LazerBear
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2014
- Posts
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- 29
Hello All,
I recently had the opportunity to spend limited time with all 3 of these DAPs together and thought I’d share my preliminary thoughts about them. Since I didn’t have a lot of time, you should take my (short) impressions on sound with a very big grain of salt – I could not really compare them properly. For the same reason, unfortunately, I do not have any picture for you. As such, this post will focus on usability and UI. Keep in mind, I’m one of those people that changes tracks and albums often – it’s rare for me to listen to more than 3 tracks from the same album in straight order. As such, many of the issues I’ll point out with the interfaces might not matter as much to you if you’re just used to press play and forget about the DAP for the next hour.
Let me also talk a bit about my own biases. I’ve owned a Shanling M0 before, and liked it a lot. I had also heard good things about the Hiby R3, while Fiio not so much - I’ve got friends who spoke to me of bugs and issues with firmware that either took too long to get addressed or did not get addressed at all. As such, I came into this comparison ready to love the M2X, curious about the R3 and kinda uninterested in the M6. Read on to find out how my expectations were subverted.
Usability and UI - Shanling M2X
So, the M2X is the only one of these 3 DAPs that is not based on Android. Rather, it uses what I understand is a custom Linux build. This is commendable in theory – Android has evolved in a bit of a bloaty mess in recent years, and is known for having multiple issues in the way it handles higher bitrate output – but unfortunately it seems to me that the current Shanling firmware falls short of modern DAP standards. Issues range from a weird, bouncy scrolling, to some glitches here and there, to slow(er) loading of album art, and finally a really limited amount of customizability: want to sort your songs any other way than A-Z? No can do. Want to change the album list display to make the cover art larger? Nope. And so on. The options are as bare bones as they get, and while they definitely include all must haves, the interface you get out of the box is the only interface you can have. The screen is also not super high-res, and definitely worse than the other two. Not all is bad, obviously, as swiping through menus is extremely smooth (weirdly, it’s miles ahead vertical scrolling), the volume wheel is definitely a big plus in usability, and swiping right to left on the Now Playing screen gets you to the album track list, regardless of whether you might be browsing some other album or folder in the background. Also, the DAP feels solid as a rock. Oh, and I should mention it’s huge in comparison to the other two. It’s taller, larger, thicker and especially heavier. It feels very much denser, which is kind of scary because it’s also slippery as hell in the hand, thanks to glass on both front and back.
Usability and UI - Hiby R3
The R3 – where to begin? I felt really underwhelmed. I’m not sure exactly why, but I think the first negative impression I got was from the buttons: they wiggle around a bit in their sockets, and they have a slightly plasticy clicky-ness that I just disliked. The screen is very nice, but the interface seems just a tad less smooth than it should be, and there are some weird choices here and there: there’s no way to display the length of any given track before selecting it for play, the menu slice at the top of the screen to switch to different visualizations (Artist / Album / Tidal etc.) stays there after you enter in one of the subcategories, leaving less space for the other sub-options and resulting in small and hard to press interface elements sometimes; also, getting to the album track list from the now playing screen is more often than not hidden behind a three-dot menu, and - something that is borderline criminal for me – the setting to switch from headphone output to line out looks like it should open a pop-up when clicked but instead just switches you to the other output immediately after pressed: I blew my eardrums out for a good 2 seconds due to a missed press. Hiby, if you’re reading this: ADD A FRIGGING WARNING or select menu like everyone else!! It’s not like we flip from Headphone to LO every other minute. Other than this, the interface is pretty good, and there’s a decent degree of customization, so I can’t complain too much. I should also mention that the software is based on Android, but there’s no way to install apps or anything like that, it’s as locked down as they come.
