[kevinkar]

This is not a snarky question: do you have the ears and hearing needed to be able to tell whether there’s distortion in your sources?

I realized a while back that I don’t. I’ve plugged my headphones into iPods of various makes, phones of various makes and other devices, and there was only one instance when the sound was crappy. It was from a no-name Android powered phone that sold for figurative pennies, and it was little wonder that the cellular modem died within a year. Beyond that, everything sounded good enough with no obvious distortion in my ears.

I share this simply to potentially give a simple solution. If your hearing is indeed sensitive enough, sincerely more power to you. Mine isn’t, so I’m happy to settle for an iPod that holds my entire library and maintains a charge for months. Besides, I use mine outside my home more than at home, so sound takes a hit anyway.

It's a valid question.. No, my hearing is not what it used to be and I have persistent tinnitus in both ears - a high pitched ring in the 10k range. But, with the music turned up to the right level (not THAT high, just high enough) it drowns out the ringing and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing the music well enough. Quiet passages are dead silent (except for the tinnitus) and I'm pleased with what I hear from my collection.

That being said, I do not intend to spend money on HD music I already have on CD unless I absolutely have to have it (Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, for instance). All my music is ripped to FLAC and sounds great on my Fiio played through my Marantz processor (Fiio coax output to the Marantz) and I have various albums in HD formats that sound great.

Over the years I've done some level-matched A/B tests (borrowed some gear from a local audio buff) with different sources and outputs and found most of it ends up sounding the same indicating my hearing is definitely the long pole here. So upgrading much more is a losing proposition though I sure would LIKE to hear some well regarded speakers just to see what I'd hear. A friend of mine spent some major coin on a Devialet system ($15k or more I believe) and he says it sounds awesome but, being he's as old as I am and has gone to way more concerts than I have, my opinion is he's only saying what he thinks he should because he spent the money!

But to confirm what you're saying - my Samsung Galaxy S23 does indeed sound pretty much on par with the Fiio..... and the iPods..... and the SanDisk Clip Jam..... and the Creative Nano...... and the iRiver H340...... and..... Well, you get the picture. Thus the desire to not get something I don't need. Just a player that can sometimes play the HD stuff I have and might still get. Don't need all the fluff (as noted - it's already on my phone!)

 

[Rackhour]

It's a valid question.. No, my hearing is not what it used to be and I have persistent tinnitus in both ears - a high pitched ring in the 10k range. But, with the music turned up to the right level (not THAT high, just high enough) it drowns out the ringing and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing the music well enough. Quiet passages are dead silent (except for the tinnitus) and I'm pleased with what I hear from my collection.

That being said, I do not intend to spend money on HD music I already have on CD unless I absolutely have to have it (Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, for instance). All my music is ripped to FLAC and sounds great on my Fiio played through my Marantz processor (Fiio coax output to the Marantz) and I have various albums in HD formats that sound great.

Over the years I've done some level-matched A/B tests (borrowed some gear from a local audio buff) with different sources and outputs and found most of it ends up sounding the same indicating my hearing is definitely the long pole here. So upgrading much more is a losing proposition though I sure would LIKE to hear some well regarded speakers just to see what I'd hear. A friend of mine spent some major coin on a Devialet system ($15k or more I believe) and he says it sounds awesome but, being he's as old as I am and has gone to way more concerts than I have, my opinion is he's only saying what he thinks he should because he spent the money!

But to confirm what you're saying - my Samsung Galaxy S23 does indeed sound pretty much on par with the Fiio..... and the iPods..... and the SanDisk Clip Jam..... and the Creative Nano...... and the iRiver H340...... and..... Well, you get the picture. Thus the desire to not get something I don't need. Just a player that can sometimes play the HD stuff I have and might still get. Don't need all the fluff (as noted - it's already on my phone!)

At the end of the day, value is in the eye of the beholder.

I can, at the very least logically, understand @Vamp898’s points. The higher-end bricks pack a lot of tech that focuses on the output. I don’t have golden ears like I said above, but I can at least understand that much.

But like you said, these things are borderline bricks. I don’t think them being Android makes them bricks; like @Vamp898 implied, Android is the underlying OS because everything needs an OS of some form in order to run. And the way I understand the trends is that the manufacturers are willing to sacrifice some degree of portability for higher end specs. Significantly higher end specs if the details are anything to go by.

If you ignore specs for a moment, the long-discontinued Sony NW-A105 has Android 9, and is 99x56x11m. In comparison, the iPhone 13 Mini is 131x64x7.7mm - making it longer, wider and slightly thinner than the Sony.

