[kantana]

  Where did the idea of supriority of Wolfson DAC chips come from?  I've heard that Wolfson was implemented for high-end DACs for a time and that has people assume if the chip is there in a circuit, it would provide high sonic quality.  Now the popular DAC is the ESS, and recently Wolfson was bought out by Cirrus.  AK240 which subjectively belive to be one of the best portable DAP uses dual Cirrus chips.  

Probably back to the ipod time when wolfson was used, it had a better quality than others at the time.  After that people kinda stuck to the idea that Wolfson is better than everything else out there.  Truth be told the world has moved on since then and other companies dacs have also progressed.  The ESS Sabre chip has been in favor recently as well.  I trust my ears, the DX100 implemented the ESS chip to good effect, the DX90 less so.  The AK240 and the Cirrus chips sounds the best on my limited selection of daps thus far.  In a dap it's always going to be compromise of size, power constraints etc

 

[DigitalFreak]

Probably back to the ipod time when wolfson was used, it had a better quality than others at the time.  After that people kinda stuck to the idea that Wolfson is better than everything else out there.  Truth be told the world has moved on since then and other companies dacs have also progressed.  The ESS Sabre chip has been in favor recently as well.  I trust my ears, the DX100 implemented the ESS chip to good effect, the DX90 less so.  The AK240 and the Cirrus chips sounds the best on my limited selection of daps thus far.  In a dap it's always going to be compromise of size, power constraints etc

Wait?!?!?
The company iBasso actually put out a DAP that doesn't sound phenomenal?!?!?!?! How dare you say such a thing about iBasso. iBasso can do no wrong and their customers are golden eared kings who exude greatness an strut around flaunting their iBasso gear with ultra chilled coolness. I'm telling the iBasso fan boys about your heresy. Quoting from the impressions threads the DX50 and 90 sound AMAZING. How dare you exercise your right of speaking the truth.

 

[Brooko]

Lets not argue please

 

Wait?!?!?
The company iBasso actually put out a DAP that doesn't sound phenomenal?!?!?!?! How dare you say such a thing about iBasso. iBasso can do no wrong and their customers are golden eared kings who exude greatness an strut around flaunting their iBasso gear with ultra chilled coolness. I'm telling the iBasso fan boys about your heresy. Quoting from the impressions threads the DX50 and 90 sound AMAZING. How dare you exercise your right of speaking the truth.

 
LMAO Arly ........ and  .......... bait cast 

 

[lee730]

  Where did the idea of supriority of Wolfson DAC chips come from?  I've heard that Wolfson was implemented for high-end DACs for a time and that has people assume if the chip is there in a circuit, it would provide high sonic quality.  Now the popular DAC is the ESS, and recently Wolfson was bought out by Cirrus.  AK240 which subjectively belive to be one of the best portable DAP uses dual Cirrus chips.  

 
It's not necessarily about superiority. But what I hear from the Cirrus chips to my ears is not desirable. It's fatiguing and a flaw. The Chips used in my S-mod are Wolfsons flagship chips used in those high end DACs you talk about. Yes the ESS Sabre Chips are nice. I find it to be smoother sounding than the Cirrus chips no doubt. But it still gave me some fatigue uptop. I owned the DX100 for about a year and sold it off. I actually bought one of the first 10 units given out. You are correct in the AK240 being subjectively one of the best DAPs and it has a Cirrus Chips. There are also subjective viewpoints that the S-mod is still significantly better (sound quality-wise) than the AK240 and even the Hifiman 901 with is best cards.

 

[Chris J]

Wait?!?!?
The company iBasso actually put out a DAP that doesn't sound phenomenal?!?!?!?! How dare you say such a thing about iBasso. iBasso can do no wrong and their customers are golden eared kings who exude greatness an strut around flaunting their iBasso gear with ultra chilled coolness. I'm telling the iBasso fan boys about your heresy. Quoting from the impressions threads the DX50 and 90 sound AMAZING. How dare you exercise your right of speaking the truth.

