[Chris Matchett]

Has anyone had issues with the rapid charge feature? When using the supplied VOCC cable and charger this is taking several hours to charge and the lights blinking slowly, not rapidly. I suspect the battery life isn't quite right as it's getting maybe 6 hours tops playing as a DAC from a lightning iPod with high gain and bass boost turned on. The iPod is losing power quite fast when not in use too (with airplane mode turned on and no apps running except Music). Both, by the way, were bought at the end of February so still fairly new.
 
EU Oppo tech support suggested the battery is faulty and have referred me to the retailer. I'm ready to send it back for repair/replacement. However that process will take weeks and am hoping an alternative solution can be found. Oppo didn't ask for any diagnostic steps. I've not found anyone else with the same issue though.

 

[Conext]

  Has anyone had issues with the rapid charge feature? When using the supplied VOCC cable and charger this is taking several hours to charge and the lights blinking slowly, not rapidly. I suspect the battery life isn't quite right as it's getting maybe 6 hours tops playing as a DAC from a lightning iPod with high gain and bass boost turned on. The iPod is losing power quite fast when not in use too (with airplane mode turned on and no apps running except Music). Both, by the way, were bought at the end of February so still fairly new.
 
EU Oppo tech support suggested the battery is faulty and have referred me to the retailer. I'm ready to send it back for repair/replacement. However that process will take weeks and am hoping an alternative solution can be found. Oppo didn't ask for any diagnostic steps. I've not found anyone else with the same issue though.

I ran into a similar oddity. Admittedly, I didn't spend too much time analyzing what the exact issue was.
 
In any event, after a few charge/discharge cycles, it seemed to me that the VOCC charger wasn't charging the HA-2. Or if it was, it was doing so very slowly—never switching to it's rapid blinking mode.
 
Personally, I hate carrying more stuff than I need. So I just tossed the VOCC charger back in the box and switched to a 5v 2A USB charger that I carry with me at all times for charging things like my phone and tablet. The HA-2 charges up just fine—albeit, much slower than with the fancy-pants VOCC charger.
 
So, I'd suggest using a third party charger as a test. Basically, anything that allows you to plug in a USB cable and provides 5V. You don't need to worry about the amps too much. Although, if it's a really low value, it'll take a really long time to charge. I'd suggest trying an iPhone or other Android phone charger if you have one. That should work just fine.

 

[Chris Matchett]

Thanks for the reply. 
 
It does charge using the official charger, albeit slowly. I'm more concerned about the battery life, on both the amp itself and also on my iPod touch. I read that 13 hours for analog and 7 hours for digital. Are you still getting that?

 

[BogdanUK]

Hi, i haven't followed this discussion thread from the beginning but i will ask anyway if anyone made a comparison of Oppo HA-2 with the FiiO 18 Kunlun. I am asking this because i have heard both are kind of the same in terms of build, features and sound quality but the Oppo doesn't really justify the high price so the FiiO 18 Kunlun might be a better choice. Thank you

 

[Conext]

  Thanks for the reply. 
 
It does charge using the official charger, albeit slowly. I'm more concerned about the battery life, on both the amp itself and also on my iPod touch. I read that 13 hours for analog and 7 hours for digital. Are you still getting that?

As far as I can tell, yes. Although, I tend to just use it an hour here and an hour there with a week in between uses. What I can say for certain is that the battery is definitely holding onto its charge while it's off.

 

[prez]

Hey all,
 
I've got a question that I haven't seen an answer to in this HA-2 thread (yes, I searched).   I have one of the newer AQ Dragonfly Red DACs, and I just bought a pair of PM-3 headphones.  They seem to benefit (things tighten up a bit, bass is better, treble also seems more articulate) from the Dragonfly Red over just a direct iPhone connection.  I am wondering if the HA-2 would improve the experience even more, or if the upgrade is negligible?   All I can find are comparison's to the Dragonfly 1.2, which is a different architecture from the new models.
 
Any info is appreciated.
 
Thanks,
Shannon

 

[oldmate]

  Hi, i haven't followed this discussion thread from the beginning but i will ask anyway if anyone made a comparison of Oppo HA-2 with the FiiO 18 Kunlun. I am asking this because i have heard both are kind of the same in terms of build, features and sound quality but the Oppo doesn't really justify the high price so the FiiO 18 Kunlun might be a better choice. Thank you

Well my friend if that were true I would be the proud owner of the E18 instead of my oppo HA-2. 

