[Spider fan]

Want! But I'll make do with standard for now :-D
Excellent! Can't wait. Im still marvelling at the sound through the Monk and Asura

Yah, its pretty awesome.   I never thought I could walk around the house with my Zens or HD600s playing straight out of a DAP.

 

[Ruben123]

A pity we havent heard about the other user with power problems. I compared the Walnut to my notebook, using the same WAVs (HP 8530w). At around 50% volume, with the same 600 Ohms Sennheisers, I get about the same volume. Not volume matched, though when going to 100% Windows volume my ears start to hurt while I can take the Walnut's max volume with ease.
 
My question to all of you: could you somewhat objectively compare the volume of all your Walnuts with your PCs, notebooks etc? I would really like to know if you are all suffering from the new toy syndrome ( ) or that I realy have a faulty unit. I mean, unable to drive 600 Ohm headphones from a portable player is to be expected, but one shouldnt expect a notebook to have much more power. If you would like to help me, please BTW I would use a high impedance headphone, so you could throw open the full volume of your Walnuts/PCs. Comparing Windows' volume percentage to a volume knob is sort of impossible.

 

[Spider fan]

Hmmmmm, there has to be more to the story here.  I was listening to my Zens and comfortable/loud was at about 12oclock but the knob didnt do much after that.  I keep my Mojitos in the same case as my Zens so when I put them away I decided to stick the mojitos in.  At 12oclock, they were super low.  Currently, I am listening to at a nice volume but not loud at maxed out.  I also just stuck my HD600s in real quick to make sure nothing had changed and I still listen to them around 3 oclock to max and they are louder than the mojitos.  Yes, I maxed out the digital control on the next button.
 
All sound great and loud enough.  Its just a weird observation.  No clue what it means, just my observations for those worried there units are messed up.
 
I am more than pleased with my unit.
 
Now that I thought about it alittle,  My vintage Sansui surprises me at time in that I have the knob higher on my low ohm stuff compared to my high ohm stuff.  I always figured it had something to do with the high impedence output of the headphone jack and it not matching up well with the lower ohm stuff.  But honestly, I have no clue that just comes from what from what I read on the forums talking about vintage stuff driving modern headphones.

 

[skylartd]

After several days using the Walnut and compare it with Fiio X3ii, here is my thought (take it with a grains of salt plz ). I will only consider the SQ since many other stuff is not the reason everyone buying these .
The Fiio X3ii is asolutely better but the Walnut is very close behind.
Fiio X3ii have a cleaner background, a better separation and putting more details on the mid.
Treble feel a little more extend with Fiio X3ii, but the Walnut doesn't sound roll-off to me at all. I dont spot any bass roll-off maybe because i'm only using earbud and the bass is already roll-of . 
To my ear the Walnut have a little forward mid than Fiio X3ii and sound very smooth so maybe it's good for some vocal lover out there .
That's it, to the guys who wonder if the Walnut is better than Fiio X3ii or not, i would say no, it isn't.
But considering the price, this is a crazy deal cause it sound very close to the Fiio X3ii which is way more expensive than the Walnut.
BTW, the power on this thing is super.

 

[flamesofarctica]

A pity we havent heard about the other user with power problems. I compared the Walnut to my notebook, using the same WAVs (HP 8530w). At around 50% volume, with the same 600 Ohms Sennheisers, I get about the same volume. Not volume matched, though when going to 100% Windows volume my ears start to hurt while I can take the Walnut's max volume with ease.

My question to all of you: could you somewhat objectively compare the volume of all your Walnuts with your PCs, notebooks etc? I would really like to know if you are all suffering from the new toy syndrome ( ) or that I realy have a faulty unit. I mean, unable to drive 600 Ohm headphones from a portable player is to be expected, but one shouldnt expect a notebook to have much more power. If you would like to help me, please BTW I would use a high impedance headphone, so you could throw open the full volume of your Walnuts/PCs. Comparing Windows' volume percentage to a volume knob is sort of impossible.

This needs someone else with hard to drive over-ear headphones, which I don't have unfortunately (max 60 ohms), I'm sure there must be someone in this thread though.