Maybe the HiBy RSII might be another potential choice. At 90.3x64.8x18.8 mm, it’s shorter and thicker than the iPhone Mini while being about as wide.

 

[kevinkar]

Yeah, the increases in fidelity are more or less a losing proposition in my opinion because they are more incremental than anything. So larger devices with huge touchscreens and chip Y instead of chip X really don't justify much to me. If you're going from a cassette Walkman to a new HD player, sure. But buying a new DAP year after year for these incremental upgrades just wastes money.

Really the crux of my question was not wanting to carry around a second phone-sized device that duplicated almost all of what the phone does in spite of any better internals for music (as you noted, ears are what they are and better source equipment does not guarantee better sound in the brain.) So it wasn't so much an indictment against Android, rather it was against carrying two practically identical devices which I think is just silly.

The key will be when Samsung or a competitor drops the high end DAC chips in to a phone and you won't need two devices. Then I can just buy the latest phone and be done. Still a large device with a touchscreen to run whatever app is playing the music but, to me, it's better than having to take up two pockets.

 

[Vamp898]

Yeah, the increases in fidelity are more or less a losing proposition in my opinion because they are more incremental than anything. So larger devices with huge touchscreens and chip Y instead of chip X really don't justify much to me. If you're going from a cassette Walkman to a new HD player, sure. But buying a new DAP year after year for these incremental upgrades just wastes money.

This highly depends on the DAP. There are some DAPs where there are bigger changes with upgrades and DAPs where there are almost no changes.

Some DAP makers release a new DAP every 4-6 years (and release updates for that time), others release several in one year and kill the device after an year and no longer provide any updates. So it is true for some DAP, but not for every DAP on the market.

The changes between the first generation WM1 series and the second generation are pretty big, not like small details or tiny increments. The difference is "People instantly hear the difference in blind tests and are surprised" big.

So there is still a lot of development going on, especially on the way how capacitors and circuits are designed. There is not much development going on in the chips though, that is why the second generation WM1 uses the exacpt same chip as the first generation (that was released 6years earlier).

So the Full Digital Amp chip is still the one from 2016, but the device as a whole sounds significantly better because the surroundings of the chips where improved.

So you're right in that aspect. Don't pay for chip upgrades that increase the SNR from 126db to 128db or something like that. And thats the issue. If you want good sound, you need good hardware around the chips.

Really the crux of my question was not wanting to carry around a second phone-sized device that duplicated almost all of what the phone does in spite of any better internals for music (as you noted, ears are what they are and better source equipment does not guarantee better sound in the brain.) So it wasn't so much an indictment against Android, rather it was against carrying two practically identical devices which I think is just silly.

The key will be when Samsung or a competitor drops the high end DAC chips in to a phone and you won't need two devices. Then I can just buy the latest phone and be done. Still a large device with a touchscreen to run whatever app is playing the music but, to me, it's better than having to take up two pockets.

The amp and the circuit (especially the capacitors) are way more important than the DAC. The DAC is by far the least important chip in an audio setup, full digital amps even don't have an DAC at all. The only reason to have an DAC is because analog amps need an analog input signal and for no other reason. The DAC is an requirement for the amp, not an feature. The amp is the important thing, but that is complicated and hard to understand for constumers and hence not really marketed. You can compare DACs by numbers on papers and that is why lot of companies advertise the DACs they use and nothing else.

So if Samsung puts an DAC into their phones, they are making you pay for marketing and nothing else. You could just use any phone with a good headphone jack right now then too. There are Hi-Res Audio certified phones with Headphone jacks that even outperform some cheap entry level DAP (like the Xperia series). They are better than most dongles, you don't need to wait until someone makes you pay for marketing for saying "We have this DAC".

If you have good Earphones (we did not talk about that at all, do you even have gear that justifies the need for an DAP?) and you need a source that can utilize them, you need an phone sized bricks. There is no way around it. Everything else will be a compromise that, depending on how big you make it, will be audible. Not in fine details but in the overall sound.

Impedance (ground resistence) for example is not linear. If you are able to lower the ground resistance, everything suddenly starts to sound more "big" and 3D and authentic and realistic. This feeling of space is mostly due to using better hardware and unrelated to chips. But this is extremely hard to archive as this is defined by the capacitors, the circuit and the size of the LCs and so on. So its impossible to have an good, linear, output impedance in an small device (at least at the moment). Sony upgraded their WM1 from 13 wound capacitors to 21 wound capacitors to be able to make the output impedance more linear. And that is an difference you instantly hear with every earphone. And if you want that sound, there is no smaller alternative.