Usability and UI - Fiio M6
The M6 is small, much smaller than either of the other two, it basically feels like a toy in comparison. However, in truth it’s quite the opposite: while the Android build is supposedly locked down and only allows for install of pre-approved app packages (.apk files) from the Fiio website, in reality enterprising users have already found workarounds to install pretty much any app you might want (provided it can function without Google Play services, which are not present on the device). As such, this is the most customizable device of the three. The stock software is not without its hits and misses, however. For starts, the DAP boots up into your “app drawer”, and the home action shortcut (swipe from bottom) also sends you there. If you only use the default music player app, this means one more click to get back to the actual music “home” screen where you can access your files. Weirdly, there’s also no back gesture, to go back one has to press a small back icon inconveniently placed in the upper left corner: if you’re accustomed to using the player with your right hand only, that’s a major inconvenience and easily the biggest gripe I have with the device. The M6 also, just like the R3, does not display track length unless you press on the track to play it, and is also the only one not to have dedicated skip/back hard buttons. On the plus side, there’s a brilliant search function that allows to jump into any album, artist or track with a quick input of the virtual keyboard – this would almost single-handedly sell the device for me, but unfortunately it’s not super reliable: I’ve had issues finding specific albums, and sometimes instead of jumping to the album folder, it will just add it to the queue. As mentioned, you can potentially solve most of these issues by installing other music apps, although you’ll need to find ones suitable to the very small screen.
Sound – preliminary impressions
Once again, I did not have enough time to properly compare these three; however, for what it’s worth, I thought that the Shanling was slightly brighter, with a larger soundstage, and had the most engaging sound – it was the one which made me tap my feet and bob my head to the rhythm the most often. I also thought that the M6 had a nice punchier bass, while for the R3 I couldn’t pinpoint any particular characteristic that made it stand out. Overall I thought sound quality was broadly similar between these three, but if I had to choose one I’d give a marginal edge to the M2X. As a note, all of the above is related to the sinle-ended output only - I could not test the balanced output of the M2X and R3.
Overall – Conclusions
So, the reason why I was looking at these three players was because I planned to buy one. After spending a little bit of time with each, honestly I think I’m going to hold off on the basis of usability alone. Each one of these players does something right – the sound and scroll wheel for the M2X, the nicely sized screen for the R3, the search function and customizability for the M6 – but unfortunately also something quite wrong – the janky scroll on the M2X, the weird-ish interface on the R3, the back button on the Fiio. At the same time, at the speed all three companies are iterating their devices and interfaces, I’m pretty sure that we’ll see some significantly better DAPs coming out real soon, and I do think that, unless you need a DAP right this moment, it’ll pay off to wait. Underwhelming conclusion? Hell yes, but that’s all I can honestly say.
I recently had the opportunity to spend limited time with all 3 of these DAPs together and thought I’d share my preliminary thoughts about them. Since I didn’t have a lot of time, you should take my (short) impressions on sound with a very big grain of salt – I could not really compare them properly. For the same reason, unfortunately, I do not have any picture for you. As such, this post will focus on usability and UI. Keep in mind, I’m one of those people that changes tracks and albums often – it’s rare for me to listen to more than 3 tracks from the same album in straight order. As such, many of the issues I’ll point out with the interfaces might not matter as much to you if you’re just used to press play and forget about the DAP for the next hour.
Let me also talk a bit about my own biases. I’ve owned a Shanling M0 before, and liked it a lot. I had also heard good things about the Hiby R3, while Fiio not so much - I’ve got friends who spoke to me of bugs and issues with firmware that either took too long to get addressed or did not get addressed at all. As such, I came into this comparison ready to love the M2X, curious about the R3 and kinda uninterested in the M6. Read on to find out how my expectations were subverted.
Usability and UI - Shanling M2X
So, the M2X is the only one of these 3 DAPs that is not based on Android. Rather, it uses what I understand is a custom Linux build. This is commendable in theory – Android has evolved in a bit of a bloaty mess in recent years, and is known for having multiple issues in the way it handles higher bitrate output – but unfortunately it seems to me that the current Shanling firmware falls short of modern DAP standards. Issues range from a weird, bouncy scrolling, to some glitches here and there, to slow(er) loading of album art, and finally a really limited amount of customizability: want to sort your songs any other way than A-Z? No can do. Want to change the album list display to make the cover art larger? Nope. And so on. The options are as bare bones as they get, and while they definitely include all must haves, the interface you get out of the box is the only interface you can have. The screen is also not super high-res, and definitely worse than the other two. Not all is bad, obviously, as swiping through menus is extremely smooth (weirdly, it’s miles ahead vertical scrolling), the volume wheel is definitely a big plus in usability, and swiping right to left on the Now Playing screen gets you to the album track list, regardless of whether you might be browsing some other album or folder in the background. Also, the DAP feels solid as a rock. Oh, and I should mention it’s huge in comparison to the other two. It’s taller, larger, thicker and especially heavier. It feels very much denser, which is kind of scary because it’s also slippery as hell in the hand, thanks to glass on both front and back.
