[Igor Ruzaev]

awful translation, as Alex likes to use metaphors in his reviews )

Here is his description of the sound, I tried to translate it more properly than Google, still I am not an expert in describing the sound.

"Formally, the sound does not demonstrate any tonal color, the sound is dense,balanced and smooth. Unlike X2, D3 does not have sloppiness in the pitch, but at the same time, there is no amazing openness and dynamism that once struck me in xDuoo X2. Sound is not simple but noble: accuracy, density and clarity of sound, but at the same time the sound is slightly closed with phlegmatic nature of the presentation - that's probably the full description of the sound of this new DAP.

D3 is lacking macrodynamics, the deep bass is slightly squeezed (i.e. not free), HF is not so polished compared to more expensive devices.

The player sings smoothly, but "without a spark"; correctly, but slightly "closed".
Sorry, but otherwise, with this level of quality of implementation, there is another money.

The sound quality ... 4 (phlegmatic - detached character of sound, slightly reduced macrodynamics and restrained edges of ranges)"

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

awful translation, as Alex likes to use metaphors in his reviews )

Here is his description of the sound, I tried to translate it more properly than Google, still I am not an expert in describing the sound.

"Formally, the sound does not demonstrate any tonal color, the sound is dense,balanced and smooth. Unlike X2, D3 does not have sloppiness in the pitch, but at the same time, there is no amazing openness and dynamism that once struck me in xDuoo X2. Sound is not simple but noble: accuracy, density and clarity of sound, but at the same time the sound is slightly closed with phlegmatic nature of the presentation - that's probably the full description of the sound of this new DAP.

D3 is lacking macrodynamics, the deep bass is slightly squeezed (i.e. not free), HF is not so polished compared to more expensive devices.

The player sings smoothly, but "without a spark"; correctly, but slightly "closed".
Sorry, but otherwise, with this level of quality of implementation, there is another money.

The sound quality ... 4 (phlegmatic - detached character of sound, slightly reduced macrodynamics and restrained edges of ranges)"

Google isnt know for good translation, from russian to french it was just not readable, will certainly not use Google to translate Dostoïevski hehe
Thanks for the better version!!!!

 

[fredhubbard2]

awful translation, as Alex likes to use metaphors in his reviews )

Here is his description of the sound, I tried to translate it more properly than Google, still I am not an expert in describing the sound.

"Formally, the sound does not demonstrate any tonal color, the sound is dense,balanced and smooth. Unlike X2, D3 does not have sloppiness in the pitch, but at the same time, there is no amazing openness and dynamism that once struck me in xDuoo X2. Sound is not simple but noble: accuracy, density and clarity of sound, but at the same time the sound is slightly closed with phlegmatic nature of the presentation - that's probably the full description of the sound of this new DAP.

D3 is lacking macrodynamics, the deep bass is slightly squeezed (i.e. not free), HF is not so polished compared to more expensive devices.

The player sings smoothly, but "without a spark"; correctly, but slightly "closed".
Sorry, but otherwise, with this level of quality of implementation, there is another money.

The sound quality ... 4 (phlegmatic - detached character of sound, slightly reduced macrodynamics and restrained edges of ranges)"

ha ha ... still do not really understand a word of this! my music is definately sparkling with this thing

 

[kova4a]

Well, I guess that's one way to describe it. I gave it a second try yesterday. It's not bad sounding. A bit more on the warm side of neutral. Nice and musical with more of a rounded notes. It does lack some extension on both ends, so it's a touch dark and intimate and the bass is a bit softer. It's not super technical and with the greatest dynamics but it provides a very smooth and relaxing listen. The issue with the software remain a big no go though. If you're in on folder or album or whatever and just skip song, it's relatively fine, but once you press that home, menu button and things get bad real fast. First, if you press the home button and start pressing it repeatedly or other buttons while it's taking its sweet time the nano will restart. If you just wait for it it will eventually do it's thing, but I'm not really sure you'll save much time if it doesn't restart. Second, it really does take its sweet time as the screen goes off pretty much every time it's thinking, so it takes longer than 10 seconds. This means that from pressing the menu button and going to another track that is not inside your current playing folder or album, you'll need like 30 seconds also taking in consideration the slow UI - that's real bad. I'm not in a big hurry or anything but this is unacceptable. I wonder if Alex took his time to post any impressions other than build quality, because he was wondering how to put it in a better light.

And as already said it does cut of like 2 secs of the beginning of the tracks but the interesting part is that's it doesn't cut them off completely, you can still hear super faintly the start of the song as if without any amplification. I wonder if they can also fix this with an update if they improve the response time of the nano as it seems that in this instance the nano also takes its sweet time to transfer the signal from the chip to the opamp.

 

[crabdog]

Well, I guess that's one way to describe it. I gave it a second try yesterday. It's not bad sounding. A bit more on the warm side of neutral. Nice and musical with more of a rounded notes. It does lack some extension on both ends, so it's a touch dark and intimate and the bass is a bit softer. It's not super technical and with the greatest dynamics but it provides a very smooth and relaxing listen. The issue with the software remain a big no go though. If you're in on folder or album or whatever and just skip song, it's relatively fine, but once you press that home, menu button and things get bad real fast. First, if you press the home button and start pressing it repeatedly or other buttons while it's taking its sweet time the nano will restart. If you just wait for it it will eventually do it's thing, but I'm not really sure you'll save much time if it doesn't restart. Second, it really does take its sweet time as the screen goes off pretty much every time it's thinking, so it takes longer than 10 seconds. This means that from pressing the menu button and going to another track that is not inside your current playing folder or album, you'll need like 30 seconds also taking in consideration the slow UI - that's real bad. I'm not in a big hurry or anything but this is unacceptable. I wonder if Alex took his time to post any impressions other than build quality, because he was wondering how to put it in a better light.

