LONZO
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 8, 2009
- Posts
- 14
- Likes
- 14
I just got my Pioneer XDP 100R last week and I've completed all of the system updates that were available. I did a lot of review searching prior to purchasing the Pioneer DAP and found most of the information was pretty old and before updates, such as removal of the volume limiter, etc. I'm curious to know what you guys/gals think of the unit now that you've had some time to tweak it to your liking. Can you share what you've discovered to get the best sound out of your unit that may save the rest of us some time and searching? Was there any product performance improvement with Burn-in. Which headphones do you find sound the best with your Pioneer XDP 100R?
I'm still breaking my DAP in. I've loaded PowerAmp, TIDAL, Pandora, VLC (for Videos) and that's it! I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 and that's loaded with my junk apps. I want the Pioneer pristine for just audio listening and I'm trying to fine tune it to the best of it's abilities. I've found the native Pioneer music app to be useful but not very intuitive. Playlist creation is tedious but less so after practice. It's not fun to look at or use. (Pioneer please put some work into this and upgrade) PowerAmp, which I learned about through Head-Fi research is amazing, offering great flexibility and usability with the Pioneer XDP 100R, but I was shocked when it refused to play my Hi-Res Aretha Franklin's 30 greatest hits in the 196khz, 24bit format .wav file. HUH!!!!??? I'm hoping that Beta version for expanded Hi Res fixes this, but other than that it works great with the DAP; better in fact than the native music app. The volume control it provides is much tighter than Pioneer's which you have to crank up to about "120" to start getting in the decent listening range. What worries me about this is that my Shure IEM (SE530's) are so sensitive and being "In Ear Monitor" will blow my frigging eardrums out if I switch applications and not pay attention in advance to the volume level. Speaking of volume levels - the on screen touch volume is smooth and precise while the wheel does a weird in and out attenuation thing while scrolling (can't explain it technically, but it's almost like it's resisting being turned up).
My experience so far has been between good and excellent (Still deciding!) Hardware is nice, but the volume knob is in a weird place and is best locked out with screen to avoid annoying changes (Rating = good). Native apps and interface is functional though not fully intuitive, but add the full open android and apps selection to fully customize your experience (Rating = excellent) The sound potential is definitely there screaming to get out but the mad scientist in you will have to find the right combination to tweak it to your ears; massive flexibility though (Rating= Excellent) From a headphone perspective I've driven Shure SE530,Westone 3, Oppo PM3, Bose QC15, and 64 Ohm Senheisser HD280 Pros all equally well and without any notable distortions besides the specific character of the earphone/headphone (Rating = Excellent) The quirks in my opinion are few: not a lot of cases to protect your investment, volume knob is placed poorly and has weird attenuation characteristic, VOLUME CONTROL must be fixed - this is dangerous, (open this thing wide up, so it can be standardized across application layer vs. variable amongst each app)
Overall, the Pioneer XDP 100R is a beautiful and worthwhile player. At 600.00 is it 3 times better than my FIIO X3 (2nd Gen), no, but the sound is noticeably better and worth the money. I don't think I've tweaked the unit to it's peak performance yet but with a bit of burn-in, a few firmware updates, and the right application/s I know this thing will scream!
P.S. My music file formats range from tons of DSD, FLAC, WAV, and now my least favorite MP3's but they all sound 10x better on this than on my amped S7 Galaxy, Iphone 6, or iPad - as should be expected.
Didn't plan to write a full essay here, but I wanted to start another "RECENT" thread on this device which I think has a lot of potential if we can share our tweaking experiences to squeeze every drop out of this beast. What have you guys done with yours and what do you think about the unit?
I'm still breaking my DAP in. I've loaded PowerAmp, TIDAL, Pandora, VLC (for Videos) and that's it! I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 and that's loaded with my junk apps. I want the Pioneer pristine for just audio listening and I'm trying to fine tune it to the best of it's abilities. I've found the native Pioneer music app to be useful but not very intuitive. Playlist creation is tedious but less so after practice. It's not fun to look at or use. (Pioneer please put some work into this and upgrade) PowerAmp, which I learned about through Head-Fi research is amazing, offering great flexibility and usability with the Pioneer XDP 100R, but I was shocked when it refused to play my Hi-Res Aretha Franklin's 30 greatest hits in the 196khz, 24bit format .wav file. HUH!!!!??? I'm hoping that Beta version for expanded Hi Res fixes this, but other than that it works great with the DAP; better in fact than the native music app. The volume control it provides is much tighter than Pioneer's which you have to crank up to about "120" to start getting in the decent listening range. What worries me about this is that my Shure IEM (SE530's) are so sensitive and being "In Ear Monitor" will blow my frigging eardrums out if I switch applications and not pay attention in advance to the volume level. Speaking of volume levels - the on screen touch volume is smooth and precise while the wheel does a weird in and out attenuation thing while scrolling (can't explain it technically, but it's almost like it's resisting being turned up).
My experience so far has been between good and excellent (Still deciding!) Hardware is nice, but the volume knob is in a weird place and is best locked out with screen to avoid annoying changes (Rating = good). Native apps and interface is functional though not fully intuitive, but add the full open android and apps selection to fully customize your experience (Rating = excellent) The sound potential is definitely there screaming to get out but the mad scientist in you will have to find the right combination to tweak it to your ears; massive flexibility though (Rating= Excellent) From a headphone perspective I've driven Shure SE530,Westone 3, Oppo PM3, Bose QC15, and 64 Ohm Senheisser HD280 Pros all equally well and without any notable distortions besides the specific character of the earphone/headphone (Rating = Excellent) The quirks in my opinion are few: not a lot of cases to protect your investment, volume knob is placed poorly and has weird attenuation characteristic, VOLUME CONTROL must be fixed - this is dangerous, (open this thing wide up, so it can be standardized across application layer vs. variable amongst each app)
Overall, the Pioneer XDP 100R is a beautiful and worthwhile player. At 600.00 is it 3 times better than my FIIO X3 (2nd Gen), no, but the sound is noticeably better and worth the money. I don't think I've tweaked the unit to it's peak performance yet but with a bit of burn-in, a few firmware updates, and the right application/s I know this thing will scream!
P.S. My music file formats range from tons of DSD, FLAC, WAV, and now my least favorite MP3's but they all sound 10x better on this than on my amped S7 Galaxy, Iphone 6, or iPad - as should be expected.
Didn't plan to write a full essay here, but I wanted to start another "RECENT" thread on this device which I think has a lot of potential if we can share our tweaking experiences to squeeze every drop out of this beast. What have you guys done with yours and what do you think about the unit?
