The Luxury and Precision P6 Pro. Where to start? I’ll start with the elephant in the room, the software is lacking. I struggled with it on a few fronts, the biggest being no gapless playback. This impacted what I could load up onto it, I did end up just going with full albums (not split into tracks) which worked fine, just not convenient, and then for when I wanted to move between artists and songs I used Bluetooth. Secondly, navigating the tracks loaded onto the device is not a great experience; slow to scroll, no search, no rapid movement between letters. The other main issue for me was the inability to adjust volume without playing anything, should be an easy fix, and not the biggest problem, but if I changed IEM / headphones between sessions, I sometimes had an uncomfortable level on the next set. Easily overcome by turning it down before stopping playback, but again the software should allow you to do it. From a strictly DAP point of view both of my Walkmans (ZX300 - which with custom firmware can provide a very interesting sound signature, and ZX507) kill it in terms of function as a DAP.
(FiiO Q7, L&P P6 Pro, Mojo 2)
That aside, this device blew me away sonically. Similar to
@o0genesis0o there was no need to wonder which device I was using, the P6 Pro was obvious and subjectively better sounding to my ears. The strangest thing for me, which has me doubting my sanity, is the Bluetooth (AAC) via the P6 Pro, sounds better than USB direct with other portable devices (being my FiiO Q7, Mojo 2 as my main two portables – and it’s not to say that these sound bad at all, they’re just not in the same ballpark). Do you lose some detail over Bluetooth? Yes… but it sounds overall more pleasing to my ears. Is the P6 Pro more technically accurate? I’m really not sure, I think it’s a little way from natural, but it has a special something that makes listening to music so damn enjoyable. It just sounds amazing.
Soundstage and imaging is on a different level once again to the others, it provides pinpoint accurate positioning, but without sounding fake or overdone. Soundstage is what I would say is correct.
It performed well, and improved, everything that I threw at it. I went from cheap IEMs (Kiwi Ears Cadenza being my low point) to my FIR Audio Kr5, along with many different full size cans (I particularly liked the Focal Radiance with this) and you can easily hear the improvement.
What is that improvement? It has a beautiful, clean, smooth sound with plenty of detail but it’s not all in your face like with some devices. Is it how the recording should sound? Maybe not? But it’s certainly a wonderful way to experience music. The Kr5 to me produce something that sounds close to real life (why I bought them), paired with this I get to a musical bliss where I really don’t think there is much room to improve, but I thought the same about the Kr5 by themselves from a decent source so clearly a foolish statement.
I have quite a few notes on albums that I listened to, the standout for me was probably The Doors - The Soft Parade (50th anniversary). I think they did a wonderful job with these editions from a starting point, but the P6 Pro delivers the album in a way that I've never quite experienced. It's probably my least favourite The Doors album but it elevated the sound to something that I believe they were maybe originally going for, the sound is extremely organic, lifelike, and with a wonderful space that the music is played in. Switching back to the FiiO Q7 for this one it is still nice, but the organic, lifelike quality is gone and it just sounds good. This is a similar tale for most of the albums I played.
I mainly used 4.4mm, I’m not sure on the circuitry but 3.5mm did not sound as good when I tried the same IEM on both (volume matched as close as my ears could). It's nitpicking though, it did sound wonderful out of both.
The closest I get from my equipment is probably my Sony TA-ZH1ES, it has some very similar qualities, but the L&P P6P exceeds to my ears particularly on the low end (and I get some noise on IEM's so really can't be used the same).
Where does it leave me recommendation wise? Would I recommend it as a DAP? No, the software just isn’t where it needs to be. Would I recommend it as a portable DAC/AMP with Bluetooth? Absolutely. It’s worth the money sound wise, I really cannot do justice to the sound that comes out of this device.
The DAP went to the next stop on the tour today, I'm back to my standard setup and miss what this delivered. I'm so thankful to have had the opportunity to test it out (thank you Luxury and Precision and
@Damz87 for organising), and hope one day to add this (or it's successor with better software....) to my collection. If you have the chance to listen to this go in cautiously as you won't really want to go back.