.

Hey, I have an iBasso D12.
It sounds very, very good.
But when I say that I mean "For the money and for a portable".
But I wouldn't go any farther than that!

Guess I'm not a hard core fanboy! :wink_face:

 

[kantana]

I find in the high end daps world there isn't enough consistency to be loyal.  I listen with my ears and vote with my dollars.  iBasso do have nice daps for the dollar but they haven't released anything in the last 2 years that can out do their DX100.  Likewise I never thought much of the A&K daps until the AK240.  The DX100 was the yardstick for me for 2 years.  I look forward to listening to the Calyx M but from evidence thus far I really do prefer the desktop Sabre 9018 dac to the mobile 9018.
If DSD takes off in the consumer space we can expect plenty more choices in daps and I wish these manufacturers would all implement native DSD playback when their dac chips support it instead of downsampling.  

 

[DigitalFreak]

.

Hey, I have an iBasso D12.
It sounds very, very good.
But when I say that I mean "For the money and for a portable".
But I wouldn't go any farther than that!

Guess I'm not a hard core fanboy!

In that case I'm buying you a Blue one day

 

[Chris J]

In that case I'm buying you a Blue one day

Dark Blue, please.

 

[wavelet]

  What I am really struggling with, is why players like iBasso and Hifiman get the hard part (hardware) right and the easy part (software) wrong. Anyways I am not so critical but I feel that for a Lamborghini price I should get a Lamborghini, not a Corvette.

 
Software is easy? That's why Microsoft is a 300b company, obviously because anyone singlehandedly could easily write Windows in like, 15-30 minutes.

 

[Danz03]

Interesting video, I kind of understand your frustration but you got to understand the OS is probably the most time consuming and costly part of the product to design. Lots of people think that just because the OS comes free with the machine it should be so easy and cheap to write. I think Apple actually spent a lot more on the R&D of the iPod or iPhone than the actual cost of manufacturing them, and the more they can sell the cheaper they can sell them for. If Apple were to only sell a few thousands iPhones instead of millions, they would have cost a few thousand dollars each instead of a few hundred dollars like they are. If something like the DX100 only sell a few thousand machines worldwide, the company just cannot afford to spend too much on a perfect OS. Just like a lot of audiophile products, they are expensive because they only sell thousands of them instead of millions, it's not possible for them to disolve the cost of R&D or to lower their selling price like Sony or Apple. I'm not trying to defend these companies, but that's life, nothing is perfect, if you want something that's better than the masses, you have to pay a premium price for it.
 
Quote:

Please post your honest opinions and let it all out. Let these companies see that we aren't dumb and as such are becoming fed up with second rate players with boutique pricing.  
 

 

[Hapster]

It would just be interesting if there was a service to swap some internals out. Just skip the whole hifi dap and just a good dac and amp in your own android/ios device

Clearly it wouldn't normally fit, but extending the back isn't a problem, and I think that's something most of us are willing to sacrifice.

 

[Danz03]

But that could void the warranty of your android/ios device and the add on would not be able to be transfer to your future devices.
 
Quote:

It would just be interesting if there was a service to swap some internals out. Just skip the whole hifi dap and just a good dac and amp in your own android/ios device

Clearly it wouldn't normally fit, but extending the back isn't a problem, and I think that's something most of us are willing to sacrifice.

 

[Hapster]

I suppose, but if someone else was doing the add-on, I'd assume they'd have some sort of guarentee. Not transferable isn't really a huge deal either. I mean, you buy a whole new dap anyway half the time. So what's worse, buy a new fiio x7 or a new iphone?

 

[zilch0md]

I've odered the FiiO X5, with reservations:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/661411/fiio-x5-thread-info-updated-on-jan-17th-2014/9540#post_10566042

 

[Cannikin]

Must read: Pono Music critique.
https://medium.com/online-music-musings/9b32bcc29e69