[DreadKnaught]

Dear Paul/iBasso,
 
I recently purchased your product (iBasso DX80 + Sandisk 128gb micro sd) on November 5th 2015 at the Sham Shui Po Hong Kong branch and am currently using it abroad. I am therefore unable to return to the store to receive instruction or support for the numerous problems I have encountered with your product. 
 
Upon receiving the DAP iBasso DX80 despite some minor glitches
 
- The god awful 'popping/clicking' sound when moving on to the next track / turning on the DAP
- Wrong artwork/song information displayed for the song being played (usually occurs when shuffling through entire music collection)
- Overheating of the product during DAC mode
 
It worked great right out of the box, the sound was not so much lean but thick and viscous, yet maintaining a level of clarity and detail. After burning it in for 70+ hours, I was quite impressed with the sound quality as this is the first DAP I have purchased since the old school 128mb iRiver mp3 players were in vogue. 
 
Then I encountered a problem where newly added tracks (FLAC files) were not being recognized by the iBasso DX80. The files would appear in the directory, but would not appear in the 'All Music', 'Artist', 'Genre' or 'Album' directories. Upon closer inspection, around 60 tracks out of a list of 1100 were not being recognized by the player. 
 
Despite numerous attempts of hard resetting, returning to factory settings, deleting the entire library, backing it up and restoring it, newly added tracks would not be recognized.
So I took the next logical step- I tried to update the firmware. 
 
I had previously attempted to update the firmware during v1.1.2, I followed the instructions given in the manual- unzipped the img file -> moved it to the Micro SD Slot 2 -> went to Advanced and attempted the system update. It would crash and the BIOS menu would appear and state the img could not be mounted or found. I read the bug thread thoroughly and tried the many different variations posted in the comments to no avail. I decided to just leave things be and wait for the next firmware. 
 
Enter firmware v1.1.4.
It was stated that this firmware update should be compatible with the exFAT Micro SD card format, and so following the instructions given in the manual, and the variations of the process in the iBasso DX80 impressions and bugs thread I attempted to update the firmware to v1.1.4. It would not work. 
 
Then against my better judgement, upon reading comments about successful firmware upgrades when the Micro SD card format was in MS-DOS (FAT) and because I am currently using a Macintosh with Disk Utility I reformatted the disk to the MS-DOS (FAT) format. Upon moving the update.img to the Micro SD, and inserting the disk into slot 2 the system update option did not even appear this time. 
 
After deciding to just give up on updating the firmware altogether, I deleted the update.img, performed a hard reset to factory settings and moved my music library back to the Micro SD. Now none of the music was being recognized by the iBasso DX80. Thinking that the MS-DOS (FAT) format might have been the problem I reformatted the Micro SD to the original ExFAT and tried moving my music library once again. Again, the DAP would not recognize any music. I have formatted and reformatted the Micro SD (including the 7 pass method) a number of times these past few days attempting to restore my music to the player. 
 
In the System Info section of the player
Model number: DX80
Firmware version: V1.0.0
SD1: 0.00G left/0.00G
SD2: 0.00G left/0.00G
 
The player is no longer able to recognize the Micro SD card. 
 
So long story short, in an attempt to update the firmware, somewhere along the way I lost the ability to listen to music on this DAP. 
 
The iBasso DX80 is the first dedicated player that I have come into contact with entering this hobby.
I was initially quite pleasantly surprised with the sound quality and competitive price, but wrestling with the firmware and Micro SD the past few days have been rather frustrating to say the least. 
 
I'm open to any and all suggestions that may solve this problem. Even if it means I cannot update the firmware, I would at least like to get back to listening to my music on the go. 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Henry Lee

 

[Paul - iBasso]

  Dear Paul/iBasso,
 
I'm open to any and all suggestions that may solve this problem. Even if it means I cannot update the firmware, I would at least like to get back to listening to my music on the go. 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Henry Lee

I am sorry you are having issues with getting the FW loaded. It seems you have tried a number of ways to get this done. After 1.1.4 exFat and FAT32 can be used for updates but prior to 1.1.4 FAT32 has to be used. For music both formats can be used without issue.
 
You have loaded the FW to a card that was formatted to FAT32 in .img but it did not update correctly for you. As I understand it you did not put the FW in a folder but directly on the card which is correct. You do not put the FW in a folder. I would download the FW again and drop the .img onto a FAT32 formatted card. Then with the player off push the power button and the volume + button at the same time and keep holding this until a screen comes up. Then use the - button to move down to the load FW from SD card and push the power button. I hope this will work to load the FW. Please let me know.

 

[Splutje]

First: I'm very happy with my DX80. Sound and UI are great, really great. I've got no issues with hissing, thump/blobb or card scanning. 
The only, minor mishaps are:
- font is sometimes to small, almost unreadable.
- no lock button. i travel a lot with my DX80 and accidental presses do occur.
- i miss a small (!!! small !!!) led light to indicate its powered on. 
For the rest: great DAP, very enjoyable, awesome sound!

 

[boohalo]

About the pops (pumps) - I think that dx80 badly supports some iems with low impedance. I had pops, bud after I started to use my iems (ue900) with attenuator - no pops at all.

 

[BurtonCHell]

Hello,
 
here are my impressions respectively issues with the DX80 and firmware v1.1.4 in order of dissatisfaction:
 

• Playback folderwise: last track in folder isn´t playing to end. A few seconds before end of the track the playback stops.
• Cover display: mostly appearing on FLAC playback or changing folder with FLAC files the cover of the last folder/artist appear in "music playback" screen. Also if you playback another track of the new selected folder.
• Playback general: sometimes by play/pause or skipping a track there is a short stutter on playback. Means playback starts for a fraction of a second then stops for a fraction of second then playback goes further on.
• Track tags: longer track titles are cut-off in "music playback" screen and also in the "music info" screen.
• Track tags: no information about year and genre of track if you go into "music info" screen.
• Battery info: if fully charged the status of battery life shows within a few minutes e.g. 98% without any usage before.
• Nice to have: Duration of track overall playing time within a folder (in other words: the album length in minutes).

