[KiD~21]

30% in 1 hour seems a bit much to me, but I have not kept time with my S2.

I don't know if low gain saves battery, but I'd give it a try. Also because of sound quality A firmware update might be of help, although I have not checked the relase notes.

Mind that I have this beep issue with 96kHz streaming from Quobuz. This is reproducible with my S2 (with UAPP on Android and Roon on Windows) but I have not heard of others having this issue. I think it came with 2.0.0.4 update, but it might have been there before and I just did not listen to any 96 kHz Quobuz content in the short time I had the older firmware installed.

I was talking about the old Android smartphone with just a 3500 mAh battery while the more recent phones come with up to 6000 mAh.

Since I think of upgrading it in 2022, hopefully the battery drain won't be the issue no more.

Do you think the gain level is affecting the sound quality?
I haven't noticed much difference, but I definitely need more time with the S2.

I haven't mentioned the firmware... I have initially checked the S2 right out from the box, but then I upgraded it to the latest version the same evening and tested again.

I think those removed EQ presets won't be missed much.
Still the Line-Out is a fair trade-off.

I haven't tried Quobuz yet.
TIDAL is my primary source of music.
Therefore I can't comment on your issue.

Everything is working fine for me.
The only issue I also had was the short hiccup of sound in the beginning of each MQA track.
It can be noticed both in TIDAL app and in UAPP.
But it's a minor flaw that can be neglected.

 

[econaut]

I was talking about the old Android smartphone with just a 3500 mAh battery while the more recent phones come with up to 6000 mAh.

Since I think of upgrading it in 2022, hopefully the battery drain won't be the issue no more.

Do you think the gain level is affecting the sound quality?
I haven't noticed much difference, but I definitely need more time with the S2.

I haven't mentioned the firmware... I have initially checked the S2 right out from the box, but then I upgraded it to the latest version the same evening and tested again.

I think those removed EQ presets won't be missed much.
Still the Line-Out is a fair trade-off.

I haven't tried Quobuz yet.
TIDAL is my primary source of music.
Therefore I can't comment on your issue.

Everything is working fine for me.
The only issue I also had was the short hiccup of sound in the beginning of each MQA track.
It can be noticed both in TIDAL app and in UAPP.
But it's a minor flaw that can be neglected.

Concerning gain level I might have thought about the recommendation for the RU6 where it's low gain.

Also an interesting read in favor of low gain:

https://hifigo.com/blogs/guide/a-be...ne-amplifier-terms-volume-vs-gain-vs-headroom

I just use low gain because I don't need high gain with my S2 and RU6. In the end everyone has to decide for oneself if one hears a difference, which setting sounds better and which one is more convenient.

 

[Bitsir]

So, I just purchased the MEST MK2 and it's on its way to me.

I'm looking for a high end dongle to pair it with and I'm currently deciding between the W2, S2 and RU6.

As far as I've gathered, the MEST MK2 is a very revealing, detailed set with extremely vivid imaging, soundstage expansion and tangible feel of notes and instruments. That's a characteristic I absolutely don't want to lose - but rather accentuate.

With that in mind, it seems like the RU6 is the clear choice as it has been said to offer most width (or at least comparable with W2) and absolutely most 3D palpability, with best life-like grit, viscerality, texture, punch etc. At the expense of some fine-granular, delicate "polish".

I guess what I'm asking is - would the RU6 be too much of a good thing and perhaps the smoother, warmer, more polished and organic presentation of the S2 would pair better with the already vivid MEST MK2?

 

[OspreyAndy]

Not as powerful as the W2 but some people will consider that enough and the MQA decoding 4X is still there
W2 230 mW @32 ohm 4.4
S2 150 mW @ 32 ohm 4.4

On paper does not necessarily translates into actual implementation. I have PAW S1, S2 and W2 and it is without a doubt the S2 is actually more powerful than W2 any which way I am hearing it. The W2 while performs amazing with an already very resolving and efficient IEMs, it fell short driving more demanding stuffs like the Orthodynamics Magnetic Planar of Fostex T40RP MK3 (50 Ohm, 91db sensitivity) or TIN HiFi P1. W2 sounded meek and lean, lacking authority in dynamic transients. The same can be said of S1 which is even weaker. However I must give the thumbs up to Lotoo for bumping the power of S2 to 150 mW per channel (300 mW combined) and this makes it working much better with that stubborn planar now, definitely better than W2. However the very best is still CEntrance DACport HD Single Ended 3.5mm with that Class A 775 mW of power, nothing can beat DACport HD as of yet when it comes to balancing the act of driving both highly sensitive to the most stubborn while keeping fidelity level exceedingly high. Even Ovidius B1 at 480 mW Single Ended is still slightly superior than either W2 or S2

