[Young Spade]

^LOl sucks man. I dropped mine out of a truck face first onto the concrete in a parking lot. Damage? None  
 
But it fell completely FLAT (with an ALO Rx on top) so the damage was perfectly dispersed throughout the player. Lucky? Hell yea. The all metal back is nice though. Very good quality build. 

 

[dw1narso]

 
Quote:

Hi David.
 
I asked my client but she would rather wait to go public with the launch once all the publicity work is in motion. Once that is done (and I have to get on with writing the liner notes for the album before that!) then I will post a thread on the forum with details.
 
I can say that she is very aware of the importance of sound quality from a HIFI perspective and the album certainly sounds very good on a decent set up ( I just listened to it yesterday through a DCS/Krell/Sonus faber set up and it sounded wonderful through that!)
 
Her music has many influences, urban jazz right through to Elizabethan influence madrigals!

Sorry that I missed your reply... Thanks for your update... I will definitely wait for it to come out... especially after you said it sound wonderful over Krell/Sonus Faber .... I believe they are quite unforgiving devices...
 

 

[borrego]

I own a batch 3 S:flo2 and I am a Chinese living in Hong Kong.
 
I must tell the truth that MY very S:flo2 sounds better than all the portable cassette players, portable CD/MD players, MP3 players I have owned in the past. It is especially true for its line out.
 
BUT, and it is a big BUT, you have to know that not all S:flo2/T51 are created equal and sound the same.
 
There are user cases in the Chinese MP3/4 forums, and in the head-fi S:flo3 threads reporting:
 
1. One fellow in the Chinese forum saying he owns 3 T51 and each sounds differently.
2. Many users reports that they cannot start up the players without plugging in the USB cables.
3. Screen quality issues (color bands)
4. Battery life get shorten significantly after a few months of daily use.
 
So what do all this tell? Being a Chinese and having quite a bit knowledge at the consumer electronics production in China, I would tell you the following:
 
1. The MP3/MP4 players markets in Chinese in extremely cut-throating. There are over 20 brands and all of them uses pretty much the same 2-3 chipsets. The manufacturers are forced to release immature products to the markets, to gain market share with gimmicks/new features before loosing it to the other brands.
2. Teclast is such an company in the above mentioned category and the initial batches of the T51/S:flo2 are immature product, not only in terms of firmware, but also in terms of key components selections (e.g. screen, battery, volume control, capacitor/resistor with accurate values). The people in the Chinese forums have many discussions on the differences/issues of 09 week 43, 09 week 50, 10 week 20 batches of the T51
 
So my advices are:
1. Never buy the initial batch/releases of ANY Chineses brand MP3/4 player (the same applies for some Korean brand players as many of them are also made in China).
2. Wait till at least the 3rd or 4th firmware updates, to find out if the problems are caused by buggy firmwares, or fundamental designs issues.
3. Be prepared that some issues will NEVER get fixed, no matter how it seems to be an easy problem to fix.
4. Never hot unplugging the USB cable in data connection mode. Otherwise sooner or later you will corrupt the file system or worse, toast the flash memory.
 
I waited till firmware V2.0 and 10 week 20 batch of the T51 was announced before I made my order of my S:flo2. But I still have to accept the fact that the issue of not displaying OGG file ID3 will probably never get fixed.

 

[ckchan526]

Quote:

 waited till firmware V2.0 and 10 week 20 batch of the T51 was announced before I made my order of my S:flo2. But I still have to accept the fact that the issue of not displaying OGG file ID3 will probably never get fixed.

Hi borrego, i bought a T51 from Shanghai last month.. how to check the production batch info? thx

 

[Antony L]

As an owner of a batch one sflo2 i am still blown away with this player ,as i use folder browsing none of the bugs worry me .
im one of the few who dont rate the ho too much and i dont think it does bass very well ,as i said in the other sflo thread 2 tracks that stood out were on the ultrasone demo cd and lord of the rings soundtrack ,it just cant reproduce the low menacing textured rumble compared to the line out.
ive had replies saying "the graphs show no bass roll off" but the results are so black and white theres no mistaking it.
I supose the 2 opamps are going to have differant sound signatures but to anybody who cant tell between the lo and ho i think wax removal may be the order of the day.
the best thing with the sq to me is the way it deals with complex and busy music ,slicing through the layers and seperating .
roll on sflo3

 

[borrego]

Quote:

Hi borrego, i bought a T51 from Shanghai last month.. how to check the production batch info? thx

Look at the 4 digits after the "W" letter. For example If it is 1012, then it is produced at 12th week of 2010

 

[ckchan526]

Hi borrego, thx.. mine is W1012.. hope it's the 'better' version of t51..  this is what i found so far about the sub-standard components..

http://www.soomal.com/doc/10100001292.htm

 

[borrego]

Quote:

Hi borrego, thx.. mine is W1012.. hope it's the 'better' version of t51..  this is what i found so far about the sub-standard components..
 
http://www.soomal.com/doc/10100001292.htm

The writer of that article suspect the OPA2608 used in his T51 was faked (resulted by a corrupted component buyer in Teclast). But he could not prove it. I also don't believe faked chip component will be used in mass production devices as it could not not be able passing QC.
 
What I referred to were not "faked" components, but lower grade/difference components used in different batch of production . The price of LCD screen, flash memory chips, Lithium batteries do fluctuate and the manufacturer has to source components from multiple suppliers to keep the cost control.

 

[ckchan526]

noted.. thx for sharing..