And as already said it does cut of like 2 secs of the beginning of the tracks but the interesting part is that's it doesn't cut them off completely, you can still hear super faintly the start of the song as if without any amplification. I wonder if they can also fix this with an update if they improve the response time of the nano as it seems that in this instance the nano also takes its sweet time to transfer the signal from the chip to the opamp.

Unfortunately one of the ways they keep the costs down is by putting insufficient RAM and really under-powered processors in these budget DAPs. Pair those with a color display and things start to get bogged down.

 

[TLDRonin]

anyone know what dac chip D3's using?
tnx
edit: i guess its CS4398

I don't believe it's the CS4398. The x3 uses that, and I think the d3 is using the x2's dac

 

[TheVocaloidOne]

Hmm... 4K screen?

That's too big! Maybe a typo or something.

 

[bsoplinger]

… Is the status of gapless as a feature of D3 confirmed one way or another?

It does not do gapless. In fact there's an audible clunk between tracks, not even silence. Worst perhaps, it cuts off the first few seconds of every track.

 

[bsoplinger]

Just to repeat what I mentioned elsewhere… the is a gap between the playing of 2 songs, worse there's a clunky sound not silence and even worse the beginning of each and every track is cut off by a few seconds. Occasionally, I'd guess at most 25-33%, the last second or so of a track is cut off.

Another for the "how could something so poorly done be released, let alone sold" list. When using the back function while navigating via folder view when you back out twice to where the list of folders would be, the player only halfway remembers the location. That is, first back from playing shows the list of files in the folder. Another back shows the list of folders combined with the current folder. Yet another back shows the folder list. As an example I'll use a simple folder by artist setup. First a folder called music. Inside that folder a folder for each artist. Inside each artist's folder a folder for every album. Inside each album folder a collection of music files, one per song.

So if I'm listening to Mike Oldfield's album The Songs of Distant Earth and then hit back once (seeing list of songs in the album) twice (seeing list of all Mike Oldfield albums) and a third time (seeing list of all artists) I will indeed see Mike Oldfield in the middle of the vertical list of artists. However, when I press the up or down button to move to the next artist nothing seems to happen. Eventually I figured out, by looking at the visual extra of the highlight of the scroll location glow moving as you scroll through the list, that the location on the list of the 'current' folder wasn't being kept for the highlight and hence the selection press but resets to 1. If I just held down either button eventually the highlight would appear from the top or bottom and now the display would scroll correctly as I use the up or down buttons.

I suspect that this error exists at all levels when moving back. I'll test today with an album with way more than 8 (or 10 or whatever number of lines of info gets displayed) songs and also with an artist with more than that number of albums.

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

Just receive my D3! Sound very very nice and it surpass my attempt in this aspect. UI, yes is a little slow, but firmware should be update in the futur.
Will share more impressions today or tomorrow.
Some pics:

 

[lotech]

"firmware should be update in the future"
sure, don't hold your breath. Xduoo ignored the X3, pretty sure they did same with the X10.
They haven't fixed gapless, or the 10 second delay or cutting first few seconds off track (in fact it's worse).
While I love the sound of the X3, and Alex's Rockbox port, I can't support Xduoo as a company, I have absolutely no faith in them to
care enough to fix anything.

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

I have big hope that 2018 will be the ''Xduoo put ther shyt togheter'' year.

I'm a believer, man. Amen!

They really excell with sound so its time they work on firmware knowledge, cause yes, waiting 5 seconds for the song to play is long. Still not sure about 3 seconds that lack in song toughs, not happen yet. My first observation is it take to much time to open and to play song, all the rest work smoothly IMO

Will share more, and if I can have a confirmation about Xduoo working on firmware issue it will be YEAL here.

cheers!

 

[Ohmsssss]

I have big hope that 2018 will be the ''Xduoo put ther shyt togheter'' year.

I'm a believer, man. Amen!

They really excell with sound so its time they work on firmware knowledge, cause yes, waiting 5 seconds for the song to play is long. Still not sure about 3 seconds that lack in song toughs, not happen yet. My first observation is it take to much time to open and to play song, all the rest work smoothly IMO

Will share more, and if I can have a confirmation about Xduoo working on firmware issue it will be YEAL here.

cheers!

Just receive my D3! Sound very very nice and it surpass my attempt in this aspect. UI, yes is a little slow, but firmware should be update in the futur.
Will share more impressions today or tomorrow.
Some pics:

Hi, how does this compare to your xduoo x3. What's better sounding? is the difference a little too far?

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

Hi, how does this compare to your xduoo x3. What's better sounding? is the difference a little too far?

Both sound very good, hard to tell my favorite in term of sound really, X3 is a little brighter and with a deeper soundstage while D3 have wider soundstage with more bass. D3 sound is thicker and with the IEM I use right now I prefer the D3, it feel more smooth and musical. With X3, I like to use line out and an amp to make shine the sound. SO if you prefer analytical sound X3 is the way to go, if musicality and warm bass and 20H battery life is what you need, D3 is the one for that (X3 have 8H of battery).

 

[kova4a]

Well, I would be hard pressed to call x3 analytical. Both are warmish with the x3 being more engaging while the d3 is more relaxed.