[Andrew Harper]

Something amazing has happened. The phone repair shop I sent it to decided to dig in deeper and tried desoldering and resoldering the chips on the pcb and amazingly got the device running. There is still a weird issue. I think the charging circuit/battery has had some damage. After first time charging it up from the repair shop, my dap went from 100% charge to 67% in an instant after powering up but since then it's draining normallly with regular usage. It even ran on standby without losing any charge. Anyone knows what could be the issue?

Anyways, I am relieved that it is working. Saved me a lot of bucks.

Couple of points that might be worth mentioning. BTW this is not a criticism of you, or anyone else. It's just things I've learn over some time repairing products like these and mobile phone, etc.

On a lot of electronic devices the charging port is a weak link. I've probably repaired nearly 100 various phones, ipods, kindles and various other devices where the charging port has been damaged, either because someone was maybe a little too forceful, or the unit was dropped whilst plugged in (and it landed on the plug and broke the socket). I seen so many people put in cables whilst forcibly wiggling them into the socket. They then wonder why they have problems and the unit won't charge anymore.

Unfortunately most manufacturers don't take this into account. Apple iPhones for example have beefy screws that clamp the lightening connector socket to the case directly which is great. The front screen also acts as a "clamp" down on top of it. Other manufacturers unfortunately don't use anything and simply solder the connector to the main PCB and maybe use some glue to hold it in place. Which over time is not really strong enough. Kindles use this setup and they can break very easily. Thankfully it's on a separate PCB with a ribbon cable so easy to replace. You can't re-solder it, the connections are too tiny.

My first thoughts when I saw your post was that the USB socket had partially come away from the PCB. A classic sign of this is the wiggling of the cable to get it to charge. However your response above makes it sound something far more major and I'm really sorry that you are having the problems.

My other recommendation/advice. Please only use a 1 amp charger for this DAP. I used an newer iPhone charger (2 amp) once and it badly upset the DAP, causing the battery level to jump around all the over the place and when I unplugged it, the level started at 100% and quickly dropped to 60%. It really wasn't happy. I had the same issue with an iPod Classic. My gut feeling is this will over time, damage the battery and might damage the player. Maybe Pioneers fault for not including a 1 amp charger with the player.

Some devices do not like high amp chargers and this DAP certainly seems to be one of them. So I always use a 1 amp charger (very cheap off the internet) and I leave it charging overnight. Takes about 4 hours from 10%. Seems to work as I still get 8 hours of playtime even now.

I've used the Pioneer every day for about a year and a half and thankfully had no issues with it.

Like I say, this is not a critism of anyone on here it's just some ideas I have. Pioneer did not make this player to be very strong from a build quality point of view (headphone socket for example) and it certainly has to be treated with kid gloves.

Like someone mentioned on here I get the impression the Sony players are built like tanks, however they can be more expensive for sure.

 

[miguel.yarce]

Something amazing has happened. The phone repair shop I sent it to decided to dig in deeper and tried desoldering and resoldering the chips on the pcb and amazingly got the device running. There is still a weird issue. I think the charging circuit/battery has had some damage. After first time charging it up from the repair shop, my dap went from 100% charge to 67% in an instant after powering up but since then it's draining normallly with regular usage. It even ran on standby without losing any charge. Anyone knows what could be the issue?

Anyways, I am relieved that it is working. Saved me a lot of bucks.

Congrats! Good to know that your 300r is working again.

 

[aangen]

I have a Fiio X5 III that was making me sad with fiddly things happening all the time. So I bought a 300R. With the 300R different fiddly things happened and it was actually more trouble than the Fiio. So a few weeks ago I bought an LG V30, brand new for $170. The V30 smokes both the Fiio and the Pioneer sound-wise, it's battery lasts longer and you don't have to shut it off to keep the battery from draining. It's amazing and its so cheap. You don't have to search hard to find one, just look on Amazon. Apparently LG made no change sound-wise with the V40 so save some money and stop dealing with funky hardware. Bah!

(and yeah, it used to bother me how the V30 fans were always talking up how good it was. It amuses me that they were right)

(But I got mine for 1/4 what they spent)

 

[miguel.yarce]

I have a Fiio X5 III that was making me sad with fiddly things happening all the time. So I bought a 300R. With the 300R different fiddly things happened and it was actually more trouble than the Fiio. So a few weeks ago I bought an LG V30, brand new for $170. The V30 smokes both the Fiio and the Pioneer sound-wise, it's battery lasts longer and you don't have to shut it off to keep the battery from draining. It's amazing and its so cheap. You don't have to search hard to find one, just look on Amazon. Apparently LG made no change sound-wise with the V40 so save some money and stop dealing with funky hardware. Bah!

(and yeah, it used to bother me how the V30 fans were always talking up how good it was. It amuses me that they were right)

(But I got mine for 1/4 what they spent)

Do you know if the LG V30 have line out? or something like that just to connect it to an amp?

