[psikey]

Are there any better alternatives than the ES100? Are there other portable bluetooth receivers with "better" integrated dacs? Better in terms of resolution, soundstage, imaging, tonality?
Cheers

I'd give the Fiio BTR3 a try too if your headphones are not too demanding and your not bothered about balanced out.

I had the ES100 and while it sounds great I wasn't impressed with design/materials especially for £90 so that went back to Amazon. Controls too fiddly too.

Now have the BTR3 and to my ears sounds just as good as the ES100 3.5mm output with enough power to drive my HD660S 150 Ohm headphones (max is too loud) yet still great feeding my SE846 IEM's with no background hiss/noise. Build quality is SO mush better especially considering nearly half the price for me (cost me £49.50 from AMP3).

I'm keeping this one. Wired out of Quad DAC in my V30 is still slightly better but LDAC ay 990kbps is fantastic for streamed media including Tidal MQA Masters.

 

[monsieurfromag3]

At $690 ($569 preorder) it might be the most expensive BT headphone on the market! Beautiful design and build.

It is a big ol’ lump of cash, isn’ it? As a VK-2 owner I had a chance to pre-pre-order the VK-X before the Indiegogo campaign was even launched, at a ridiculously deep discount. Aëdle are special in that they go for design as a priority but still pay huge attention to sound quality.
As an aside Beyerynamic’s wireless Xelento iems are even more expensive.

Aëdle will probably launch a cool BT receiver soon in the shape of a circle, all anodized aluminum. The object itself already exists but it comes with MMCX connector cables, it’s designed to pair with their line of iems. If they do release the same thing with a 3.5mm jack, as they are considering, it will beat even the BTR3 on design and craftsmanship.

 

[Lurk650]

Has anyone else noticed that if they set the quality 990kbps in Dev Options you have to reset it next time you use the ES100, it resets to the default Optimized Quality. FWIW, I don't even notice a difference between the two qualities anyways

 

[mhoopes]

Has anyone else noticed that if they set the quality 990kbps in Dev Options you have to reset it next time you use the ES100, it resets to the default Optimized Quality. FWIW, I don't even notice a difference between the two qualities anyways

I’m not commenting on Android or any portable device operation, but LDAC with the Sony UBP-X800 Blu-Ray player has 2 modes, and “Quality” has always delivered 990 Kbps for my ES100, with lower latency than AAC on my iPad Pro.

 

[Lurk650]

I’m not commenting on Android or any portable device operation, but LDAC with the Sony UBP-X800 Blu-Ray player has 2 modes, and “Quality” has always delivered 990 Kbps for my ES100, with lower latency than AAC on my iPad Pro.

Yeah just got home so I tested it. Turned on the ES100, went to Dev Options and under LDAC it was set to Adaptive Bit Rate which is Default. Changed to Quality (990). Cycled ES100 and it was back to Adaptive.

Easier just to leave on Adaptive. Also, when I had the Galaxy S8 it would always stutter on 990. Don't recall on the Note 9.

 

[tuckers]

Here's an interesting article about bluetooth codecs.

https://www.androidauthority.com/bluetooth-headphones-quality-915637/

 

[plakat]

Having received my 64audio N8 recently, i‘m Now actually using the ES100 (before that it was the SE846 with Shures own Bluetooth cable).

Besides good sound quality without dropouts (source is an iPhone, codec in use is AAC according to the EarStudio application) it offers good battery life, good handling (i can tell the buttons apart without looking and they don’t press too easily/by accident). I also think the SPL estimation is a nice feature.

 

[waynes world]

Here's an interesting article about bluetooth codecs.

https://www.androidauthority.com/bluetooth-headphones-quality-915637/

That article makes me want to be old. Hey wait a minute, I AM old! Whew!

 

[Lurk650]

Amazon offering a $10 coupon right now, making it $89.99 with Same Day shipping

 

[mhoopes]

Quick tweak: I added some Bondic UV-cure 1-part resin to the buttons on the ES100. It works well, though I might redo them to reduce and harmonize the protrusions a bit:

 

[Rowethren]

Really cool mod!

 

[Chessblitzer2017]

Just found out about this after ordering the smsl iq(da3 with a battery) a few days ago too pair with my xelento. seen the reviews, seen the looks/bluetooth, seen the price, $ought. Both around same $$. The 3 will be waiting when I get back home next week and will provide the iq vs es100 rookie nonaudiophile findings.

 

[peter123]

Just found out about this after ordering the smsl iq(da3 with a battery) a few days ago too pair with my xelento. seen the reviews, seen the looks/bluetooth, seen the price, $ought. Both around same $$. The 3 will be waiting when I get back home next week and will provide the iq vs es100 rookie nonaudiophile findings.

I've got both and enjoy them both equally much. They're quite different sounding and have usage areas for me so I'm perfectly happy with owning both of them.

 

[Chessblitzer2017]

I think you should expand and go in more depth with that as these are both widely praised amp dacs. You have so much experience, please delve further into the distinctions of the 2. People would appreciate it. Know I would. Thanks!

 

[notyourtree]

Looking forward to v1.8.0 in iOS. the V1.4.1 firmware is working for me (16/44.1 in Windows 7). The iOS 1.7.5 app works ok with the new firmware, though the analog volume slider didn't initially match the actual level until I tweaked it. Some settings were reset (DCT off, oversampling off, buffer length = 0, EQ off). Perhaps 1.8.0 might have initialized differently, but it's not a big deal to me.

At some point, I'd like to see more than 4 custom EQ presets. I don't have any use for any of the pre-built ones (except FLAT), but I do have more than 4 headphones that I'd like to use with this device. Also, it would be nice if the Output Level Estimation could be linked to the active custom EQ setting (have impedance/sensitivity settings for each).

[edit] Another possibility: have an option to link a couple of the custom EQ presets to the bal/unbal configurations, respectively. I have two earphones that I currently am alternating here that are of those two persuasions.

I agree with most of SubMash's recommendations. #7 would be a great feature, if executed well - does the ES100 have sufficient hardware resource to add this?. There's a function like that in the 3rd-party Equalizer iOS app, and I used it there (before I got the ES100). It's helpful with mixed-album playlists, for sure. EQ preamp levels are quite disparate between my FiiO FH5 and Sennheiser HD 650, but I have a couple of tracks that cost me a few dB of the gain needed to volume-match the two.

I would also like to see the ability to save the impedance and sensitivity settings into profiles to accommodate the different headphones/earphones I use so I can better estimate the volume and preserve my fading hearing a bit longer. That said, I am still very happy with my purchase, and greatly appreciate the continuous improvement and customer focus.