Pioneer XDP-100R vs. Fiio X5 3rd vs. Astell & Kern AK70 - roundup
Apr 11, 2017 at 6:56 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 12

Luge

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Hi
 
As I was not able to choose which balanced "mid-budget" (around €500) DAP should I buy instead of my Pioneer XDP-100R I have decided to exercise my consumer rights and got Fiio X5 3rd and Astell & Kern AK70 to test them in my 14 days cool-off period.
 
What tests I plan to do:
  • Battery life test - how long the player is able to play hi-res FLAC files on somewhat medium volume with my IEMs (Trintity Phantom Master 4) - my Pioneer reached 17hrs result in this test.
  • General DAP (HW/SW) impressions - i.e. formfactor, build, ease of use, convenience.
  • General listening test - subjective impressions about the players while playing similar playlists and the overall "feel" of the players.
  • AB listening tests - detailed subjective comparison of playback of selected tracks/parts of tracks.
 
Conditions:
  • The only suitable IEMs I posses right now are Trinity Phantom Master 4. They are decent but no TOTL performers. There is a chance that I will receive Trinity's TOTL IEM - the Hunter - in the meantime but I doubt that as it is seriously delayed.
  • I will not compare the obvious differences in features - only when something surprises me.
  • Please keep in mind that I am neither audio professional nor trained audiophile - just an average Joe who likes music.
  • I have no gadgets to objectively measure the audio performance of the players.
 
And now why I am writing this in advance: If you have any questions or suggestions regarding testing/comparison of the abovementioned DAPs please feel free to post it here. I am sure I will neither answer all the questions nor perform all the suggested test but I will do my best.

 
Apr 20, 2017 at 6:04 AM Post #5 of 12
Ok, first (and second) impressions:
 
Form factor:
Here the AK70 wins. It is by far the smallest out of the three players and thus the most portable one by far. This is how I want my DAP to be, no need for huge screen.
 
Second is Fiio which is considerably bigger but still small enough to operate with one hand in nearly all circumstances. Third is my Pioneer, which is unfortunately quite huge.
 
User convenience:
Software:
First the Android DAPs: bigger screen and mainly better screen resolution of Pioneer makes the user experience with Android very good, very close to average Android phone. On Fiio with considerably lower screen resolution it is visible that Android is not really designed for such low resolution screens and the experience is not always 100% (too small buttons, condensed menus / applications). However, it is not huge problem and every application I have tried was still fully functional.
 
AK70 is very different as it does not use Android and has very small screen. To be honest, I really do not like the appearance of its interface, it is really ugly :). However, it is fully functional and well designed and I have not found any functional problem with it. Even Tidal interface is usable with no problems.
 
Hardware:
Build: All of the players are well built. The main materials used on all of them are aluminium and glass. The best and most sturdy feel has Fiio closely followed by Pioneer. AK70 feels the most fragile but this comparison is very subjective.
 
Volume knobs: Each player has different style of the volume knob. There are differences in their feel but I had not problem with any of them. The most interesting is the Fiio's knob but well - it really does not matter to me.
 
Buttons and their placement:
Here the clear winner is Pioneer. All buttons are on the right side of the player, the on/off button is considerably bigger and the play/pause button has small but easy to find nib/spike. Therefore it is easy to orient between the buttons while not looking.
 
AK70 has the on/off button on top right and the rest on left side. They are well placed but mainly the fwd / play / rewind buttons feel quite cheap.
 
Fiio looses due to its placement of buttons. Nearly every time when I powered on the player in my hand I accidentally pressed some other button, mostly fwd/rewind buttons, as the are placed on the opposite side (left) than the on/off button. 
 
 
I will follow up this week, I still have some listening to do. Just very preliminary sound impressions: The brightest is the Pioneer with good detail retrieval. AK70 sounds nearly identical to Pioneer but I feel like it is a tiny bit more "mature". With Fiio I feel it is the worst of these three players. It seems like with the other two I hear considerably more details. However, I need to do more blind tests.
 