 

[aangen]

I am using the headphone out to my Shure KSE-1200s. I believe the same jack can be a line out, but you may want to do some research. There are V30 threads here with a ton of info. I was just stunned by how inexpensive it is now and how much easier it is to work with than the Fiio or Pioneer. And it sounds amazing, the KSE-1200s don't lie.

 

[areek]

More update on my dap weird battery level indications.
I initially noticed the battery levels were erratic. It would go down straight from 90% to 1% within seconds but then run for 8hours straight while playing on that 1% charge without finally switching off. I figured that the battery is actually okey but the level shown wasn't.

Some of the guys in my local head fi facebook group suggested that I try calibrating the battery, which involves completely discharging the battery then letting it charge upto 100% till it actually remains 100% after turning on. Then again discharging it completely and repeat the process a few times. After a first couple of tries, I thought it wouldn't work as the problem remained, but for the last 2 days, I am seeing quite constant battery drains, so I believe the procedure has actually worked.

@Andrew Harper I took your advice and started using a 1amp charger for this. I was previously using a 2amp charger. Let's hope I don't face the same problem again. Thank you for the advice.


@miguel.yarce thanks.

 

[LightBlue77]

I have a Fiio X5 III that was making me sad with fiddly things happening all the time. So I bought a 300R. With the 300R different fiddly things happened and it was actually more trouble than the Fiio. So a few weeks ago I bought an LG V30, brand new for $170. The V30 smokes both the Fiio and the Pioneer sound-wise, it's battery lasts longer and you don't have to shut it off to keep the battery from draining. It's amazing and its so cheap. You don't have to search hard to find one, just look on Amazon. Apparently LG made no change sound-wise with the V40 so save some money and stop dealing with funky hardware. Bah!

(and yeah, it used to bother me how the V30 fans were always talking up how good it was. It amuses me that they were right)

(But I got mine for 1/4 what they spent)

Aha...i feel avanged i recently bought an used v30 for less then 200$, not for me, but at this price nothing can beat such a complex device, and soundwise is on par with fiio and any other dap costing up to 500$.
To achieve line-out, boost the volume to max then feed it to a good amp. it has a high gain mode triggered by cables or headphones having 50ohms or higher impedance.
Nevertheless, it is not equal, i still own the xdp-300r for the sound it provides, it is better, cleaner than v30, it has more powerful balanced output. Yes, it is slower, has smaller screen, the battery is good when listening to local files, but once i go online, youtube or uapp drains it in a few hours, 4-5 at most. Looking for an upgrade but the price to really make a difference is high.

 

[RIGATIO]

I have both 300r and v30 and the Pioneer has better sound quality. v30 has an amazing value- very good screen (just a tad worse than others, even current flagships, has great performance- is smooth, fast etc., the camera got the second life after installing google camera app and has sound quality comparable to standalone daps for 400 dol.) But when i want really high quality of the sound, need to move to pioneer in Bal. ACG mode. V30 cannot compete with 300r in this area. From bal ACG sound quality is on pair with daps for 900-1200 dol. V30 has great sound anyways- its dynamic, very vivid and smooth, for actual price its a bless.

 

[AdamQK]

I have a Fiio X5 III that was making me sad with fiddly things happening all the time. So I bought a 300R. With the 300R different fiddly things happened and it was actually more trouble than the Fiio.

I'm really amazed at this. I had a Fiio X5 III and its inconsistencies (album art missing, double albums - retagged to run as one - broken up again, random tracks floating around) as well as the constant crashing - I once had to reboot it three times in half an hour - drove me to send it back after a month. I replaced it with the Pioneer 30R, which seemed to have the same problems so this went back within a couple of days, but the 300R? Not a problem. In almost two years I haven't had a single glitch with it, and it remains one of my most prized possessions, taken with me everywhere and indulged in as much as possible. I've been very surprised to read so many negative postings about this.

 

[anemotoad]

Does anyone know why my device loses its music library cache whenever I turn it off? For reference, I am using the Blackplayer app to play music. If I power the device off, it will always need to rebuild the music library from scratch again. Is there any way to avoid the need to do this?

 

[Andrew Harper]

Does anyone know why my device loses its music library cache whenever I turn it off? For reference, I am using the Blackplayer app to play music. If I power the device off, it will always need to rebuild the music library from scratch again. Is there any way to avoid the need to do this?

Hmm, I'm not familiar with the app I'm afraid so maybe another user of it on here may be able to help.

I tried a few other apps and gave up. They would all do the same thing, make you wait a few minutes every time you switched the app on whilst they buffered the music library.

For some reason the Pioneer player doesn't do it. I think it must write a mini database to the internal memory maybe, and it then updates it when it picks up changes in the files.

This may help though, I noticed that it was buffering the library cache every time I switched the app on and taking forever. I then realised that because the podcast app I had on the player had been downloading so many files that the internal memory was very nearly full. So I deleted a bunch of podcasts and the problem was sorted.

The Pioneer app seems to multitask more (if that makes sense) whereas the other apps I tried made you wait all the time, haha.