 

[Bitsir]

On paper does not necessarily translates into actual implementation. I have PAW S1, S2 and W2 and it is without a doubt the S2 is actually more powerful than W2 any which way I am hearing it. The W2 while performs amazing with an already very resolving and efficient IEMs, it fell short driving more demanding stuffs like the Orthodynamics Magnetic Planar of Fostex T40RP MK3 (50 Ohm, 91db sensitivity) or TIN HiFi P1. W2 sounded meek and lean, lacking authority in dynamic transients. The same can be said of S1 which is even weaker. However I must give the thumbs up to Lotoo for bumping the power of S2 to 150 mW per channel (300 mW combined) and this makes it working much better with that stubborn planar now, definitely better than W2. However the very best is still CEntrance DACport HD Single Ended 3.5mm with that Class A 775 mW of power, nothing can beat DACport HD as of yet when it comes to balancing the act of driving both highly sensitive to the most stubborn while keeping fidelity level exceedingly high. Even Ovidius B1 at 480 mW Single Ended is still slightly superior than either W2 or S2

Hi Andy, thanks for your effort.

I found this description & comparison between RU6 & W2 and I am wondering if you largely agree with it:

"RU6 = more realistic sound, horn speaker dynamics, less detail & refinement, far more excitement & startling factor. Faster with more air & less processed, potentially fatiguing.

W2 = less realistic, conventional speaker dynamics, more detail & refinement, far more delicacy & smooth polish. Slower with less air & more processed, easy to listen to."*

Also, how does the S2 mostly differ from them?

 

[OspreyAndy]

Hi Andy, thanks for your effort.

I found this description & comparison between RU6 & W2 and I am wondering if you largely agree with it:

"RU6 = more realistic sound, horn speaker dynamics, less detail & refinement, far more excitement & startling factor. Faster with more air & less processed, potentially fatiguing.

W2 = less realistic, conventional speaker dynamics, more detail & refinement, far more delicacy & smooth polish. Slower with less air & more processed, easy to listen to."*

Also, how does the S2 mostly differ from them?

Thanks. And I agree with you. However the listening device you use play larger role in the sound definition. The source always aim to be as transparent as possible. For example RU6 can be as clinically resolving when used with Etymotic ER4SR or Shure KSE1500, but will be more musical and less precision with the likes of TIN HiFi T3+.

In summary the S2 to me is the smoothest sounding Dongle available now that still offer amazing articulation of details and imaging - not an easy thing to achieve as many tried to do this and ended up sounding dull edged. S2 strength is NOT to splash things out with pronounced crispness - this will appeal a lot to those preferring their music smooth and pristine at the same time. Audio is a subjective thing after all, the definition of indulgence ultimately decided by the listener taste and sensitivity level to sonic responses

 

[musicday]

Some prefer RU6, others S2 or W2.They are all really good dongle dacs.

 

[Bitsir]

Some prefer RU6, others S2 or W2.They are all really good dongle dacs.

My take-away judging by written impressions is that they all play in the same ballpark with slightly different tilts.

The RU6 is giving me the impression of presenting music same way horn speakers do: with unparalleled immediacy and rawness (at the expense of finesse).
I love music when it grabs you by the shoulder and immerses you viscerally and so I think the RU6 is going to fit me the best, all things considered.

 

[utdeep]

Is there any way to lock this into UAC1 mode?

 

[Pelilin]

I bought the lotoo paw s2 are there any way to downgrade firmware?

 

[Gus141]

… I think there is a bug it suprise me a lot. my gosh. I hope this dont happen again.

It will probably happen again. It happens to me too; @econaut mentioned it first here and is in contact with Lotoo. I’m patiently awaiting a firmware fix.

 

[Charlie Norwood]

For those who are interested, my full detailed review of Lotoo PAW S2 is up!

Excellent review. Could you possibly share a little more about the 4.4 LO sound and how it compares to the 4.4 LO on the 6000 when paired to cayin c9? Would the s2 be as good or nearly as good as the 6000 when just looking at LO performance? I just got a c9 today and hoping the s2 can be the desktop and transportable solution as I don’t need another full dap like the 6000 when I just want usb dac with a clean 4.4 LO when streaming via uapp or Roon.

 

[econaut]

It will probably happen again. It happens to me too; @econaut mentioned it first here and is in contact with Lotoo. I’m patiently awaiting a firmware fix.

Can you confirm that it only happens with Qobuz 96kHz content?