 
 
http://headfonics.com/2015/04/the-ha-2-dac-by-oppo/2/

 

[x_lk]

Has anyone tried pairing ha-2 with an Android phone dedicated for music playing purpose? Low end phones are dirt cheap nowadays. I am wondering how the battery life would be like with cellular network disabled. Is it still worth investing a compatible DMP, such as Sony A10 or A20 series, just for the smaller size and longer battery life? Ha-2 does not get any smaller anyways.

 

[miketlse]

  Has anyone tried pairing ha-2 with an Android phone dedicated for music playing purpose? Low end phones are dirt cheap nowadays. I am wondering how the battery life would be like with cellular network disabled. Is it still worth investing a compatible DMP, such as Sony A10 or A20 series, just for the smaller size and longer battery life? Ha-2 does not get any smaller anyways.

 
Just use your existing phone, and select aircraft mode, to switch off all the network signals.
 
I think the biggest issue is finding a cheap android phone, which allows you to add large SD cards - some DAPS allow you to add 2 * 200 Gb SD cards, and you have a mobile music server. If an android phone only allows you to add one 32 Gb SD card, then it is not really worth bothering.
 
I have started keeping an eye open for cheap tablets (say 7 or 8 inches and £100/150), that would allow the use of two SD card slots. The screen resolution does not need to be HD, just good enough to run the music player app.

 

[x_lk]

   
Just use your existing phone, and select aircraft mode, to switch off all the network signals.
 
I think the biggest issue is finding a cheap android phone, which allows you to add large SD cards - some DAPS allow you to add 2 * 200 Gb SD cards, and you have a mobile music server. If an android phone only allows you to add one 32 Gb SD card, then it is not really worth bothering.
 
I have started keeping an eye open for cheap tablets (say 7 or 8 inches and £100/150), that would allow the use of two SD card slots. The screen resolution does not need to be HD, just good enough to run the music player app.

I use my phone quite heavily and one charge barely lasts a day. This is why I don't want to put extra burden to existing phone. There aren't many reasonably priced DAPs compatible with ha-2. Actually Sony is the only brand I know of, which supports one micro-SD up to 64GB. I think an Android phone supporting both OTG and 64GB card can be had for $50-$100 depending on how cheap you want to go. Maybe I should just buy one and try out. By the way, I consider non-HD screen a plus - it would contribute to longer battery life.

 

[x_lk]

  Thanks for the reply. 
 
It does charge using the official charger, albeit slowly. I'm more concerned about the battery life, on both the amp itself and also on my iPod touch. I read that 13 hours for analog and 7 hours for digital. Are you still getting that?

Do you also use the 'official' OPPO USB cable? I believe VOOC only works with the supplied cable. It's a special cable with 7 pins.

 

[Chris Matchett]

I am (or was using) only the supplied equipment so yes I was using that cable. I say "was" because today I shipped it back to Hi-Fix for repair or replacement.
Of note, my iPod touch's battery life is suddenly fantastic since disconnecting it from the Oppo

 

[oldmate]

I love the HA-2 - I seriously hate the woeful battery life. It discharges whilst turned off and I'm getting about 5 hours connected to my galaxy S3. My trusty old Ibasso D6 leaves the HA-2 in it's wake with regard to battery life. The trend of low mAh non user replaceable batteries in amps/dacs/daps should be of concern. IMHO.
 
On a positive note the synergy with the Aurisonics Harmony is very good.

 

[timechaser]

I have a dilemma or two regarding the HA2.
 
Firstly - am using it with my Galaxy S7 and Oppo PM3. When I plug my headphones directly into the phone, versus the HA2 (and this could be because my ears are not used to differentiating good from bad), I notice a differential but mainly in terms of the sound amplification. I don't see much difference in soundstage, clarity etc. Has anyone else noticed this? This is true both with using Poweramp as well as the Onkyo HF Player. I am in Singapore, so have the international edition of the Galaxy.
 
The second confusion/dilemma is with the Onkyo player itself. There are 20,000 modes which I don't have a clue about, so any guidance massively helpful.
 
1. "Enables Volume control in the background." - thoroughly confused with this. 
2. Upsampling mode - On or Off?
3. DoP Pause Operation - stop output or output DSD Zero?
4. Output DSD 2/6 MHz via DoP - activate or not?
5. Real time DSD Conversion - which mode to use?
 
Edit here: Someone taught me how to search using google! I found a lot of answers on this thread itself, but if someone can tell me (more for knowledge than anything else) as to what all this means (or point me to some resource) I will be ever grateful.
 
Whenever I am listening to music and I get a message or a call, there is this horrible sound emitted from the phone speakers - basically a noise overlay on the ringtones. Is there a way to handle this?
 