Not just the capacitors, the chassy and everything elese affects ground resistance. That is why even the cheap NW-A50 is made out of milled alunimium block. No smartphone is made out of an milled aluminium covering the antennas with copper. You would have very bad reception. When im like 3 meters away of the wifi router, my Walkman already drops to 3/4. If i close the thin wood door of my room, im down to 2/4 reception (with 3 meter distance and no wall in the way).

That would be absolutely unusable in any smartphone but is an neccesity for good sound. So you can not replace the sound quality of an DAP with an phone, especially not by just putting DACs inside.

Just look at the difference between the ZX500 and ZX700. This is not an small upgrade in the chips (they use the same chip by the way. ZX300, ZX500, ZX700, WM1 and WM1 M2 all use the exact same chips since 2016, they only differ in the hardware surrounding in the chip)

Those are not minor differences, neither in hardware, nor in sound, those are big upgrades. But they could only be done by using more space.

Those 4 big black blocks

are the LCs. This is how they looked on the previous model, the ZX500

They were like 1-2mm thick. And the large capacitor on stands you see on the right of the image was previously an thin double layer capacitor

So by replacing the thin double layer capacitor with an big FTCAP3 and the tiny LCs with 8mm LCs and upgrading the overall circuit and the other capacitors, the ZX700 had to get bigger and fatter but its an big upgrade in sound you instantly hear, not a small increment.

So there are basically two ways for you.

You need/want the sound quality --> You need an phone sized brick.
You do not --> You can use any phone with a good headphone jack or use an bluetooth receiver to not have cables hanging out of your phone (that will annoy you over time, especially when you use your phone a lot).

 

[HunqVux]

This highly depends on the DAP. There are some DAPs where there are bigger changes with upgrades and DAPs where there are almost no changes.

Some DAP makers release a new DAP every 4-6 years (and release updates for that time), others release several in one year and kill the device after an year and no longer provide any updates. So it is true for some DAP, but not for every DAP on the market.

The changes between the first generation WM1 series and the second generation are pretty big, not like small details or tiny increments. The difference is "People instantly hear the difference in blind tests and are surprised" big.

So there is still a lot of development going on, especially on the way how capacitors and circuits are designed. There is not much development going on in the chips though, that is why the second generation WM1 uses the exacpt same chip as the first generation (that was released 6years earlier).

So the Full Digital Amp chip is still the one from 2016, but the device as a whole sounds significantly better because the surroundings of the chips where improved.

So you're right in that aspect. Don't pay for chip upgrades that increase the SNR from 126db to 128db or something like that. And thats the issue. If you want good sound, you need good hardware and even though

The amp and the circuit (especially the capacitors) are way more important than the DAC. The DAC is by far the least important chip in an audio setup, full digital amps even don't have an DAC at all. The only reason to have an DAC is because analog amps need an analog input signal and for no other reason. The DAC is an requirement for the amp, not an feature. The amp is the important thing, but that is complicated and hard to understand for constumers and hence not really marketed. You can compare DACs by numbers on papers and that is why lot of companies advertise the DACs they use and nothing else.

So if Samsung puts an DAC into their phones, they are making you pay for marketing and nothing else. You could just use any phone with a good headphone jack right now then too. There are Hi-Res Audio certified phones with Headphone jacks that even outperform some cheap entry level DAP (like the Xperia series). They are better than most dongles, you don't need to wait until someone makes you pay for marketing for saying "We have this DAC".

If you have good Earphones (we did not talk about that at all, do you even have gear that justifies the need for an DAP?) and you need a source that can utilize them, you need an phone sized bricks. There is no way around it. Everything else will be a compromise that, depending on how big you make it, will be audible. Not in fine details but in the overall sound.

Impedance (ground resistence) for example is not linear. If you are able to lower the ground resistance, everything suddenly starts to sound more "big" and 3D and authentic and realistic. This feeling of space is mostly due to using better hardware and unrelated to chips. But this is extremely hard to archive as this is defined by the capacitors, the circuit and the size of the LCs and so on. So its impossible to have an good, linear, output impedance in an small device (at least at the moment). Sony upgraded their WM1 from 13 wound capacitors to 21 wound capacitors to be able to make the output impedance more linear. And that is an difference you instantly hear with every earphone. And if you want that sound, there is no smaller alternative.

Not just the capacitors, the chassy and everything elese affects ground resistance. That is why even the cheap NW-A50 is made out of milled alunimium block. No smartphone is made out of an milled aluminium covering the antennas with copper. You would have very bad reception. When im like 3 meters away of the wifi router, my Walkman already drops to 3/4. If i close the thin wood door of my room, im down to 2/4 reception (with 3 meter distance and no wall in the way).

