[twister6]

 

   
I don't believe it supports OTG USB as a peripheral device, so no-go.

Hm, I had a very strong impression that it could...say for instance the post that's 2 posts away from mine.
 
070 Update Note (AP100 Firware):
– Software 32bit audio file decoding
– Per 0.5db adjustable volume balance
– LRC lyrics support, M3U playlist support
– ExFAT support
– WAV DTS files support
– USB DAC now supports coaxial output (i.e. Ever heard of the Matrix X-SPDIF? Now AP100 can do the same.)
– Full OTG functionality (USBAudio / Storage management)
– ‘folder.jpg’ Album cover-art support (Max. size 1000*1000)
– Massive system bugfix from 069
(auto-shutdown error, 99% charge halting, EQ saving error, SRC L/R swap, file management errors, brightness settings saving, etc…)

 
I guess will have to check it out.  Writing too many reviews, too many headphones and daps, too little time

 

[puga74]

  Hm, I had a very strong impression that it could...say for instance the post that's 2 posts away from mine.
 
070 Update Note (AP100 Firware):
– Software 32bit audio file decoding
– Per 0.5db adjustable volume balance
– LRC lyrics support, M3U playlist support
– ExFAT support
– WAV DTS files support
– USB DAC now supports coaxial output (i.e. Ever heard of the Matrix X-SPDIF? Now AP100 can do the same.)
– Full OTG functionality (USBAudio / Storage management)
– ‘folder.jpg’ Album cover-art support (Max. size 1000*1000)
– Massive system bugfix from 069
(auto-shutdown error, 99% charge halting, EQ saving error, SRC L/R swap, file management errors, brightness settings saving, etc…)

 
Tried using my AP100 through the OTG on my HTC Desire Eye that is on Lollipop. It worked immediately though it was limited to 24bit/48khz.Tried it using Poweramp, HTC's default player and Google's Play Music. If I install HibyMusic as per Hidizs recommendation on the 070 changelog, it now changes to what HibyMusic is playing, tried a song up to 24bit/192khz and it played. Things I noticed is that the AP100 should be connected already to the phone before HibyMusic is opened. If HibyMusic is opened already prior to connecting the AP100 to the phone, it will keep on closing. If this happens, just disconnect and kill HibyMusic, then connect the AP100 again to the phone, then open HibyMusic. It should work then.

 

[lukeap69]

That's how normally OTG audio on Android works IME. I have used E18 and Theorem 720 and it is the same, the DAC/Amp should be connected first, then powered, then the music app.

 

[puga74]

I saw some comments on this thread that 070 had its bass a bit boosted and the signature is not neutral anymore and some also reverted back to 069. I am not an audiophile so my hearing might be wrong but I think 070 has still similar signature as the one from 067, but this is only if firmware installation was done sequentially (I think). My experience is like this (using only my fidue A83 with a linum bax cable)
 
1. First firmware when I received my AP100 was 067 - signature was neutral to me
2. Upgraded directly to 070 - now bass was a bit boosted, I don't like the resulting sound on my fidue A83 with linum bax, too bassy for my taste
3. Because of this I tried 069, signature was now similar to 067. 
4. Now I saw a 070 special edition available so I tried it, bass was boosted again, way more than even the normal 070 firmware was giving. I hated the signature so much that I decided to install all available firmware from 067, 068 to 069 (had this feeling that if I do this, my AP100 will be like from the time I bought it till it is upgraded to the latest firmware with neutral signature - crazy isn't it hahaha)
5. And so I did install 067 then 068 then 069 and was happy with it.
6. But here I go again and saw the changelog of 070 and its added features - argghh I wanted those added features! 
7. So you'd know what happened next... I installed 070 hahaha
 
Now to my surprise, the signature was similar to 067 and 069. The bass was not as boosted as opposed to what I observed earlier. Does this mean that firmware installation on the AP100 should be sequential and cannot be jumped from another? Well, I don't actually know but that's what I experienced when installing firmwares on my AP100. Just wanted to share it to you guys .