Is there anything easier to use which works well with the HA2 than this (specifically on Android and/or Galaxy S7?). I have already paid for the Onkyo unlocking, but don't mind shelling out another 5-7$ for USB Audio Player Pro (as an alternative which pops up when digging on the net) if that is going to be better!
 
Lastly - whenever I have used (and again, with limited experience) iOS devices with something sucking the digital signal out to feed into an external DAC, the volume control on the iDevice has been disabled. This doesn't happen with the HA2 with the Onkyo or Poweramp. Does this indicate an issue or am I reading too much into this?
 
Edit: Addition. Even on full volume out from my phone - I need to use a fairly high volume level on the HA2. Is it just me or... 
 
Any help/guidance will be much appreciated. This is my first time using an external DAC so trying to learn the ropes.
 
P.S. I did try to trawl through the hundreds of pages on this thread and see if I could find answers, but was unable to - so if these questions have been raised and replied to earlier, please do pardon my ignorance.
 
Thank you all!

 

[miketlse]

  I have a dilemma or two regarding the HA2.
 
Firstly - am using it with my Galaxy S7 and Oppo PM3. When I plug my headphones directly into the phone, versus the HA2 (and this could be because my ears are not used to differentiating good from bad), I notice a differential but mainly in terms of the sound amplification. I don't see much difference in soundstage, clarity etc. Has anyone else noticed this? This is true both with using Poweramp as well as the Onkyo HF Player. I am in Singapore, so have the international edition of the Galaxy.
 
The second confusion/dilemma is with the Onkyo player itself. There are 20,000 modes which I don't have a clue about, so any guidance massively helpful.
 
1. "Enables Volume control in the background." - thoroughly confused with this. 
2. Upsampling mode - On or Off?  - Probably Off. Especially if you use some high-res files (16 bit 48khz, 24bit 48khz, 24bit 96khz, 24bit 192khz, or DSD, etc.), you will need to use a program like USB Audio Player Pro (also known as 'UAPP') Or Onkyo player to bypass Androids propensity to automatically upsample ALL music files to 24bit 192khz, which is not a good thing - basically, you would want UAPP or Onkyo to help you feed a so-called 'bit-perfect' data stream to your Oppo, and not allow Android to interfere with the data stream in any way.
3. DoP Pause Operation - stop output or output DSD Zero?
4. Output DSD 2/6 MHz via DoP - activate or not? - Probably activate. oppo plays Stereo DSD (DoP v1.0 or native).
5. Real time DSD Conversion - which mode to use?
 
Edit here: Someone taught me how to search using google! I found a lot of answers on this thread itself, but if someone can tell me (more for knowledge than anything else) as to what all this means (or point me to some resource) I will be ever grateful.
 
Whenever I am listening to music and I get a message or a call, there is this horrible sound emitted from the phone speakers - basically a noise overlay on the ringtones. Is there a way to handle this? 
 
Is there anything easier to use which works well with the HA2 than this (specifically on Android and/or Galaxy S7?). I have already paid for the Onkyo unlocking, but don't mind shelling out another 5-7$ for USB Audio Player Pro (as an alternative which pops up when digging on the net) if that is going to be better! - I have tried Foobar2000, HiBy and UAPP. At first Foobar2000 and Hiby worked ok, but an update to android started to create some internal issues for the phone (I read that sometimes android is running at max capacity updating the screen for instance, that the music playing gets paused for a fraction of a second, causing the DAC to emits pops and crackles), and it became too frustrating to listen to the music. I changed to UAPP which like Onkyo sends a direct stream to the DAC, and so the internal android resource issues no longer cause pops and crackles. So I suggest either Onkyo or UAPP are best, but only you can choose which user interface you prefer.
 
Lastly - whenever I have used (and again, with limited experience) iOS devices with something sucking the digital signal out to feed into an external DAC, the volume control on the iDevice has been disabled. This doesn't happen with the HA2 with the Onkyo or Poweramp. Does this indicate an issue or am I reading too much into this?
 
Edit: Addition. Even on full volume out from my phone - I need to use a fairly high volume level on the HA2. Is it just me or... 
 
Any help/guidance will be much appreciated. This is my first time using an external DAC so trying to learn the ropes.
 
P.S. I did try to trawl through the hundreds of pages on this thread and see if I could find answers, but was unable to - so if these questions have been raised and replied to earlier, please do pardon my ignorance.
 
Thank you all!

 
I have tried to answer some of your questions in red, but I don't use Onkyo so am not an expert on it.