Sorry I can't help you anymore with that one.

 

[Andrew Harper]

More update on my dap weird battery level indications.
I initially noticed the battery levels were erratic. It would go down straight from 90% to 1% within seconds but then run for 8hours straight while playing on that 1% charge without finally switching off. I figured that the battery is actually okey but the level shown wasn't.

Some of the guys in my local head fi facebook group suggested that I try calibrating the battery, which involves completely discharging the battery then letting it charge upto 100% till it actually remains 100% after turning on. Then again discharging it completely and repeat the process a few times. After a first couple of tries, I thought it wouldn't work as the problem remained, but for the last 2 days, I am seeing quite constant battery drains, so I believe the procedure has actually worked.

@Andrew Harper I took your advice and started using a 1amp charger for this. I was previously using a 2amp charger. Let's hope I don't face the same problem again. Thank you for the advice.


@miguel.yarce thanks.

I hope that all works for you, a shame as I agree it's a great DAP player and I use it a lot.

As a little side-note to the charging issue, I was looking at a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones which have noise reduction, APTx, APTx HD, and so on.

There were some negative reviews on Amazon as Sony ask users to charge only using a PC USB port, and people were moaning about it.

However I think it's exactly the same issue we discussed in the other post. Sony are worried that users will plug them into a supercharged 4 amp iPad charger and destroy the battery! As most users wouldn't be technically minded they've played safe and asked them to use a low amp charging port (I think USB is about 500mA to 1 Amp?) I'm sure if you used a 1 amp or 1.5 amp charger it would be ok. It's the hugely powerful Apple and phone chargers that can do the damage and Sony are worried about this.

Again you could argue that Sony should supply their own charger I suppose

 

[anemotoad]

Hmm, I'm not familiar with the app I'm afraid so maybe another user of it on here may be able to help.

I tried a few other apps and gave up. They would all do the same thing, make you wait a few minutes every time you switched the app on whilst they buffered the music library.

For some reason the Pioneer player doesn't do it. I think it must write a mini database to the internal memory maybe, and it then updates it when it picks up changes in the files.

This may help though, I noticed that it was buffering the library cache every time I switched the app on and taking forever. I then realised that because the podcast app I had on the player had been downloading so many files that the internal memory was very nearly full. So I deleted a bunch of podcasts and the problem was sorted.

The Pioneer app seems to multitask more (if that makes sense) whereas the other apps I tried made you wait all the time, haha.

Sorry I can't help you anymore with that one.

Ahh - that’s slightly frustrating. I didn’t mind using the stock app, but found Blackplayer slightly cleaner. Do you know if there’s any way to hide the folders Android generates in external SD cards in the Pioneer Music app? That was the main frustration I had with it!

 

[aangen]

I'm really amazed at this. I had a Fiio X5 III and its inconsistencies (album art missing, double albums - retagged to run as one - broken up again, random tracks floating around) as well as the constant crashing - I once had to reboot it three times in half an hour - drove me to send it back after a month. I replaced it with the Pioneer 30R, which seemed to have the same problems so this went back within a couple of days, but the 300R? Not a problem. In almost two years I haven't had a single glitch with it, and it remains one of my most prized possessions, taken with me everywhere and indulged in as much as possible. I've been very surprised to read so many negative postings about this.

For me the 300R was always missing album art on one day, okay the next, same playlist both days just to be certain. Every time I turned it on it seemed there was some new adventure to get it to play. Basically, your description of your Fiio. My Fiio bothered me in two ways, one, the long startup time. Two, the long startup time the second time you had to do it because the first time it did not see my second microsd card. Otherwise it was less of a problem than the 300R.

As far as 300R vs. V30, I guess we hear different things. I pulled the memory card from the 300R out and put it in the V30. I have never had a single instance of no album art being displayed. Using USB pro it sounds better to me. I am happy for you that the 300R did the trick. I was hoping for the same. I wanted it to be the answer........

 

[RIGATIO]

For me the 300R was always missing album art on one day, okay the next, same playlist both days just to be certain. Every time I turned it on it seemed there was some new adventure to get it to play. Basically, your description of your Fiio. My Fiio bothered me in two ways, one, the long startup time. Two, the long startup time the second time you had to do it because the first time it did not see my second microsd card. Otherwise it was less of a problem than the 300R.

As far as 300R vs. V30, I guess we hear different things. I pulled the memory card from the 300R out and put it in the V30. I have never had a single instance of no album art being displayed. Using USB pro it sounds better to me. I am happy for you that the 300R did the trick. I was hoping for the same. I wanted it to be the answer........

I think you may like sound of v30 more but technically it sounds worse than the pioneer. I understand that many people would like v30 sound more (even me at the beginning was liking this smooth warmer sound bit more) but after comparison i never had any doubts which is better in therms of clarity, soundstage etc. Pioneer has classy, very revealing reference sound while v30 has more forgiving, fun signature. All of the comparisons where made using native music apps. UAPP, neutron and power amp.