 

[Light - Man]

  I saw some comments on this thread that 070 had its bass a bit boosted and the signature is not neutral anymore and some also reverted back to 069. I am not an audiophile so my hearing might be wrong but I think 070 has still similar signature as the one from 067, but this is only if firmware installation was done sequentially (I think). My experience is like this (using only my fidue A83 with a linum bax cable)
 
1. First firmware when I received my AP100 was 067 - signature was neutral to me
2. Upgraded directly to 070 - now bass was a bit boosted, I don't like the resulting sound on my fidue A83 with linum bax, too bassy for my taste
3. Because of this I tried 069, signature was now similar to 067. 
4. Now I saw a 070 special edition available so I tried it, bass was boosted again, way more than even the normal 070 firmware was giving. I hated the signature so much that I decided to install all available firmware from 067, 068 to 069 (had this feeling that if I do this, my AP100 will be like from the time I bought it till it is upgraded to the latest firmware with neutral signature - crazy isn't it hahaha)
5. And so I did install 067 then 068 then 069 and was happy with it.
6. But here I go again and saw the changelog of 070 and its added features - argghh I wanted those added features! 
7. So you'd know what happened next... I installed 070 hahaha
 
Now to my surprise, the signature was similar to 067 and 069. The bass was not as boosted as opposed to what I observed earlier. Does this mean that firmware installation on the AP100 should be sequential and cannot be jumped from another? Well, I don't actually know but that's what I experienced when installing firmwares on my AP100. Just wanted to share it to you guys .

Yes I agree with you!
 
The first few times I updated to fw70 the bass was over-blown but I believe Hidizs has since made some alterations to the original fw70 perhaps due to the feedback they received from us???
 
p.s. Hidizs recommend updating to fw69 before fw70.

 

[puga74]

  Yes I agree with you!
 
The first few times I updated to fw 70 the bass was over-blown but I believe Hidizs has since made some alterations to the original fw70 perhaps due to the feedback they received from us???

 
Yes maybe . The important thing is our AP100 is way better now than before . Kudos to Hidizs for this and I trust that they will continue improving it better in the future .  Good times!

 

[ipush]

Hi guys, I would like to share my quite unique experience with Hidizs AP100.
Hope you are keen enough to spend 5 minutes reading this story
 
Intro
Here we go.
Few months ago I saw a SALE for Hidizs AP100 by 70% discount off from a local audio store.
Don’t get me wrong, it was not a new unit; it was a demo-set unit they had for customer’s audition purpose. On top of that, this demo-set unit was painted in all gold color!
Creative indeed.
I haven’t tried out this DAP before, but considering the offered price I had no brainer. Purchased it straight away!
 
In a couple of days the unit reached my hand and I turned out to be engaged by its neutral sound signature. Navigation is fast and friendly. Functionality is good. It is indeed a very good affordable DAP
 
Talking back about the handmade-gold-painted case, I tend to feel that the painting was poorly executed
Yes it makes the unit quite one-of-a –kind, but the surface was rough and dull. It wasn’t done with a good quality painting and finishing. I didn’t like it.
 
Part I
After a little effort to get the Hidizs Customer Support email address, I sent a query whether it is possible to order a new AP100 case (I told them the story behind). In a couple hours, the guy named Louis (Customer Support) replied me saying that they are not selling such spare part as queried. However, he was interested with this gold-painted case and commenting that it is a creative idea to do, while offering to sell a new rubber jacket to cover it.
 
After a short negotiation, to my surprise he finally decided to send me a new case (including a new battery installed) for FREE and I would need to pay only for shipping cost from Hong Kong to my place! Bring it on!
 
After 3 days the package came and surgery began to start.
It was quite an easy peasy task to do:
 
1.   1.    Take off the 4 outer screws and your microSD card

 
op
 
2.   2.    Carefully try to pull up the front case.
      P.s. I used a credit card to swipe the case’ hooks all around.

 
3.   3.    Take off the 6 inner screws (attaching the main board to front case).