Usability and UI - Hiby R3
The R3 – where to begin? I felt really underwhelmed. I’m not sure exactly why, but I think the first negative impression I got was from the buttons: they wiggle around a bit in their sockets, and they have a slightly plasticy clicky-ness that I just disliked. The screen is very nice, but the interface seems just a tad less smooth than it should be, and there are some weird choices here and there: there’s no way to display the length of any given track before selecting it for play, the menu slice at the top of the screen to switch to different visualizations (Artist / Album / Tidal etc.) stays there after you enter in one of the subcategories, leaving less space for the other sub-options and resulting in small and hard to press interface elements sometimes; also, getting to the album track list from the now playing screen is more often than not hidden behind a three-dot menu, and - something that is borderline criminal for me – the setting to switch from headphone output to line out looks like it should open a pop-up when clicked but instead just switches you to the other output immediately after pressed: I blew my eardrums out for a good 2 seconds due to a missed press. Hiby, if you’re reading this: ADD A FRIGGING WARNING or select menu like everyone else!! It’s not like we flip from Headphone to LO every other minute. Other than this, the interface is pretty good, and there’s a decent degree of customization, so I can’t complain too much. I should also mention that the software is based on Android, but there’s no way to install apps or anything like that, it’s as locked down as they come.
Usability and UI - Fiio M6
The M6 is small, much smaller than either of the other two, it basically feels like a toy in comparison. However, in truth it’s quite the opposite: while the Android build is supposedly locked down and only allows for install of pre-approved app packages (.apk files) from the Fiio website, in reality enterprising users have already found workarounds to install pretty much any app you might want (provided it can function without Google Play services, which are not present on the device). As such, this is the most customizable device of the three. The stock software is not without its hits and misses, however. For starts, the DAP boots up into your “app drawer”, and the home action shortcut (swipe from bottom) also sends you there. If you only use the default music player app, this means one more click to get back to the actual music “home” screen where you can access your files. Weirdly, there’s also no back gesture, to go back one has to press a small back icon inconveniently placed in the upper left corner: if you’re accustomed to using the player with your right hand only, that’s a major inconvenience and easily the biggest gripe I have with the device. The M6 also, just like the R3, does not display track length unless you press on the track to play it, and is also the only one not to have dedicated skip/back hard buttons. On the plus side, there’s a brilliant search function that allows to jump into any album, artist or track with a quick input of the virtual keyboard – this would almost single-handedly sell the device for me, but unfortunately it’s not super reliable: I’ve had issues finding specific albums, and sometimes instead of jumping to the album folder, it will just add it to the queue. As mentioned, you can potentially solve most of these issues by installing other music apps, although you’ll need to find ones suitable to the very small screen.
Sound – preliminary impressions
Once again, I did not have enough time to properly compare these three; however, for what it’s worth, I thought that the Shanling was slightly brighter, with a larger soundstage, and had the most engaging sound – it was the one which made me tap my feet and bob my head to the rhythm the most often. I also thought that the M6 had a nice punchier bass, while for the R3 I couldn’t pinpoint any particular characteristic that made it stand out. Overall I thought sound quality was broadly similar between these three, but if I had to choose one I’d give a marginal edge to the M2X. As a note, all of the above is related to the sinle-ended output only - I could not test the balanced output of the M2X and R3.
Overall – Conclusions
So, the reason why I was looking at these three players was because I planned to buy one. After spending a little bit of time with each, honestly I think I’m going to hold off on the basis of usability alone. Each one of these players does something right – the sound and scroll wheel for the M2X, the nicely sized screen for the R3, the search function and customizability for the M6 – but unfortunately also something quite wrong – the janky scroll on the M2X, the weird-ish interface on the R3, the back button on the Fiio. At the same time, at the speed all three companies are iterating their devices and interfaces, I’m pretty sure that we’ll see some significantly better DAPs coming out real soon, and I do think that, unless you need a DAP right this moment, it’ll pay off to wait. Underwhelming conclusion? Hell yes, but that’s all I can honestly say.
