Time to replace my Zune with something significantly better...

[Zune]

I’m a bit surprised I haven’t seen the Shanling M5s mentioned yet. It’s wonderful DAP and a solid value for it’s price.

Read up on a few Shanling models and they seem too glitchy to me

 

[PopZeus]

Read up on a few Shanling models and they seem too glitchy to me

My Shanling is great. I am quite a fan of their MTouch OS. It's very fast, and doesn't suffer from a litany of bugs. It might not be well optimized for smaller screens like the watch-sized M0 but for something as large as the M5s, it's fine. But I tend to prioritize sound quality over other factors, which is why I'm not as tempted to trade in my M5s for the admittedly feature-rich M11.

 

[Zune]

Just had another look at the M5s and I think my first reaction to a quick browse through pictures of one was meh. It didn’t grab me like the others. The screen doesn’t look much better than my Zune

One of the key features that is attracting me to the likes of the m11 and R6 is the interchangeable players and wireless music transfer because I change music on a weekly basis

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I had some FiiOs and I got a bad impression. They might be better now but that doesn't help with the money I threw away on their older crap. Also, their software is bad. They sometimes admit to issues but not ever fix them. Next time I buy a DAP it won't be a FiiO.

 

[Zune]

I had some FiiOs and I got a bad impression. They might be better now but that doesn't help with the money I threw away on their older crap. Also, their software is bad. They sometimes admit to issues but not ever fix them. Next time I buy a DAP it won't be a FiiO.

I don’t think you’re the only one to say that judging from what I’ve read over the last day or so. Thanks for the heads up

It’s between a HiBy and a Sony at the moment but that may change after I’ve slept on it. The Sony’s seem to be stable but the HiBy has more about it

 

[PopZeus]

If those are your priorities, more power to ya. I was responding to your original post about your stated preferences ("ease of use, glitch-free UI"). If you've got more criteria on top of that, then go with your gut.

Personally, I care about build quality, sound quality (including compatibility with my IEM preferences), ongoing software and customer service support for my device. But i'm a pretty straight forward user. With micro SD card storage being so inexpensive I don't transfer files that often, and I don't need OS interoperability or 3rd party app features. Nor do I need a smartphone quality screen since I already have an iPhone, and it's money best spent elsewhere for me. Fwiw, the M5s supports wireless file transfer, but I don't know how well it works.

Best of luck on your quest!

 

[Zune]

Fair points PopZeus. I’m getting lost in the lust for features I’ll most likely never use. Sorry I didn’t meant to come across as disrespectful. I’ll have a look through them all again tomorrow with a fresh head

 

[PopZeus]

No worries, man. We're all entitled to our "must-haves", "would-likes", and "don't-needs". It's just helpful when soliciting recommendations to be up-front about those things. You get better recommendations that way.

One thing to keep in mind with audiophile brands. They tend to be smaller companies, with fewer resources to devote to things that giant consumer electronics companies can afford to throw money at or take a loss on. FiiO is one of the bigger players in this space, and even they have their downsides. Because of that, it's rare in this hobby to get everything you've ever wanted and more from any one particular device, especially if one is inclined to compare them to the likes of Apple or Samsung, or Sony. I've found it's more productive to figure out what's on your list of "must-haves" (hopefully not more than 2-4 bullet points), and then pick from the items that you feel can deliver on those requirements. Any "would-like" features you get on top of that will just be a bonus. In the long run, you'll end up much happier with your purchase that way. Just my 2 cents...

Side note: Bad Guy Good Audio Reviews had some pretty harsh words for HiBy as a company in his review of one of their DAPs. Not sure if that's been echoed elsewhere on the web, but I'd look into it if you're that keen on the R6.

 

[mattiav]

One of the big reasons I decided to go for iBasso - other than the amp card ecosystem - is their responsiveness to feedback and continued software support (I.e. Android 8 on all their players), plus the variety of available alternate software ROMs. Some mutter about slow UI, and the edge likely belongs to HiBy and FiiO in that arena (no personal experience though). My iBasso is more than snappy enough for what I want and need to do with it (stream or play music) based on my initial impressions. The FiiO and HiBy threads are a little more mixed bag in terms of software support for user-reported bugs, as others have noted.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I don’t think you’re the only one to say that judging from what I’ve read over the last day or so. Thanks for the heads up

It’s between a HiBy and a Sony at the moment but that may change after I’ve slept on it. The Sony’s seem to be stable but the HiBy has more about it

I didn't check which Sony(s) you're looking at but it seems to me the low-middle ones don't have some important features for me. They don't play SACD ISO (I have a few hundred rips), no balanced-out. I was asking some questions here on one of their models, I don't remember which one, but I kinda got an unfavorable impression from what I read.

There is a ton of info here and a lot of people with experience with almost any device you can name. Take your time and read and ask. Use a search engine if the search on here doesn't find what you want. If you put head-fi hiby etc in regular search you will get more useful hits sometimes than using the search here in the site itself. I don't know why that is, but it happens.