I encourage you to report your findings also to Lotoo, so they get a little more pressure to fix this.

Concerning downgrading Lotoo answered me this. I didn't bother to ask again if flashing an older firmware would work, because I don't have a file with which I could try.

Hello Mr. ...,

We feel sorry to tell you that we don't support the firmware download for our all products' firmware.


--------------
Best Regards,
Lotoo Service Team

 

[twister6]

Excellent review. Could you possibly share a little more about the 4.4 LO sound and how it compares to the 4.4 LO on the 6000 when paired to cayin c9? Would the s2 be as good or nearly as good as the 6000 when just looking at LO performance? I just got a c9 today and hoping the s2 can be the desktop and transportable solution as I don’t need another full dap like the 6000 when I just want usb dac with a clean 4.4 LO when streaming via uapp or Roon.

If you are looking for a clean LO to pair up with your C9, there is no competition between S2 and paw6k. 6k has an advanced dedicated LO functionality with either fixed voltage (different settings) or variable output control. And it is a lot cleaner. In my review the mentioned similarity between S2 and paw6k is relative to headphone output and with specific pair of IEMs. For external amp like C9, given a choice between these two sources, paw6k wins hands down and its LO pairs up great with C9.

 

[Gus141]

Can you confirm that it only happens with Qobuz 96kHz content?

I encourage you to report your findings also to Lotoo, so they get a little more pressure to fix this.

Concerning downgrading Lotoo answered me this. I didn't bother to ask again if flashing an older firmware would work, because I don't have a file with which I could try.

**EDIT** 1-26-2022: Firmware 2.0.0.5 issued on Jan 26 fixes the issues I encountered and explained in the post below. So, don’t read this post; just update your firmware and enjoy the S2.

——————————————————————-
S2 ‘Continuous-Buzz-Tone’ bug testing:

The buzz-tone bug is elusive and doesn’t show with any predictable repeatability for a given track, but appears all of a sudden after playing a whole playlist or album for a while, and usually doesn’t occur on the same song. So I decided to troubleshoot this issue by playing the same album all the way through for each streaming service I use (Apple Music, TIDAL, Qobuz) I played the entire album ‘America’ by Thirty Seconds to Mars (96kHz version). I chose a 96Khz album since others said they had problems with that sample rate on S2. I may try a dedicated test like this with other refresh rates at another time, but right now I’m setting the S2 aside and using other kit until they put out a firmware update (except I may continue to use the S2 with TIDAL, but not other services, see below).

Here are my results:

[this was connecting an S2 via USB-C to an iPad Pro 12.9” 2020 via the included (new version) Lotoo USB-C-to-USB-C cable]

• Apple Music: the ‘America’ album played almost all the way to the very end without a problem until 44 seconds left on the last song…and then the continuous tone sound started and only stopped by pulling the S2 out of the USB-C socket. The music progress counter continued to show the song was still playing; the player never locked up.
  • I plugged the S2 back in and queued up and played just the last 2 songs on the album without issue.
  • I played the last song again without issue, so it’s not a song problem but maybe an issue with playing 96kHz music over a duration of time causing maybe a memory overrun or some other software issue [?]
• TIDAL: I chose the ‘Master’ version of this album since it unfolds on the iOS device to 96kHz via the iOS TIDAL native app before passing it to USB output (so no passthrough from iOS devices and MQA decode on the S2, just rendering; shows on the S2 display as ‘MQA 96K/32b’ on the first line and ‘OFS / 4X’ on the second line)
  • The entire album played all the way through without an issue via TIDAL from my iPad
  • Since Qobuz-sourced 96kHz music had problems (see next section) yet MQA material did not, it could be an AD Filter issue since MQA uses their own proprietary upsampling filters [?]
• Qobuz: 96kHz High-Res version. Results:
  • First track, 2 minutes in, got the buzz-tone; app still showing I was playing the song; disconnected S2, then reconnected and played song through without issues so continued playing the album
  • After getting through 3 tracks, the 4th song on the Album caused the buzz-tone 18 seconds into the song; disconnected and continued to play the Album
  • Got to the end without further incident.

I haven’t done these test exclusively with non-96kHz music, but I also don’t remember getting this buzz-tone with anything but 96kHz material (more testing is needed). Usually my listening style is more playlist-based with mixed sample rates and I have gotten the buzz doing that but don’t remember what sample rate was playing at the time.

Quite frankly, I’m done with the S2 until a new firmware is out. It’s too distracting wondering whether my music selection is going to result in an audio problem, especially considering my W2 dongle works flawlessly and sounds better.

Cheers,
Gus