I just took delivery of my own DX50 on Tuesday and just want to leave a short (ish) impression. First, I'm coming from a RockBoxed iPod 5.5 that I performed the CF mod on; from 30gb stock to having a 64gb card in it on the Tarkan adapter. Loved it but was running out of room; bigger CF cards are stupid expensive while mSDXC cards are growing in capacity and dropping in price. Since it was originally a 30gb I didn't really want to saddle it with 128gb worth of files and lose the good response I had with it currently. Also, I knew the lows were rather over emphasized but didn't want to eq it. I listen with iems generally; about 90% of the time with tf10s with a set of Null Audio cables and once in a while Klipsch custom 2s. My music files are mostly flac, a few 320k, and fewer still at 256k that I don't listen to much. I do not / will not piggyback an amp to a portable. It either sounds right or it doesn't; I'm not buying and strapping stuff to it to fix it.
My DX came with fw 1.5.0 installed. At first listen I found the bass thin and overall everything else a just little grainy. This soon passed as I became accustomed to it and (I presume) the player burned in some. Now I find it very well balanced, very clear, everything at their proper levels. Listening to some tracks that I know very well from Jack Johnson, Sarah McLachlan, Alice in Chains, Metallica, Cranberries, 311, and Bob Marley (all of them flac) and comparing the same playlist between devices from Day 1 the sound from the DX has definitely filled in. Wasn't sure that burn-in would be a factor but I'm thinking now that it is. I want to give the stock fw and my ears more time before I go changing fw versions. I do have 1.6.0 and 1.8.0 downloaded if and when I decide to make the change. And yes, yes, I have SU 1.3.3 in there too
. Going back to the ipod it now sounds muddy, almost heavy, in comparison to the DX. I love the sound of the DX50 so much right now!
Device itself looks and feels very well made. Screen seems a little over sensitive but I'm getting used to it. Haven't had any issue with files not playing, stuttering, not displaying, or anything like that. I'm on a mac book pro and use Metadatics (from Mac App Store) to check tags and imbed cover art and seems to be working well for me. Battery life is rated at 14hrs and I think that's going to be about right; I run the volume at 170 and the gain switch in the middle with my tf10s FWIW. I'm very happy with the device and feel it was money very well spent. I've seen Fiio's devices and know about the new 3ii; they're not what I wanted.
I do want to thank all the early adopters out there for being the beta testers; in reading from the start of the thread you guys suffered through some bugs. I'm hoping now that iBasso has a presence on this thread that the few tweaks that may remain can be addressed. I'd also like to thank iBasso for reaching out to the customers in the first place. The DX isn't new by any stretch but it seems from listening to you guys that every fw update is a refresh.
(yes literally, I couldn't even get to recovery, screen is black no matter what I do). Luckily RKBatchtool save my a** on that one (To be fair it bricked thanks to RKBatchtool in the first place lol).