 
4.   4.    Take off the battery socket from main board.
5.   5.    Plug in the new battery socket.
6.   6.    Put back the 6 inner screws (make sure you have put all buttons in the right direction and position before do this step).
 

 
7.   7.    Put it back to the back case and click all case’ hooks.
             Ps: the female jack (upper part) must be inserted first to the hole before the front case can sit properly to the back case, so might need to slightly slide up the case first then push it to the back case to fit it in.
8.   8.    Put on the outer screws.
9.   9.    Voila! New case and new battery are dressed to the unit (I put a DIY screen protector so it doesn't look that good yet still protective ).

 
 
I turned the unit on and it was working normally. The battery was fully pre-charged so I may enjoy it straight away.
 
Part II
Unfortunately, after the battery power finished, here comes the new problem: the unit was unable to be charged! No matter how long I charge the unit, the battery indicator stuck at 3% and won’t increase anywhere although the battery icon was blinking. It was able to be turned on though, but the battery was not filled up
After reporting this issue, Louis told me that the new battery was tested before sent out and that he worried it was a main board issue encountered during case-replacement execution. Honestly I doubt it, thinking that the execution was fine and quite a simple task which can be done by anyone.

Anyway, simple checking to do next: exchange the new battery to the old one and see how it goes. Unfortunately, it didn’t work! Sigh.. Louis was right, it is main board issue
He advised me to check the solder contact of chip AXP202 and re-solder it if any problem found.
I mentioned that I could not do that, because the solder contact to the chip is made robotically instead of by manual hand (I suppose) due to the level of complexity and micro-contact area.
 
I asked him whether it is ok to send the whole unit there and get it repaired. All costs are on my bill.
Yet, he told me to keep the new case and they will send a new main board (together with the screen installed) and do the exchange by my own (again). I wasn’t really sure why they seem to avoid repairing the unit at their site and rather to provide such spare parts for free. Because the unit was off warranty? Maybe. Just maybe.
 
I explained that I was worry to unexpectedly make the same mysterious mistake as before and requesting to have it repaired there. But he was firmed to send me the new main board (and requested me to send him the broken main board one). Ok.
 
Received the new main board, I straight away do an operation again. Not sure if something needs to be aware of, I just carefully change the main board as steps above and turn it on.
Yes it is able to turn on! I hurriedly plug it to my laptop, and thankfully it is charging normally! Fiuh.. Now with the full battery charged it is good to play lossless files around 8 hours nonstop and this ends the story happily
 
Still no clue what’s going on with the 1^st main board so I couldn’t advise anything about it.
End of words, I would like to thank Hidizs Customer Support (especially Louis) for the generosity as well as the fast response at any time I send him a mail
And please be careful when you'd like to disassemble this unit. Risks are on your own

 

[wuzzap]

Anybody experienced a problem with exFAT-formatted card on fw 070?
I've got 128GB one, my Windows only lets me format it exFAT or NTFS, while the DAP fw was 069.
I've put the card into my android tablet, executed "mkdosfs /dev/block/vold/179:25 125000000" where /dev/block/vold/179:25 is the path to an external SD card, 12500... is the size of it in KBytes (128G*10^9/1024)
df says me I only have a 32GB partition. The same was what the Windows was able to access. Sadly, I only had my corporate laptop without admin privileges.
I've installed a partitioning app from GooglePlay. It succeeded to partition the card, but somehow this not applied, so when I plugged off and on the card back to the tablet, it promted me to format it saying "unformatted card". Of course, I confirmed. And you know what? It made it FAT32 of all 119GB accessible. But df still shown a 32GB partition (I believe this is an Android issue). Windows can access 119 GB. I've copied 109GB of music on it, AP100 reads everything fine. But when I plug it via cable, Windows advises me to check the external card, "there might be errors bla bla bla". Run a check - "all is fine".
Now I realized I can use exFAT with firmware 070! Great! Flashed the device, formatted the card in laptop's inner cardreader into exFAT, copied an album on it, put it back into the player - nope, 0 Bytes external card ((
At the moment I am formatting the card again, low-level this time, in my laptop into exFAT. If it fails again, I'm gonna use my tablet to make it FAT32 and DOH! put 100GB of music back.
Do you think I should try flashing the AP100 into 070 again? It is actually 070 now.
 
