[Kal El]

I'm sure. The AK Norma is the best choice at the price range. Anyway, Astell and Kern makes the best DAP-s on the market: best sound, best looking. But, you have to know, that the headphone is a bit even more responsible for the sound quality, as the player. So it just worth to invest in an expensive headphone - but you have to be careful witch one do you choose.

At the moment my daily IEM is iBasso IT01s. I’d really like to invest some money in new IEMs but I don’t know which one to buy. I mostly listen to metal (prog, death, thrash, heavy, core), rock, blues and jazz. I don’t listen to pop, hip hop, rnb, disco or techno. Rarely some old school hip hop rap music....
Do you have some advice about iems or cans For this kind of music?

 

[Philo]

At the moment my daily IEM is iBasso IT01s. I’d really like to invest some money in new IEMs but I don’t know which one to buy. I mostly listen to metal (prog, death, thrash, heavy, core), rock, blues and jazz. I don’t listen to pop, hip hop, rnb, disco or techno. Rarely some old school hip hop rap music....
Do you have some advice about iems or cans For this kind of music?

The best hi-fi sound quality provides surely the Sennheiser IE 800 S (this model I've got too) - but especially for jazz, blues, and classical music. Rock sounds too nice and realistic with it, but for hip-hop it isn't just enough bass-heavy. An other joice at this price range could be for example the Shure SE846, whitch offers powerful bass response and overall good sound quality. The treble by that model is a bit roll off, not so clear, strong and detailful as with the Sennheiser IE 800 S, but its just more rocky - so to speak. The soundstage is also better by the Sennheiser model - and because of its dinamic driver - its sound is more lifelike than by the multi -balanced armature Shure model.

 

[Kal El]

The best hi-fi sound quality provides surely the Sennheiser IE 800 S (this model I've got too) - but especially for jazz, blues, and classical music. Rock sounds too nice and realistic with it, but for hip-hop it isn't just enough bass-heavy. An other joice at this price range could be for example the Shure SE846, whitch offers powerful bass response and overall good sound quality. The treble by that model is a bit roll off, not so clear, strong and detailful as with the Sennheiser IE 800 S, but its just more rocky - so to speak. The soundstage is also better by the Sennheiser model - and because of its dinamic driver - its sound is more lifelike than by the multi -balanced armature Shure model.

I mostly listen to metal btw... maybe an hybrid model could be good, something like Dunu DK-2001, Sony N3AP, Fiio FH3/FH5....

 

[Philo]

I mostly listen to metal btw... maybe an hybrid model could be good, something like Dunu DK-2001, Sony N3AP, Fiio FH3/FH5....

Sure.

 

[Kal El]

Can the NW-A105 be used as a source to feed external DAC via itd usb-c ?

I don't know, because my ifi hio dac seems to works just as an amp. How can I verify it?
Does Anyone know?

 

[gurbina93]

I don't know, because my ifi hio dac seems to works just as an amp. How can I verify it?
Does Anyone know?

For USB external DAC it seems to be restricted to 16 bit 48kHz because of some odd implementation on Sony's side, the USB DAC gets recognized and I thought in theory any USB DAC would bypass that restriction but it does not in this particular DAP...
Seems like no app is able to bypass this except for USB Audio Player Pro.
UPDATE: I had the iFi hip-dac and had the same issue, it never worked with any app except USB Audio Player Pro.
I'm just tried and it works fine with a Topping DAC: FLAC, MQA, DSD they all work and show correctly. All these formats worked with the USB DAC on the native music player (hallelujah!) and also USB Audio Player Pro, even MQA.

As for the internal DAC No app is able to use it except for the native music player, here even USB Audio Player Pro doesn't work for this particular DAP.

According to a few developers it's technically impossible to ever get it working with the internal DAC with the current implementation of Android on this DAP. Seems like it has a custom audio-stack that only the native music is able to work with.

If you fancy flavours like native DSD, MQA or having your files being played without any upsampling/downsampling you have two options:
1. Stick to the native music player and internal DAC. Perfect for IEMs but underpowered for many of the fancy headphones you'll find in Head-Fi.
2. For USB DAC the only app that I have found that works well is USB Audio Player Pro witht be iFi hip-dac as they have a custom audio USB Driver. Didn't seem to work with a any other app. Not sure who's at fault here or if I didn't do something correctly.

 

[iFi audio]

I don't know, because my ifi hio dac seems to works just as an amp. How can I verify it?

hip-dac can't work as just an amp, it has only one input (USB) so its internal DAC circuit can't be bypassed

 

[gurbina93]

hip-dac can't work as just an amp, it has only one input (USB) so its internal DAC circuit can't be bypassed

Any special settings or requirements?

I sold mine basically because I couldn't get it working with most apps.

TIDAL stuck in green when it's supposed to be Magenta on Master tracks.
Sony's native music player same deal. Playing DSD, MQA, 192kHz files and just showing green.
Same experience with Onkyo, Neutron and basically most apps which allegedly work with the USB DAC.