My gut feel is high impedence buds must be easier to drive than high impedence full size headphones, but I have no basis for saying that so am probably just making a fool of myself :-D Its just...Well, there's bigger things to move! I'd better stop typing now.

For sound quality alone, I know this isn't new toy syndrome, I've bought a lot of new toys (music players) recently and this really does stand out as having the best sound. It sounds great with everything I've thrown at it. But as I've said before, I'm comparing WAV files on this with MP3 320 rips on budget gear (with the XDUOO X3 being my most expensive). It needs somebody with more experience, and ideally who's tried higher end stuff, to really judge.

 

[nick n]

Fussing over a crappy SD card that is not even the right size as stated ... if I even got one I'd throw it in the garbage immediately. Think I even did that with the interconnect I got.
Maybe the tracks are fun to copy off and check out for fun.
It shouldn't be used to determine the quality of the unit itself.
Even legit sd card brands are iffy at times.
 
If someone heard a properly functioning unit there would be no question about the authority and power behind it's presentation.
 This is a budget player, there are bound to be the odd ones that are not up to snuff unfortunately, and I do hope those who have the odd one so far like that are taken care of or get a refund.
 
 
I can drive 600 ohm Beyer DT990, AKG 141, 1000 ohm portable electrets, horridly insensitive Fostex T50rp mod, Various vintage orthos like the Yamaha HP-50, HP-1, YHE-50,Fostex T10, Fostex T20 v1 , Dual DK830 (<  ! )  etc etc.
 
DT990 for example gets right to the top of the volume but I would not want it any louder that would not be good for longer listening sessions.
Dual DK830 is even less sensitive I think than the 990.
 
This thing is great. Don't like the sound sig, spend the $6 and swap the opamp out to change it entirely.
 
 
How much voltage swing does a typical headphone out on a notebook have? Not much i am guessing. Often that headphone out is a secondary concern

 

[nmatheis]

Just ordered one. I'll let everyone know what I think when it arrives.

 

[macky112]

For sound quality alone, I know this isn't new toy syndrome, I've bought a lot of new toys (music players) recently and this really does stand out as having the best sound. It sounds great with everything I've thrown at it. But as I've said before, I'm comparing WAV files on this with MP3 320 rips on budget gear (with the XDUOO X3 being my most expensive). It needs somebody with more experience, and ideally who's tried higher end stuff, to really judge.

Xduoo X3 can play WAV files. Could you do a direct comparison if you haven't already?

 

[bigbro]

Not sure what I did but my audio issues appear okay now.
 
I took it apart and checked the connections on the back of the board with a multimeter to see if the voltage was passing through okay and when I put it back together the volume went up about 90% haha.
 
Perhaps it was just a lose connection or something, although I did take the battery off the board too and put it back on, so it could of been something to do with that?
 
I have no idea to be honest, I got lucky, just glad it is working now, it sounds amazing.
 
 
All I have noticed so far is that if I convert a large flac and the wav it produces is over 100mb, the player won't play it, I get some random noises instead. When I keep the files under 100mb it works flawlessly. Sadly some Pink Floyd songs are a no go unless I split them up into two files 

 
 
I am using https://www.freac.org/

 

[Spider fan]

Just converted my first wavs and put them on an sd card.  With @vapman instructions to use foobar it took like 10 mins to convert like 110 songs.

 

[trellus]

I am a little confused by what you are saying here; are you saying that at around 50% volume on the Walnut, you get the same as 50% volume on your HP 8350w laptop?
 
I compared my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina 15" and at 100% volume on that with my Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro 250 Ohm headphones definitely did not hurt my ears at all, and in fact I needed a little more volume for my listening taste, on an older 1988-mastered ripped CD  (Sam Phillips, The Indescribable Wow), which I purposely picked to see if I could get the Walnut to play later since it's one of my albums with lower volume than normal for my music collection.
 
Sure enough, I can definitely get the DT 880/250 louder on the Walnut.  
 