Edit: bad luck "Filesystem is not supported" Tried quickformat with smaller block size (8k) - the same.
 
Edit 2: even though both Windows and Android are able to read files from this exFAT sdcard, the AP100 is unable. So I'm reverting back to FAT32 thanks Android can format into it flawlessly.
 
Feels like I'm becoming a grandpa in IT LOL

 

[BruceBanner]

Can anyone give a detailed account of the Favorites and Lyric support aspect of the AP100 (with latest firmware). Essentially I am looking for a DAP that can read tagged Lyrics and be able to 'rate' a song, I'm guessing the Favorites section might suffice in this regard (ie what I think are 5 star songs end up in favs).

 

[maira]

Hi, im interested in this Player and like to know if the Sound is more of the laid back or direct side. 
 
A few month ago i tested Fiio X3, X5 , ibasso DX90 and AK 100 with B&W P7. 
 
Both Fiio sounded flat and harsh to my ears, DX sounded good but in some way too direct and agressiv.
 
AK100 was maybe to relaxed, sounded realy good but very digital. 
 
Where would you rank AP100 here?

 

[Bop]

Does anyone know how the AP100 might stack up to a Fiio portable DAC/AMP say like the E18?

 

[ozkan]

  Hi, im interested in this Player and like to know if the Sound is more of the laid back or direct side. 
 
A few month ago i tested Fiio X3, X5 , ibasso DX90 and AK 100 with B&W P7. 
 
Both Fiio sounded flat and harsh to my ears, DX sounded good but in some way too direct and agressiv.
 
AK100 was maybe to relaxed, sounded realy good but very digital. 
 
Where would you rank AP100 here?

 
Well, I've auditioned them all and I can put them above all daps you mentioned

 

[BruceBanner]

Ok.. I am about to take the plunge and order this DAP, but before I do I would really appreciate if some fellow AP100 user can confirm that the following scenarios are possible to do. It's these little things that are hard to find out about (in reviews etc), and with the recent firmware releases perhaps they can now do these things (that I need a DAP to do) now whereas before they could not.

Scenario 1

- There is no music on the AP100 (not even on the internal mem).
- I use a computer in the morning and transfer a mixture of music across on the sd card, some of it new albums/songs, some of it older stuff (that I know well).
- I load the sd card into the player, about 100 tracks are on the card, how long does the AP100 take to add the songs to it's library (of about that many)?
- Once the AP100 has added the songs to the library, is it possible to 'shuffle all'?
- When I come across a new song from one of the new albums, and if I like what I hear, is it possible to somehow 'bookmark' it?, so that when I get home I can look in a folder or playlist and identify all the new tracks that I listened to that day that 'made the cut' so to speak. I'm imagining perhaps a favourite feature or adding to a playlist would suffice in this regard.
 
Scenario 2
 
- Today I am just going to insert my 64gb card into the player (which is pretty much full) and listen to tracks I know well. How long might the AP100 take to add this card to it's database? Do you need to 'clear/delete' the database if you make a habit of inserting and ejecting various cards frequently?
- This time I want to browse my entire collection (on the 64gb card) and add entire albums into a playlist at once, is this possible (ie basically setup some music to listen to for the day by selecting entire albums and even perhaps artists in one click)?
- As i am listening to a song, is it possible to see the tagged lyrics of the song or is it only an LRC file that will show?
- With the EQ button, when pressing it, does it cycle/toggle through all presets, or just ones that you want to select? For example, if you have found two Custom EQ settings that you like (perhaps tweaked for certain artists or genres), can you setup the eq button to toggle just between these two Custom User EQ's, or will it insist on toggling through all the Presets (Rock, Jazz etc). Is it a quick toggle of the EQ button, or is it painfully slow to get to the preset of your choice etc.
 
 
If anyone can help answer these main points (in bold) I would be really grateful.