Even the guy I sold it to was very disappointed it didn't worked with TIDAL's app MQA in his Android phone. He had to use USB Audio Player Pro to get it working, this means he cannot even download TIDAL music for offline listening.

We looked for a while, ran into several forums, Reddit, Head-Fi, everybody with the same issue and basically having to pay for USB Audio Player Pro and the MQA plug-in. Navigating TIDAL on that app is just terrible plus you're unable to download for offline listening...

I ran into the iFi video tutorial on how to setup Tidal with a xDSD and thought it would be a plug and play kinda thing.

It didn't work in my Xiaomi Mi9T Pro, Sony NW-A105 neither on the guy's phone I sold it to... I think it was a OnePlus. Is it a bug with the light? Is it an issue with the OS on certain devices?

For example if I play MQA in USB Audio Player Pro the light changes to Magenta. And regardless if I close, force close or just switch apps the light is stuck in magenta for everything even though I'm playing mp3, FLAC 44kHz files, etc in other Android music apps.
Uninstalling USB Audio Player Pro didn't solve the issue (as suggested by one user in Reddit, apparently the app was sort of kidnapping the DAC connection and only uninstalling it would let other apps take complete control over it).

 

[iFi audio]

Any special settings or requirements?

Not really. Most folks who purchased hip-dac (with intent to listen to MQA via Tidal) and got green LED, were advised to install i.e. UAPP to send unaltered data from their phones. Green LED is just an indicator that what stream hip-dac gets isn't MQA. This LED is there to show what is sent out from a phone and what hip-dac gets to work on. That's all there is to it really. If anyone has any issues of this sort, our support staff is always more than happy to help

 

[Kal El]

I

Not really. Most folks who purchased hip-dac (with intent to listen to MQA via Tidal) and got green LED, were advised to install i.e. UAPP to send unaltered data from their phones. Green LED is just an indicator that what stream hip-dac gets isn't MQA. This LED is there to show what is sent out from a phone and what hip-dac gets to work on. That's all there is to it really. If anyone has any issues of this sort, our support staff is always more than happy to help

Initally I was struggling with Tidal MQA tracks, Hip Dac was showing green light from all the sources I tested. I contacted the IFI support on website and here on the forum and they helped me. Now I finally see that Magenta light!
I'd like to spend a few words about Ifi support: it's great, maybe the best support I received recently, fast and effective.

UAPP is the key to get mqa streamed to Hip Dac. I can see magenta light from my Sony NW-A105 and LG G8S. The only one device that I can't make it work fine is my Laptop, but I will be happy to share the solution whenever I'll find it.

 

[iFi audio]

Initally I was struggling with Tidal MQA tracks, Hip Dac was showing green light from all the sources I tested. I contacted the IFI support on website and here on the forum and they helped me. Now I finally see that Magenta light!
I'd like to spend a few words about Ifi support: it's great, maybe the best support I received recently, fast and effective.

UAPP is the key to get mqa streamed to Hip Dac. I can see magenta light from my Sony NW-A105 and LG G8S. The only one device that I can't make it work fine is my Laptop, but I will be happy to share the solution whenever I'll find it.

Thank you

 

[Kal El]

I've just added a picture.
Now I can't wait to test it with serious headphones. I'm going to buy the HD6XX with a balance cable.

 

[gurbina93]

I


Initally I was struggling with Tidal MQA tracks, Hip Dac was showing green light from all the sources I tested. I contacted the IFI support on website and here on the forum and they helped me. Now I finally see that Magenta light!
I'd like to spend a few words about Ifi support: it's great, maybe the best support I received recently, fast and effective.

UAPP is the key to get mqa streamed to Hip Dac. I can see magenta light from my Sony NW-A105 and LG G8S. The only one device that I can't make it work fine is my Laptop, but I will be happy to share the solution whenever I'll find it.

Have you installed the MQA driver from iFi? Aside from that it's just selecting the WASAPI mode in TIDAL for the iFi DAC. That was easy to get working.

 

[Kal El]

Have you installed the MQA driver from iFi? Aside from that it's just selecting the WASAPI mode in TIDAL for the iFi DAC. That was easy to get working.

Nope, I didn't install drivers. What is WASAPI?
I just installed UAPP and then logged Tidal into it and initialized the Hip Dac... Et voilà, magenta light!
Now my doubts are about the headphones. I wish to buy headphones that use the power of the Hip Dac because at the moment I have only easy to drive cans and iems.

 

[iFi audio]

Have you installed the MQA driver from iFi?

hip-dacs are quite new so they arrive with our FW 5.3c (MQA ready) already installed.

I just installed UAPP and then logged Tidal into it and initialized the Hip Dac... Et voilà, magenta light!

Very good, what your hip-dac is getting is MQA then.