In fact, at just a little over 50% volume not the Walnut, I get roughly the same volume as I get at 100% on my laptop:
 
 
I can then take it louder and then it becomes noticeably louder and is roughly what I consider the "right" volume for this song:
 


Louder than that is still ok, but definitely not painful to my ears, and as others have noted, volume doesn't seem to increase linearly past about 2/3rd.
 

 
 

  A pity we havent heard about the other user with power problems. I compared the Walnut to my notebook, using the same WAVs (HP 8530w). At around 50% volume, with the same 600 Ohms Sennheisers, I get about the same volume. Not volume matched, though when going to 100% Windows volume my ears start to hurt while I can take the Walnut's max volume with ease.
 
My question to all of you: could you somewhat objectively compare the volume of all your Walnuts with your PCs, notebooks etc? I would really like to know if you are all suffering from the new toy syndrome ( ) or that I realy have a faulty unit. I mean, unable to drive 600 Ohm headphones from a portable player is to be expected, but one shouldnt expect a notebook to have much more power. If you would like to help me, please BTW I would use a high impedance headphone, so you could throw open the full volume of your Walnuts/PCs. Comparing Windows' volume percentage to a volume knob is sort of impossible.

 

[musicday]

Just ordered one. I'll let everyone know what I think when it arrives.

You will not be disappointed i am sure.

 

[Ruben123]

Hmmmmm, there has to be more to the story here.  I was listening to my Zens and comfortable/loud was at about 12oclock but the knob didnt do much after that.  I keep my Mojitos in the same case as my Zens so when I put them away I decided to stick the mojitos in.  At 12oclock, they were super low.  Currently, I am listening to at a nice volume but not loud at maxed out.  I also just stuck my HD600s in real quick to make sure nothing had changed and I still listen to them around 3 oclock to max and they are louder than the mojitos.  Yes, I maxed out the digital control on the next button.

All sound great and loud enough.  Its just a weird observation.  No clue what it means, just my observations for those worried there units are messed up.

I am more than pleased with my unit.

Now that I thought about it alittle,  My vintage Sansui surprises me at time in that I have the knob higher on my low ohm stuff compared to my high ohm stuff.  I always figured it had something to do with the high impedence output of the headphone jack and it not matching up well with the lower ohm stuff.  But honestly, I have no clue that just comes from what from what I read on the forums talking about vintage stuff driving modern headphones.

Did you mean 12 o clock on the beginning or the ending of the knob?

 

[Ruben123]

Fussing over a crappy SD card that is not even the right size as stated ... if I even got one I'd throw it in the garbage immediately. Think I even did that with the interconnect I got.
Maybe the tracks are fun to copy off and check out for fun.
It shouldn't be used to determine the quality of the unit itself.
Even legit sd card brands are iffy at times.

If someone heard a properly functioning unit there would be no question about the authority and power behind it's presentation.
 This is a budget player, there are bound to be the odd ones that are not up to snuff unfortunately, and I do hope those who have the odd one so far like that are taken care of or get a refund.


I can drive 600 ohm Beyer DT990, AKG 141, 1000 ohm portable electrets, horridly insensitive Fostex T50rp mod, Various vintage orthos like the Yamaha HP-50, HP-1, YHE-50,Fostex T10, Fostex T20 v1 , Dual DK830 (<  ! )  etc etc.

DT990 for example gets right to the top of the volume but I would not want it any louder that would not be good for longer listening sessions.
Dual DK830 is even less sensitive I think than the 990.

This thing is great. Don't like the sound sig, spend the $6 and swap the opamp out to change it entirely.


How much voltage swing does a typical headphone out on a notebook have? Not much i am guessing. Often that headphone out is a secondary concern

Problem is: is mine faulty, or isn't it? For instance my notebook is much louder and also my Sansa Clip is louder, even though it too is known to have quite some power. I'd like to find out whether it's my unit or that all have the same power capabilities.

 

[Spider fan]

Did you mean 12 o clock on the beginning or the ending of the knob?

12 oclock as the white line pointing straight up like at 12 on a  clock.  My start is at like 7 oclock and my end is at like 5 oclock.  12 oclock is basically 50% of the distance around but it isnt 50% of the volume the knob doesnt change the volume much after that.