That would be absolutely unusable in any smartphone but is an neccesity for good sound. So you can not replace the sound quality of an DAP with an phone, especially not by just putting DACs inside.

Just look at the difference between the ZX500 and ZX700. This is not an small upgrade in the chips (they use the same chip by the way. ZX300, ZX500, ZX700, WM1 and WM1 M2 all use the exact same chips since 2016, they only differ in the hardware surrounding in the chip)

Those are not minor differences, neither in hardware, nor in sound, those are big upgrades. But they could only be done by using more space.

Those 4 big black blocks

are the LCs. This is how they looked on the previous model, the ZX500

They were like 1-2mm thick. And the large capacitor on stands you see on the right of the image was previously an thin double layer capacitor



So by replacing the thin double layer capacitor with an big FTCAP3 and the tiny LCs with 8mm LCs and upgrading the overall circuit and the other capacitors, the ZX700 had to get bigger and fatter but its an big upgrade in sound you instantly hear, not a small increment.

So there are basically two ways for you.

You need/want the sound quality --> You need an phone sized brick.
You do not --> You can use any phone with a good headphone jack or use an bluetooth receiver to not have cables hanging out of your phone (that will annoy you over time, especially when you use your phone a lot).

This article is truly remarkable. I truly concur with every statement you made.

 

[kevinkar]

This article is truly remarkable. I truly concur with every statement you made.

It was also way more than was necessary to make a point but it was interesting.

 

[riodgarp]

what comes in my mind: xduoo series (they still making non android dap); ibasso dx90/j; hidizs ap100

 

[tonyg1]

It means both. Can you show me a DAP or a cellphone using Android without a touchscreen?

Android also means apps. Which are all already on my phone which does not have a high end DAC in it sooooooo, if I also want to play my hi-res music, I apparently have to carry around a SECOND Android device that's generally as big as my phone. I don't want to do that. Am I supposed to load up all my apps from my phone onto a DAP and then still have to carry around a phone for cell service? Again, that's redundant and also too big.

I don't want to carry two Android devices, both of which are about the same size and I don't want to control a music player via a touchscreen because I will always have to take that out of my pocket, activate the screen, do what I want and then return it to my pocket. With a non-Android DAP with dedicated buttons, I just reach into my pocket, click the button I want and done.


True, not necessarily Android but aren't they all touchscreen controlled? I guess I should have clarified I don't want touchscreen control either. I'll check them out to be sure. Thanks.


Yeah, that looks promising but it sure is pricey. I think that might be MORE than my S9 was! But I'll take a look. Thank you.

I guess I'm just so used to the old days of non-hi-res players that fit in your pocket and you just controlled by touch (Creative Zen, Sandisk, iRiver, etc.) Simple. The more advanced and hi-res they get, the more they tack on tech that's not really necessary. Even if phones got high end DACs in them, you'd still have to look at them to control them (they all seem to want to go away from costly hard buttons!) So I'm probably out of luck.

I've had a Sony NW-ZX300 for six years. 3 years ago I got a Sony NW-ZX507 (running Android). That's now backburnered as a back-up and the NW-ZX300 is once more my primary. I've posted elsewhere on the (for me, anyway) various disadvantages of the 507 compared to the 300 - shorter battery life, no mass storage mode, over-complicated operating system, power-draining apps, reflective screen. Just ordered a replacement NW-ZX300 battery for when the original degrades (I currently still get 27 hours of MP3 playback against the original (OEM claimed) 30 hours - I get 19 hours from the 507 in a back-to-back test.

 

[tonyg1]

I've had a Sony NW-ZX300 for six years. 3 years ago I got a Sony NW-ZX507 (running Android). That's now backburnered as a back-up and the NW-ZX300 is once more my primary. I've posted elsewhere on the (for me, anyway) various disadvantages of the 507 compared to the 300 - shorter battery life, no mass storage mode, over-complicated operating system, power-draining apps, reflective screen. Just ordered a replacement NW-ZX300 battery for when the original degrades (I currently still get 27 hours of MP3 playback against the original (OEM claimed) 30 hours - I get 19 hours from the 507 in a back-to-back test.

Also should have mentioned - the Sony NW-ZX507 is Android and touch screen, but also has the side button controls as per the NW-ZX300. But I still prefer the non-android simplicity of the NW-ZX 300 - so much so that I went on a hunt for a new ZX-300 (to keep for thr day my old one finally gives up the ghost). It's now obsolete, but I tracked down a Japanese supplier on ebay; I just received a brand new, sealed and boxed NW-ZX300. Of course it was a Japan-only unit, which doesn't have a language options menu, but I was able to switch it to its European mode with RockBox's destination tool for the Sony NW-Z series.