 

[Light - Man]

  Hi, im interested in this Player and like to know if the Sound is more of the laid back or direct side. 
 
A few month ago i tested Fiio X3, X5 , ibasso DX90 and AK 100 with B&W P7. 
 
Both Fiio sounded flat and harsh to my ears, DX sounded good but in some way too direct and agressiv.
 
AK100 was maybe to relaxed, sounded realy good but very digital. 
 
Where would you rank AP100 here?

I have had all you refer to except the AK100, I assume you are talking about the X3 and X5 first gen and AK100 older model?
 
I liked the AP100 the best and is still hard to beat, I am surprised the AK100 sounded digital to you, I have tried the P7 for about 30 mins and is the only B&W I could live with.

 

[wuzzap]

  Ok.. I am about to take the plunge and order this DAP, but before I do I would really appreciate if some fellow AP100 user can confirm that the following scenarios are possible to do. It's these little things that are hard to find out about (in reviews etc), and with the recent firmware releases perhaps they can now do these things (that I need a DAP to do) now whereas before they could not.

Scenario 1

- There is no music on the AP100 (not even on the internal mem).
- I use a computer in the morning and transfer a mixture of music across on the sd card, some of it new albums/songs, some of it older stuff (that I know well).
- I load the sd card into the player, about 100 tracks are on the card, how long does the AP100 take to add the songs to it's library (of about that many)?
I've got 128GB card, about 100GB used. When scanning, it runs rapidly against first 1500 items (10-20 sec) then slows down and completes all the 5500+ tracks in 2-4 minutes.
- Once the AP100 has added the songs to the library, is it possible to 'shuffle all'?
Yes, it is 'Play All' at the top of the folders list. Playback mode should be 'random' in Settings.
- When I come across a new song from one of the new albums, and if I like what I hear, is it possible to somehow 'bookmark' it?, so that when I get home I can look in a folder or playlist and identify all the new tracks that I listened to that day that 'made the cut' so to speak. I'm imagining perhaps a favourite feature or adding to a playlist would suffice in this regard.
Add it to Favorites by holding 'back' button and selecting 'add to favorites'. It must put the song into internal memory AFAIK, never tried though.
 
Scenario 2
 
- Today I am just going to insert my 64gb card into the player (which is pretty much full) and listen to tracks I know well. How long might the AP100 take to add this card to it's database? Do you need to 'clear/delete' the database if you make a habit of inserting and ejecting various cards frequently?
See my first answer; No, you don't need to clear the DB, Hidizs will create a new one during rescan. Most logical way (from my mind) is that the Player puts the DB into the card root folder and only modifies it should the content has changed. In fact, who knows
- This time I want to browse my entire collection (on the 64gb card) and add entire albums into a playlist at once, is this possible (ie basically setup some music to listen to for the day by selecting entire albums and even perhaps artists in one click)?
You can browse the music based on IDv3 tags e.g. Artist, Album, Genre - select whatever you want. It will play all the songs that appear under the selection (unless you chose 'one song' playback setting in Options)
- As i am listening to a song, is it possible to see the tagged lyrics of the song or is it only an LRC file that will show? No idea, never tried.
- With the EQ button, when pressing it, does it cycle/toggle through all presets, or just ones that you want to select? For example, if you have found two Custom EQ settings that you like (perhaps tweaked for certain artists or genres), can you setup the eq button to toggle just between these two Custom User EQ's, or will it insist on toggling through all the Presets (Rock, Jazz etc). Is it a quick toggle of the EQ button, or is it painfully slow to get to the preset of your choice etc.
Cycles through all presets on mine even though I haven't customized user's presets. So I've got Rock->Jazz->whatever->3[Custom(flat)->disabled.
 
 
If anyone can help answer these main points (in bold) I would be really grateful.

 
P.S.
(not related to BruceBanner's post)
EQ works strange on mine:
All the 3 customizable settings are undefined. If I select one, sound doesn't change.
If I customize one via Settings, the sound changes once I get into setup. All sliders are at zero's, but exiting the EQ setup makes the sound to it's default (EQ disabled)