Apr 24, 2017 at 11:29 AM Post #6 of 12
Hi, quick update on the battery life tests. All players played the same files (24b/96kHz FLAC) in infinite loop with WiFi and BT off. Pioneer was in "Pure mode", Fiio was in "Music mode". Fiio has 1.1.4 FW, Pioneer the latest one (I do not know the version from top of my head). I did my best to level the volume (I would call it "medium volume") but I am sure there were some small differences. Results:

AK70: 9hrs
Fiio: 10hrs
Pioneer: 17hrs

I was quite blown away with the Pionner's performance...
However, here is a proof (I didn't take the photo at the end as it was early in the morning but I have no reason to not believe Android's prediction given the very linear battery drain)


EDIT: Just to be crystal clear - I did the battery test of Pioneer earlier (as is seen from the photo - 8 March) than the other two.
 
Apr 24, 2017 at 12:28 PM Post #7 of 12
Hi, quick update on the battery life tests. All players played the same files (24b/96kHz FLAC) in infinite loop with WiFi and BT off. Pioneer was in "Pure mode", Fiio was in "Music mode". Fiio has 1.1.4 FW, Pioneer the latest one (I do not know the version from top of my head). I did my best to level the volume (I would call it "medium volume") but I am sure there were some small differences. Results:

AK70: 9hrs
Fiio: 10hrs
Pioneer: 17hrs

I was quite blown away with the Pionner's performance...
However, here is a proof (I didn't take the photo at the end as it was early in the morning but I have no reason to not believe Android's prediction given the very linear battery drain)


Wow, that's impressive from pioneer.  Seems about right from my limited time with the fiio.
 
Aug 3, 2017 at 4:28 AM Post #8 of 12
Hi
any update about this potentially interesting comparison ?

Thanks
ciao
 
Aug 3, 2017 at 8:52 AM Post #9 of 12
I ended up buying the Pioneer and very happy so far (no way of doing a comparison). Sound far superior to my iPod and iPhone and the 2 x 200Gb card storage is great. I use one card for Apple Lossless and the other for offline Spotify and Tidal. I use the upsampling filter to 192

Battery life is good and I had about just under half left after a 10 hour flight to Mexico.

I did use the XDap app for transferring from iTunes but this is temperamental to say the least. Fine for a couple of albums but if you add too many to the queue, it crashes. I resorted to dragging and dropping on to the micro SD card.

Not all the album artwork transferred over but I have better things to do than re-tag.

Unfortunately the cover is no longer made however I have seen some reviews on Amazon where people have ,modified the 300 case which I might give a try.
 
Jul 30, 2019 at 3:34 AM Post #11 of 12
[QUOTE = "Luge, post: 13449810, membro: 460985"] Ciao, aggiornamento rapido sui test di durata della batteria. Tutti i giocatori hanno riprodotto gli stessi file (FLAC 24b / 96kHz) in loop infinito con WiFi e BT disattivati. Pioneer era in "Modalità pura", Fiio in "Modalità musica". Fiio ha 1.1.4 FW, Pioneer l'ultimo (non conosco la versione dalla cima della mia testa). Ho fatto del mio meglio per livellare il volume (lo definirei "volume medio") ma sono sicuro che c'erano alcune piccole differenze. risultati:

AK70: 9 ore
Fiio: 10 ore
Pioniere: 17 ore

Sono rimasto molto colpito dall'esibizione del Pionner ...
Tuttavia, ecco una prova (non ho scattato la foto alla fine perché era la mattina presto ma non ho motivo di non credere alla previsione di Android dato il consumo della batteria molto lineare)
 
Sep 10, 2019 at 3:13 AM Post #12 of 12
Hi, quick update on the battery life tests. All players played the same files (24b/96kHz FLAC) in infinite loop with WiFi and BT off. Pioneer was in "Pure mode", Fiio was in "Music mode". Fiio has 1.1.4 FW, Pioneer the latest one (I do not know the version from top of my head). I did my best to level the volume (I would call it "medium volume") but I am sure there were some small differences. Results:

AK70: 9hrs
Fiio: 10hrs
Pioneer: 17hrs

I was quite blown away with the Pionner's performance...
However, here is a proof (I didn't take the photo at the end as it was early in the morning but I have no reason to not believe Android's prediction given the very linear battery drain)


EDIT: Just to be crystal clear - I did the battery test of Pioneer earlier (as is seen from the photo - 8 March) than the other two.

What about sound quality wise???
 

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