[mr.doodle]

I took my monolith apart to see how I could fix the buttons. (yeah it seriously bothers me)

After I put it back together again, my slider switch wasn't working too well but it seems to be okay now. Scary.

Anyway. As you can see, the product IS held together by screws... at least the casing is. However the inside seems to be assembled entirely by snap fitting. Because of their "special manufacturing process" the tolerancing isn't very accurate and so things shake around. Also, you can see the aluminum casing has been CNC milled.

Scroller, USB port, buttons, battery connector

Battery type, maybe it can be ordered.

OLED screen

All the buttons can be removed by pushing really hard on them so they go all the way in and pop out from the inside, except for the slider switch, which is assembled by snap fitting from the outside. If the rattling noise annoys you, I am working on a way to stop most of the rattling. The only one I am unsure of is the slider switch, which unfortunately is the worst of the lot in terms of rattling. Also, I couldn't find a way to get the scroller off either, but that doesn't rattle.

I'd like to one day make my own buttons, but by the time I get the chance I will probably have outgrown the urge.

 

[Helfried]

Nice pictures ! very interesting.
Googling for battery type "PL053450" gives some hits related to "mobile phone batteries" etc.
I think it wont be a problem to replace it if neccesary.
Happy Easter !
Helfried

 

[brianadam888]

Excuse me ... I cant find the reowned Wolfson 24 bit DAC sound chip in those pictures

But I see TWO pieces of Samsung K9K8G08U0M 8G-bit NAND Flash Memory

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianadam888 Excuse me ... I cant find the reowned Wolfson 24 bit DAC sound chip in those pictures But I see TWO pieces of Samsung K9K8G08U0M 8G-bit NAND Flash Memory

There's a Wolfson codec inside the Monolith. Just like the iPod and some other players. That is the 'reowned Wolfson 24bit DAC'.

 

[Helfried]

we dont see the backside of the PCB, maybe there is the wolfson chip ?
here is a list of their "codecs":
http://www.wolfson.co.uk/products/digital_audio/codecs
i dont know which one is inside the monolith, but these are definitely pieces of hardware, chips.
The I-pods does include the same chip? Really?
my daughters ipod-mini doesnt sound great compared to the MX-7000, totally different,less transparent,a bit thin, and the preset-eqs are coloring the sound in a strange way, so they are mostly useless.
But I like the user-interface of the Ipod, it is very ergonomically designed und intuitive.

Maybe the legendary Wolfson Chip is on the other side ?

 

[mr.doodle]

Yeah, there is a difference between a DAC and a codec, from what I've heard the monolith uses a WM8750 Codec, and I don't understand why there's been so much emphasis on the fact that it uses the "24-bit Sigma Delta DAC".

Anyway, both the portable DACs and the Codecs are housed in a very small QFN-32 chip package. They look like this kind of:

You can see the list of all the codecs here.

The wolfson chip is probably on the other side of the Monolith PCB or maybe it's those two small square chips we can see on the PCB above the Flash memory. I don't really know.

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helfried we dont see the backside of the PCB, maybe there is the wolfson chip ? here is a list of their "codecs": http://www.wolfson.co.uk/products/digital_audio/codecs i dont know which one is inside the monolith, but these are definitely pieces of hardware, chips. The I-pods does include the same chip? Really? my daughters ipod-mini doesnt sound great compared to the MX-7000, totally different,less transparent,a bit thin, and the preset-eqs are coloring the sound in a strange way, so they are mostly useless. But I like the user-interface of the Ipod, it is very ergonomically designed und intuitive. Maybe the legendary Wolfson Chip is on the other side ?

Things have moved on since the Mini. There is no 'legendary' Wolfson Chip.

 

[Helfried]

>>and I don't understand why there's been so much emphasis on the fact that it uses the "24-bit Sigma Delta DAC".

"The Monolith Premium’s audio heart is a 24bit Wolfson sigma delta DAC; one of the most sophisticated audio processors available in a portable MP3 player today..."

Its from estarlabs PR , a marketing trick - simple , but effective (as you see)


honestly, I think the sound-differences between well built DAPs are not important today.
Last week I compared two players (Monolith and my old IaudioU2) with different kinds of music (Classical, Jazz,Pop), both had flat eq and all sound-tweaking turned off, and they sounded nearly identical. I started the same piece of music synchron on both players and switched A/B on the mixing-console - listened through the speakers Genelec 1031,Yamaha NS10, Headphones KOSS Porta, SH HD540...maybe there was a little more noise on the iaudio, but thats to low to be percieved in most cases. Otherwise they sounded identical to me. The IAudio's tweaking options are a bit more sophisticated, you can push the bass higher (sometimes useful when listening in a train,car or in loud environment, because of masking effects) and the BBE sounds nice on some stuff.
One Point: the Monolith is able to play the same material at max. Volume a bit more louder , means it has more range to push the level. This can play a role listening to classical music.
On older classical CDs the engineers left 9dB or more headroom to 0dBfs (stupid, instead of using the full 16bits they restricted to 14 1/2 bit...), these recordings are very soft without normalizing.

