New owner of a PAW 6000 and having set it up and burned it in and now seriously using it, posting some observations as a new owner that might help someone else on the fence of owning one (Or Not) - Apologies up front for the length of this post.
If I misstate anything below, I'd appreciate if someone would let me know or if you have found another way for items I discuss below, as I've looked around on various forums and have not found other ways (will make sense as you read)
And as always what I'll say below is IMO and YMMV.
First off, wanted to say Thank You to Andrew at Musicteck.
Due to a heavy work schedule, I actually did not read postings here and missed the Labor Day sale by a few days, and asked if MusicTeck would be willing to extend the pricing for a few days, and they did! Great Customer Service! Can't say enough about Andrew and MusicTeck!
As there are MANY reviews, articles and postings here and elsewhere on the net from reviewers more credible than I, I'll just leave it as for my ears this DAP is almost perfect, and in general agree with all that has been written about this DAP.
IMO, the PAW 6000 is one of the best sounding DAP's I've used. As many have stated its more "neutral to reference" in sound, sounding clear, clean and not adding color to the music. From what I remember from trying a Lotoo PAW Touch Gold (LPTG) at CanJam, it seems to be a little more forgiving on less than optimum recordings/files than the LPTG. But it has been a while and my memory could be jaded.
I'm definitely enjoying the Lotoo House sound. I do also now own a Lotoo S1 to use with my iPhone/Tablet, and while some say the sound is similar, the PAW 6000 has slight edge on clarity. This speaks volumes to the S1's capability, but also says a lot about the PAW 6000 also.
Next chance I get I'd like to do some back to back listening of the PAW 6000 to a LPGT, but for now and form memory I think I'll be staying with the PAW 6000 for a while.
I've purchase and sold many models of DAPs from both AK and FiiO as they sound OK but it was this "just OK" sound the reason I've sold them all off.
The Android based OS always just "bugged" me. The way it sorts, the slowness of doing tasks, and many times the sound was not as a well rounded as the portable AMP/DAC combos i've used/owned.
I am definitely NOT an Apple Fanboy, so please don't engage me in a IOS vs Android discussion as I'll be the first to admit the Android OS has lots of merits over IOS and visa versa, but the music players display characteristics in Android OS' is NOT one of them.
Love them or hate them, the Apple OS and apps makes it easy to sort, display and get info for music in a way that makes sense. Using apps like Foobar or Hiby extends the Apple music players for files the Apple based players don't handle natively (and having to use those apps are why I kept looking at non Apple based DAP's)
Specifically I like sorting my music by "Last Name" of the artist. But during Playback I'd prefer to see the artist name as "first name-last name". While the MP3/FLAC music formats allow for tagging information to sort artist by last name, and display by first name, most Android players DO NOT use these tags, and its just frustrating. It forces me to use apps like MP3TAG to rename the tags for DAP Players as "Last Name, First" to be able to sort, but then it displays the music in the same format.
Most don't care, this is just my personal preference, so this is definietly YMMV kind of comment.
I've looked online for hints or tools to make Android players do this and have NOT been able to find any. If someone knows of one or how to do this PLEASE share.
Also the Apple music apps automatically sort albums by year of release and show that year of release info in the album sort menus. It just allows you to display and sort music in a way that to me is just easy and natural as well as informative.
While the Lotoo OS also forces the same retagging to sort by last name, it does seem to pick up a display name tag for some of my music. Not perfectly and NOT always but its a good first step. (IMO)
Jury is still out but I think I will be retiring my AMP/DAC combos except for the Lotoo S1 to use with my IOS devices, as the sound signature of the PAW 6000 and the S1) is more in line with what I like so I'm willing to put up with the music display issues for now, but ultimately it is what always keep driving me back to AMD/DAC combos to hang off my IOS devices and sell off my DAPs.
Now for the things I've not seen written about that while not a total deal breaker for me, if it wasn't for the speed of the OS to do tasks and the clarity/sound quality, these issues could be a deal breaker for some (IMO)
Playlists.
I've not found any tool or way to import in playlists.
Being a little OCD I wanted my playlists to be similar on my DAP and iPhone so it forced me to take the time and hand enter in each playlist manually. Tedious indeed, but at least the Lotoo OS is snappy/fast so while a chore, it was not the slow process I've seen on making playlists on Android OS' when they did NOT properly import in M3U files
A nice feature that I have not seen since my first IRiver based as well as Creative Labs Nomad branded DAP's is the ability to add on to an existing "now playing" function.
Having this feature in the PAW6000 actually will reduce the number of playlist I'll need, as picking music to start, and just adding to it as a running " now playing" list and then being able to save that as a new playlist is a welcomed feature.
Lotoo OS allows the ability to move music around within a playlist quickly. but oddly enough it does NOT allow you to resort playlists within the Playlist menu. Feels like an oversight and hopefully something they will change in a future FW update. Just feels odd that is not a function already.
(IF someone does know of ways to import playlists OR resort playlist in the playlist menu, please do post as it would be greatly appreciated.)
I've tried to see if I can manually do it when editing the SD card on my PC, but the Lotoo OS time stamps all files with a date of 4/8/20 and uses a cryptic filename format of LISTN_(7 numbers - which don't follow any format I can decipher, Not Julian date or time based on time zone in those 7 characters)
All Playlists are in a hidden folder called "Playlists" for anyone interested. Will keep trying to figure out the naming to see if I can force a manual sort.
Database on SD Card syncing
This is an odd one. You can make edits to tags for your music, and some show up immediately. Others can take as long as 3-7 days to show up.
I saw it mentioned on the LPGT forum here in Head-Fi that it would be nice to have a "manual resync" button in settings and agree. I use a very fast SD card from SanDisk rated with all of the fastest ratings so its not the speed of the card at issue here. Other mentioned it is the way the Lotoo OS only scans for certain changes and does a full rescan at some interval that no one has been able to pinpoint. This feels like the reason I am seeing this.
I've found that editing the hidden folder called "system" and deleting out the file ending in "DB" forces a resync immediately, but it also can cause a corruption that ONLY a reformat of the SD card will resolve. Back up your SD card before doing this.
I'll keep playing with files to see if I can find a safe resync process, but if anyone else knows of a "how to" within the Lotoo OS please post.
Streaming Via Bluetooth
I've been VERY pleased on how well and how fast the Bluetooth DAC works, so that I can do streaming from phone to the device when needed (the occasional use of Tidal or Amazon HIFI streaming) but this is really why I purchased the S1 also, and not a deal breaker. For someone really reliant on a streaming service for music, this is probably a
deal breaker.
Why am I willing to put up with the peeves that forced me to abandon other DAPs?
It is the sound quality (Parametric EQ, the LTE sound effects, and mostly the "NO Effects/NO EQ" sound quality) that has me using this device.
For now, very happy with the device, the sound and the functions.
If it sorted names and used all the tagging information to display lists, artist and album info, I'd stop using the Apple devices, as the sound is SO MUCH better through this DAP.
Hope this info helps someone, and hopefully someone out there know answers to the items I've asked above.
And as always the above are my opinion and YMMV.