 
Hope there is some improvement upon these issues (especially for 1.-4.) in upcoming firmware(s). 
Beside of that I´m very pleased with the DX80 particulary the high versatility, the very good output power for hungry fullsize cans, the brillant and well-proportioned screen, the look and feel of the device itself and the very persistent battery life and comfortable briefly charging time.
 
I´m looking forward for a even better DAP the DX80 will be if there are further firmware updates who obliterate upon the mentioned disadvantages.
 
Thanks & Cheers,
Burton

 

[Scottes7]

@Paul - iBasso
 
I do not recall, nor did a search find, and comment from you concerning the hiss that some of us are experiencing.
 
Could you comment please?
 
Is this correctable through firmware?
Or should we return for repair? (If so, to where?)
Or must we deal with it?

 

[wolfen68]

1.1.4 seems to be working for me pretty well.  Feedback: 
 
-  There are still occasional pops/thumps between the changing of tracks.    
 
-  In "All Music" view, it is still not possible to sort the view by the song's title.  The DX90 and 100 do this.
 
-  When using the "Now Playing" button, it seems it should show your current track being played and the ones that will be played next.  It seems to show the same view as the "All Music" button.  For this reason it seems the "Now Playing" menu button serves no purpose.
 
-  The "All Music" view now has a scroll function....but none of the others do.  A scroll bar should be added for all views ("Album", "Genre", "Directory", etc.).
 
-  Occasionally I have been having difficulty getting the "All Music" view to fast scroll through tracks (it will only move with your finger, but not speed scroll ahead).  Eventually it will work after many tries.  This is new with 1.1.4. 
 
-  Once the user enters the "Play, Playlist, Music info, Delete" secondary menu after a long press, the upper left back arrow is no longer highlighted.  It should remain highlighted so the user knows it is active to cancel that function or go backwards to the last view.  
 
Overall this firmware has been very stable, that's all I've seen so far. The touch screen sensitivity is perfect.  BTW, I love the charging function...nice graphics and I haven't had any problems with the unit turning on by itself when you unplug the charger (a problem I have had with the DX90). 

 

[Paul - iBasso]

  @Paul - iBasso
 
I do not recall, nor did a search find, and comment from you concerning the hiss that some of us are experiencing.
 
Could you comment please?
 
Is this correctable through firmware?
Or should we return for repair? (If so, to where?)
Or must we deal with it?

You can return the DX80 for repair. Please contact servcie@ibasso.com for a return authorization number.

 

[MCM5]

Bought the DX80 last week, it came with v.1.1.2 & I updated it to v.1.1.4.
overall, very happy with it.
one issue to report though : when using the burn-in cable, both auto power & sleep timer off, the device still powers off by itself.

 

[Paul - iBasso]

  Bought the DX80 last week, it came with v.1.1.2 & I updated it to v.1.1.4.
overall, very happy with it.
one issue to report though : when using the burn-in cable, both auto power & sleep timer off, the device still powers off by itself.

It should not be turning off. Please try a FW update again and then do a factory reset.

 

[henryc]

1. APE playback cause system hang.
 
2. "Auto Power off" should ONLY work on system idle !
    But now Only not on work key/screen press, turn out system always auto power off during playback or usb-dac connected.
 
3. album image re-sampling just use pixel multiple, that cause low resolution or over resolution album art because a mosaics.
    Pls use at least binliner filter, or bincublic filter to resampling the image.

 

[HiFiChris]

No bug, but a suggestion: a "home" button in the upper right corner, or even better swipe gestures that bring you back from every menu (like it already works in the various menus of "My Music") would be good, as there is no quick way to get back to the playing screen from the different sub-menus of the "Settings" menu.

 

[Paul - iBasso]

  1. APE playback cause system hang.
 
2. "Auto Power off" should ONLY work on system idle !
    But now Only not on work key/screen press, turn out system always auto power off during playback or usb-dac connected.
 
3. album image re-sampling just use pixel multiple, that cause low resolution or over resolution album art because a mosaics.
    Pls use at least binliner filter, or bincublic filter to resampling the image.

Did you do a factory reset? The DX80 should not be turning off while in use. We are checking the APE but so far what we have here is working but continue to run tests.
 

  No bug, but a suggestion: a "home" button in the upper right corner, or even better swipe gestures that bring you back from every menu (like it already works in the various menus of "My Music") would be good, as there is no quick way to get back to the playing screen from the different sub-menus of the "Settings" menu.

We are working on the home system.

 

[henryc]

  Did you do a factory reset? The DX80 should not be turning off while in use. We are checking the APE but so far what we have here is working but continue to run tests.
 
We are working on the home system.

 
Yes I did factory reset.
The APE is playing, but I found what's the problem.
If pick APE song from "Directory", it seems fine.
If pick song from "All music", sometimes APE can play, then if play forward or backward to other APE, system will hang;
sometimes pick APE in "All music", system hang, need to do force shutdown.
(there are over 1000 songs in "All music")
 
Auto-Power-Off seems ok, system not shutdown while playing.
However if playing APE while screen off, system hang, need to do force shutdown.
 
Sounds like the problem is related to APE,
for mp3 flac and dsf seems fine.
Keep testing.

 

[riodgarp]

is that true the pop noise can't be fixed by fw 

  or I should give a attenuator to all my low impedance cans,