Also, if you have places where you can try 'em out there is no substitute. People can tell you about the features and faults but listening to music you know and making your own decision trumps everything if you can do it.

 

[Zune]

No worries, man. We're all entitled to our "must-haves", "would-likes", and "don't-needs". It's just helpful when soliciting recommendations to be up-front about those things. You get better recommendations that way.

One thing to keep in mind with audiophile brands. They tend to be smaller companies, with fewer resources to devote to things that giant consumer electronics companies can afford to throw money at or take a loss on. FiiO is one of the bigger players in this space, and even they have their downsides. Because of that, it's rare in this hobby to get everything you've ever wanted and more from any one particular device, especially if one is inclined to compare them to the likes of Apple or Samsung, or Sony. I've found it's more productive to figure out what's on your list of "must-haves" (hopefully not more than 2-4 bullet points), and then pick from the items that you feel can deliver on those requirements. Any "would-like" features you get on top of that will just be a bonus. In the long run, you'll end up much happier with your purchase that way. Just my 2 cents...

Side note: Bad Guy Good Audio Reviews had some pretty harsh words for HiBy as a company in his review of one of their DAPs. Not sure if that's been echoed elsewhere on the web, but I'd look into it if you're that keen on the R6.

I completely agree with your 2 cents. The HiBy ticks all my boxes and i was worried too about the historical lack of support but it seems they've turned it around a bit recently. I'm intending on buying one from a store here in the UK which has a good returns policy and they offer lifetime support on the device.

Out of all the devices I've looked at (Cowon, Fiio, Sony, iBasso, Astell & Kern, Cayin, Shanling, HiBy) the Shanling is a close second. It looks to me like it's easier to browse on the HiBy and i like the fact i can browse the internal storage and the SD Card completely separately. I intend to store favourite son the internal storage and everything else on the SD Card. I hate playlists.

 

[Zune]

I didn't check which Sony(s) you're looking at but it seems to me the low-middle ones don't have some important features for me. They don't play SACD ISO (I have a few hundred rips), no balanced-out. I was asking some questions here on one of their models, I don't remember which one, but I kinda got an unfavorable impression from what I read.

There is a ton of info here and a lot of people with experience with almost any device you can name. Take your time and read and ask. Use a search engine if the search on here doesn't find what you want. If you put head-fi hiby etc in regular search you will get more useful hits sometimes than using the search here in the site itself. I don't know why that is, but it happens.

Also, if you have places where you can try 'em out there is no substitute. People can tell you about the features and faults but listening to music you know and making your own decision trumps everything if you can do it.

I wish there was somewhere i can go and check these things out in the flesh but i live in the middle of nowhere so i'm relying on here and youtube to try and understand what they are like to use. I've read hundreds of pages of threads on a dozen devices, three or four in depth reviews and two or three youtube reviews so i feel i've done plenty of research.

Coming from a Zune i think any of them are going to impress the hell out of me and blow my mind sound wise

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I didn't realize there are middle of nowhere places still in UK It's a worthwhile tradeoff.

Honestly although I have a pretty good shop not to far from where I live now, most of my life I didn't. I buy pretty much everything sight unseen after a lot of research and it mostly turned out ok.

 

[Zune]

I didn't realize there are middle of nowhere places still in UK It's a worthwhile tradeoff.

Honestly although I have a pretty good shop not to far from where I live now, most of my life I didn't. I buy pretty much everything sight unseen after a lot of research and it mostly turned out ok.

I'm the east coast of Lincolnshire and as far as i'm aware there aren't any hi end audio shops in the county. We love it here though. It's very picturesque with lots of rolling fields near by to walk the dogs and ride the horse and the beach is 15 minutes away. I'm guessing my nearest shop that may stock something like what i want would be Nottingham which is about an hour and three quarters away.

I've lived in this vicinity all my life so i'm used to shopping online. I went through a similar process a couple of years ago when i upgraded my vape gear. I'm really happy with what i ended up with which works perfectly how i use it and it's capable of much more if i need it and i think that's what will happen here.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I'm the east coast of Lincolnshire and as far as i'm aware there aren't any hi end audio shops in the county. We love it here though. It's very picturesque with lots of rolling fields near by to walk the dogs and ride the horse and the beach is 15 minutes away. I'm guessing my nearest shop that may stock something like what i want would be Nottingham which is about an hour and three quarters away.

I've lived in this vicinity all my life so i'm used to shopping online. I went through a similar process a couple of years ago when i upgraded my vape gear. I'm really happy with what i ended up with which works perfectly how i use it and it's capable of much more if i need it and i think that's what will happen here.

Ah ok. Sounds very nice. But when I hear middle of nowhere I'm thinking about being able to drive 5-10 hours without seeing another car and having the radio go round and round when you hit SCAN and never find a station the whole trip