T.R.A.N.C.E.
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2010
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The game of industry is really up to Onkyo and Pioneer now.
AK380 can't play DSD256 nor it has a quadcore snapdragon CPU (the same CPU of Samsung Note 4).
AK380 and AK240 suffer from very short battery life (4 hours) but this new device doesn't (10 hours).
AK380 has only one microSD slot while this one has two.
AK380 is 3,499 dollars (4,499 dollars include an amp)... if Onkyo and Pioneer guys decide around $500, the game is pretty much set.
iRiver will never be able to put their feet in the market again for the next 10 years unless they refund all the money to their buyers and reduce their price.
X7 will not be able to even compete with this spec... it will be just another Chinese device which people will not buy.
The Pioneer XDP-100R will probably be in the ball park of $500, the Onkyo DP-X1 will obviously be more than that, hopefully not too much more.
I agree that Onkyo and Pioneer could nicely shame AK with these daps. The Onkyo and Pioneer will likely do everything better than the AK line. The markups on the AK daps are criminal. I never bought an AK product, not because I couldn't afford it but because I did not want to support a company that is so greedy. But different strokes for different folks I suppose.