I ordered an Iaudio U3, it shall arrive the next days, when I will make a last comparsion and decide which player to keep.

 

[mr.doodle]

So I found the WM8750 chip on the monolith. It is in fact on the backside of the PCB. Didn't take a photo of it though, as it's hidden in a small square hole, which I'm pretty sure is made just so you can see the chip.

I also fixed some button rattling and the movement of the PCB within the case. Did you know the whole PCB rattles on the Monolith? It's pretty brutal. You can tell by pressing a button on the right side, and touching a button on the left side and you will know what I'm talking about.

So I fixed it a bit but it made the buttons all crooked, but they feel at least a bit more sturdy.

Couldn't fix the slider switch though, as I said before. It rattles the most, I'll think about how to fix it though.

If anyone is actually interested in how I did it, or seeing the actual chip on the PCB, I'm sure I could manage to take a few photos

 

[bangraman]

Yes indeed. Short of some ancillary components the codec does all the work of headphone amping and "delta-sigma" DACing. The current iPods and a few other players have very similar (and certainly not inferior) codecs implemented in much the same way. Anyone claiming 'the best' SQ out of the Monolith is sorely misled.


The build quality of the Monolith does concern me, mine's received a fair amount of play, but mainly on a 'just left to play' scenario. The controls have been very lightly used and the slider is already occasionally 'binding' against the case.


Given the fact that it's far too large for what it is and doesn't really offer anything out of the ordinary apart from the supposedly bombproof case, I personally find it very hard to praise. It's all the more faintly ludicrous that a player this big actually uses the same size OLED display as the dice-sized Mobiblu DAH-1500.


If it was significantly smaller / thinner and better built / designed controls-wise, it might be easier to recommend as functionally speaking it's a respectable flash player... but certainly not packing anything particularly unique. As for the "24-bit Delta-Sigma DAC" etc, beware of marketing BS, and people who're gullible enough to fall for it.... and more ridiculously, fanboy it.

 

[z-iron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SgtE Lol, if you can't handle the extra 64 grams you shouldn't run, might brake a leg or something... (sry, just had to say something )

Anyways, I think 64 grams is too heavy for a flash player.

 

[mr.doodle]

I actually agree with that, except, I don't mind the size of it. I think it's actually the perfect size for something in my hand. The shape of it however is not very comfortable to hold, and actually hurts after a while of messing around with it.

The iPod nano is a really good player, and the controls and usability have yet to be beat or even matched, not to mention the excellent build quality. I honestly just got the monolith to be different, but I think I would have been better off getting the iaudio 6 when it becomes commonly available.

I definitely don't reccommend the Monolith, especially for its price, and if I wouldn't be losing so much money to return it, I would. I can live with it though. It was just definitely not worth its price, no matter what you've heard, the sound quality really isn't worth the shoddy packaging.

 

[brianadam888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr.doodle I honestly just got the monolith to be different, but I think I would have been better off getting the iaudio 6 when it becomes commonly available.

Indeed.

I never regret buying the iAudio 6 (Terrific SQ, Swing touch, 60mW output, BBE, Mach3Bass etc).

Well, at least the buttons dont rattle

 

[Helfried]

But the IAudio6 is a HD-Player, not Flash . Or am I wrong ?

 

[mr.doodle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianadam888 Indeed. I never regret buying the iAudio 6 (Terrific SQ, Swing touch, 60mW output, BBE, Mach3Bass etc). Well, at least the buttons dont rattle

How do you find the seek time on this player? I mean, does it take a while to actually play a song after you pressed the play button? One thing that I really like about the monolith is how instantaneous it is to actually start playing a song, or how (almost) gapless the tracks are side to side.

Obviously due to the fact that it's a flash player, but what about the iPod nano? The gaps aren't too bad are they?

The iAudio 6 is a HDD based player yes, but it's about the same size as the monolith and much better built. The .85" HDD is supposed to be pretty decent in terms of shock absorption and seek times compared to the larger 1" drives, as well as the power consumption.