DAP's are using more powerful SOC's and Android 12.

I do wish it was android 12 because I prefer the drop down menu, so I agree with you there, but I know with android 11 it’s quite polished on iBasso DAPs so I’m expecting fluid performance.

If you’re talking about Snapdragon 665, the difference between that and 660 is marginal and 660 actually scores higher on a few benchmarks.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

So this is a DX300MAX Ti with the DAC chips swapped?

 

[MAgV]

So this is a DX300MAX Ti with the DAC chips swapped?

Seems they added a physical attenuator for sensitive gear and probably made some other changes to the analog portion for better performance it seems. Would've been nice to see more changes software wise than hardware wise honestly. The 300MAX still has issues registering swipes and taps, hopefully the people that buy this version will have a better product when it comes to software as well.

 

[idairyou]

Personally, I'm more excited about the Astrel&Kern SR35 at $799.

If only it had global parametric eq built in or at least a global graphic eq. I enjoy the 300MAX but end up not using it as much because of its lack of eq. Currently looking at A&K daps because they actually offer global parametric eq.

Agreed, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about the SR35. A lot of bells and whistles and up to 20 hours playback for $799.

 

[Shawnb]

I'm surprised no one's said anything about a snapdragon 660 and Android 11 in this device. The 660 is from 2017 and A11 is 2020. for a $3500 flagship device is crazy. Its not even for sale yet and its hardware and software is already obsolete.

DAP's are at the bottom of the list in getting the latest snapdragon. We're lucky we even get stuff from 2017. If Ibasso went and asked for the latest and greatest for a unit that won't even sell 1k units they would be laughed out of the room.

 

[Alien HP]

DAP's are at the bottom of the list in getting the latest snapdragon. We're lucky we even get stuff from 2017. If Ibasso went and asked for the latest and greatest for a unit that won't even sell 1k units they would be laughed out of the room.

It’s not smartphone specs but no DAP will ever be

I wonder why.

 

[Shawnb]

I wonder why.

It's about volume. What order would you fill first, Ibasso and a measly 888 units or day Google who orders a million units and who demands priority? Now add every other phone marker or any other product that used the Snapdragon and sale numbers blow Ibasso out of the water.

That's why. All DAP markers are small fry. Sony is the only exception but even then they go behind Google, Samsung and the rest

 

[Lifter59]

I'm surprised no one's said anything about a snapdragon 660 and Android 11 in this device. The 660 is from 2017 and A11 is 2020. for a $3500 flagship device is crazy. Its not even for sale yet and its hardware and software is already obsolete.

There's a LOT that goes into supporting a new version of Android as a SoC- here are the Android 12 requirements Android 12 and Android 13 requirements Android 13. I will not even try to imply I understand all of them but in looking over some of the other comparisons between versions Android 10 to 11 and Android 11 to 12 a substantial number of changes are focused on privacy, platform UX and implementation of widgets, etc. focused on the newer Pixel devices and other cell phones - I did not see anything about sound quality or processing per se.

While we all like to have the latest and greatest, I'm not sure how much of this translates to performance improvements for a DAP/DAC. I understand that a faster cpu and more/faster RAM should improve performance, given the additional overhead, gpu requirements and other system functionality required in each new version it would be hard to say how much of the improvements would actually impact the core performance of a DAP/DAC (I guess that would be in part determined by how much of the inapplicable systemware could be "muted" and still meet Android certification requirements). Obviously, updating an older SoC with a newer OS version can have an adverse impact on performance. Supporting more than one OS version on the same SoC will certainly double the support requirements and increase the complexity of testing new features as well as the regression testing that goes with it.

Taking a deeper dive through the audio requirements section for Android 10, 12 and 13 reveal that there are virtually no changes to the audio, professional audio or media codecs processing requirements. Interestingly, the latency requirements of some functions has actually been increased rather than decreased in Android 13 and there are substantial HDR Video support requirements in Android 13 as well.

 

[Chuck Dee]

Struggle to see a price/user-case justification when an Android phone with (much) newer hardware and more built-in storage capacity as well as the same microSD card storage expandability using something like USBAudioPLayerPro and possibly also a dongleDAC is functionally better, if not ergonomically better.
Or am I missing something?

 

[Lohb]

Struggle to see a price/user-case justification when an Android phone with (much) newer hardware and more built-in storage capacity as well as the same microSD card storage expandability using something like USBAudioPLayerPro and possibly also a dongleDAC is functionally, if not ergonomically better.
Or am I missing something?

Yep, I love Hugo2 untethered lossless with nice up-to-date 6.4" phone and Hiby controller. Not an all-in-one - but transportable and portable in a sling I'd have with me anyway.
Done deal.

I thought I'd guess the price on this one before setting eyes on it..off by $300....$$$$$$$

 

[natalieann]

it has a micro sd slot(up to 2tb storage)

Still ridiculous to have that low of storage. The micro SD argument doesn’t count, especially at this price point