[TheDreamthinker]

Quote:

Brick? for sure, but not something I hate totally. But then, it comes with a remote, so what do you expect?

 
Here's project86's review: http://www.head-fi.org/t/496326/review-qls-qa-350-solid-state-transport-amazing-sound-and-versatility
 
Go back a page for my comments on V2's battery life or the lack of it. It's not great in looks, general usage, size or weight departments. Of course, there's no UI other than a 8 character display of the track name, even that too is hard to understand sometimes as it messes up album names. If I had <artist> - <year> - <album> pattern for folder names, you'd expect them to play chronologically. But, it would play the fifth album first, sixth next and so on. It does not support sub-folders either.
 
But the good thing is it is claimed to have a 0.2 ohm output impedance and it does not mess up the signature or hiss with IEMs and headphones. It has good output power too. If I knew how to measure output Z, I could at least confirm it myself. It may not make any sense as a 'portable' player next to Clip+, but at least the brick sings well enough to make me keep it

 
The QLS QA350 is really the anti-iPod:
-Aesthetically not very pleasing.
-Big & heavy
-No UI
-No marketing 
...something about that makes me happy.
 
 
Quote:

Reading this thread has made me weary and depressed. The players that seem to have a good intuitive UI aren't the best players audio quality wise and the players that sound great are primitive looking and have crappy glitchy UI's or no UI at all. That's not even factoring in some of them are the size of a 80's walkman and have terrible battery life. I don't get it it's not like Apple or Sony broke the bank on decent UI design. I'm sure if someone just sat down and put some solid thought behind it and devoted a few extra months on product UI development they could create a good UI for a great sounding DAP. Heck if you don't want to start from scratch on a OS then just use Android and build off of that. Heck maybe I'll just go with a Sony player as a iPod alternative. By the way anyone know the output impedance on a Sony player? From what I have researched the lower the impedance the better.

I had to smile when I read that. 
As good as it may sound, that it practically has no UI + the low battery life + only WAV (as i don't really have any WAV-songs) are not very encouraging.
 
But i will keep an eye on it.
 
P.S.:It somehow reminds me of the iBasso D4 Mamba.
 

(from project86's review)

 

[victorcc]

I had to smile when I read that. 
As good as it may sound, that it practically has no UI + the low battery life + only WAV (as i don't really have any WAV-songs) are not very encouraging.

 
To help you with the courage thing:
- The UI is good enough for playing albums as I use to do all the time. If you are the kind of person that likes to create playlist on the go, etc., then....
-  Convert your flac/mp3 files to WAV is an automatic process that can be done for example using foobar very easily. The only minor issue is HD space and that is something quite cheap at the moment. 
- The size and way to hold it when using it portable reminds me when I was young (and the grass was green and the girls were pretty) and I carried around my portable CD player all the time.
- Nothing to say about the battery life
 

 
Cheers

 

[TheDreamthinker]

Quote:

 
To help you with the courage thing:
- The UI is good enough for playing albums as I use to do all the time. If you are the kind of person that likes to create playlist on the go, etc., then....
-  Convert your flac/mp3 files to WAV is an automatic process that can be done for example using foobar very easily. The only minor issue is HD space and that is something quite cheap at the moment. 
- The size and way to hold it when using it portable reminds me when I was young (and the grass was green and the girls were pretty) and I carried around my portable CD player all the time.
- Nothing to say about the battery life
 

 
Cheers

Thanks....i'll keep that in mind....
 
Cheers
 
 

 

[DigitalFreak]

Hmmm crappy UI aside maybe an SFlo is worth the risk. The big downside I fear is being on the phone talking to some Chinese gentlemen who speaks bad English about my defective SFlo

 

[SoulSyde]

Go with your gut on that one.

 

[Varley]

@TheDreamthinker -
 
iPod came today - Absolutely mint conditions, looks literally brand new - Works fantastic, transfer speeds are fine (9.2mbps) and Rockboxed straight away

 

 

[Louis8ball]

What version of Nano is that (sorry if you've already answered this earlier in the thread). Does this Nano have the Wolfson chip in it? And if so, did Woflson offer more or better EQ setting options than what you get in the Nano today?
 
What is it exactly that makes Wolfson chipset sound better than the others? For example, I am using a Sony Walkman NWZ-E354 (after having been an iPod user for many years). I find one of the advantages of the Walkman technology is that they offer several 3D surround sound menu options to select from, in addition to EQ presets (not to mention 2 custom EQ menu options, as well).
 
Did Apple ever give these options when Wolfson was in charge of their chipset?

 

[SoulSyde]

Here are your answers:
 
1G (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Nano)
Yes - and it sounds good, but it's not perfect.  It's not all about the chip, but how it is implemented.
No more options than the current iPod line.
It doesn't.  There are many good chip manufacturers these days.
No.  But, Rockbox can be a great addition for those looking for EQ tweaks.  This unit can support the stable use of Rockbox.

 

[Louis8ball]

Cool. Thanks

 

[TheDreamthinker]

Quote:

@TheDreamthinker -
 
iPod came today - Absolutely mint conditions, looks literally brand new - Works fantastic, transfer speeds are fine (9.2mbps) and Rockboxed straight away

 

Oh, thanks.
I did expect something new,but not that new.
I really look new, out-of-the-box.
really impressive.....

 

[Louis8ball]

But it's only 4GB. . .how sad

 
That's about half of my iTunes library. Can it be expanded or "modded" to fit more than this?

 

[wind016]

 
Quote:

Reading this thread has made me weary and depressed. The players that seem to have a good intuitive UI aren't the best players audio quality wise and the players that sound great are primitive looking and have crappy glitchy UI's or no UI at all. That's not even factoring in some of them are the size of a 80's walkman and have terrible battery life. I don't get it it's not like Apple or Sony broke the bank on decent UI design. I'm sure if someone just sat down and put some solid thought behind it and devoted a few extra months on product UI development they could create a good UI for a great sounding DAP. Heck if you don't want to start from scratch on a OS then just use Android and build off of that. Heck maybe I'll just go with a Sony player as a iPod alternative. By the way anyone know the output impedance on a Sony player? From what I have researched the lower the impedance the better.

Cowon S9/J3 has the best of both worlds IMO.
 

 

[SoulSyde]

Quote:

But it's only 4GB. . .how sad

 
That's about half of my iTunes library. Can it be expanded or "modded" to fit more than this?

Your music library is only 8GB!?

 

[TheDreamthinker]

Quote:

But it's only 4GB. . .how sad

 
That's about half of my iTunes library. Can it be expanded or "modded" to fit more than this?

really, my in comparison small library, already has ca. 40GB
 

 

[Louis8ball]

Quote:

Your music library is only 8GB!?

LOL!!  Well, I'm kinda on a budget right now (sadly, not really a music budget at the moment, though). My library used to be much bigger way back in the day. I probably owned hundreds of dollars in vinyl, alone, but got rid of those a long long time ago.
 
But I'm slowly rebuilding. . .it takes time

 
 
BTW, I should also mention for clarification, my "library" is all in 256 kbps AAC files. I am sure that if I was to convert these all to LossLess files that it would be a much larger library in terms of GB's