[jdog]

  Based on the frequency response posted here from Reference Audio Analyzer, the iHiFi 800, like the 770, seems to have a notable drop in bass below 80hz. The iHiFi 960 and the FiiO players don't seem to have this. This seems to correspond with jdog's excellently detailed notes on bass comparisons between the 800 and 960 as well as the 800 and FiiO X3ii. Interestingly, jdog's interpretation is that the X3 has less clean bass (and that the iHiFi 960 just has more bass) - but given the freq response data, perhaps this might be attributed to the YinJW ie800 overemphasizing the bass a bit (which would be why he likes to use them with the 800). 
 
I wonder if the under-emphasized bass in the iHiFi 800 can be successfully corrected in EQ, especially now that Rockbox is available. This is the main thing that is preventing me from pulling the trigger on an iHiFi 800

The short answer is yes, the bass can be increased with the Rockbox firmware.  There is a graphical equalizer so you can adjust the frequencies to your liking.  The more exact answer would depend on what you mean by successfully correcting the under-emphasized bass...  The Rockbox equalizer has 10 bands, and the standard settings range from 32Hz to 16000Hz.  I increased the amount of bass on bands 32Hz, 64Hz and 125Hz and there was clearly an increase in the amount of base in the songs I listened to.   I don't have access to an RAA, so I am unable to tell you if I actually increased the bass response <80Hz or not...  I can tell you that the 800  has benefited quite a from Rockboxing.

 

[cynan]

Thanks for replying to my post.
 
It does beg the question for someone like me looking to get a single iHiFi DAP though: Given that the 960 is roughly 33% more expensive than the 800 (ie, say about $300 vs $400 for the sake of argument). Would you still say that the 960 is superior and worth the increase in cost to the 800 now that they are both Rockboxed? Obviously the 800 is geared more for portability, but purely from a performance standpoint?

 

[golov17]

http://s.aliexpress.com/3i6jqiIz

 

[waynes world]

http://s.aliexpress.com/3i6jqiIz

Huh! That's a good price.. especially now that the 800 is rockboxed. I forgot how much I like the form factor of the 800 (buttons even lol!). And I'm sure that the 800 sounds great. Almost wish I didn't replace my 770 with a different dap.

 

[golov17]

Huh! That's a good price.. especially now that the 800 is rockboxed. I forgot how much I like the form factor of the 800 (buttons even lol!). And I'm sure that the 800 sounds great. Almost wish I didn't replace my 770 with a different dap.

$172 in Russia

 

[cynan]

Given that the Ihifi 800 seems to be going for <$200 right now including shipping from a couple of sellers (even one on ebay), and the new Rockbox development, I gave into my curiosity and pulled the trigger. Was tempted to go for the 960, but given the price reduction on the 800, and the more ergonomic form factor, 800 it is. 

 

[jdog]

  Given that the Ihifi 800 seems to be going for <$200 right now including shipping from a couple of sellers (even one on ebay), and the new Rockbox development, I gave into my curiosity and pulled the trigger. Was tempted to go for the 960, but given the price reduction on the 800, and the more ergonomic form factor, 800 it is. 

I think you'll be very happy with the 800.  In its native state the 800 has a more neutral sound than the 960.  The 960 has a slightly larger soundstage and is a touch smoother than the 800, but both are very nice DAPs.  And it looks like you will be getting a nice price on the 800.  I can confirm that Rockbox has really increased the value of the 800, so you will want to upgrade your firmware as soon as you get the player.  Good luck...

 

[cynan]

Excuse the uniformed question, but any chance that rockbox enables (or could in a future version) DSD playback on the Ihifi 800? I'm wondering what the limitation is seeing as other DACs with the  ES9018K2M chip seem to be able to natively decode DSD (and not convert to PCM as with older Sabre DAC chips).

 

[jdog]

  Excuse the uniformed question, but any chance that rockbox enables (or could in a future version) DSD playback on the Ihifi 800? I'm wondering what the limitation is seeing as other DACs with the  ES9018K2M chip seem to be able to natively decode DSD (and not convert to PCM as with older Sabre DAC chips).

I think the potential may be there, but the current Rockbox firmware is not set up for DSD and lord knows that Xuelin has barely been able to develop firmware to handle 16/44 FLAC.  So, someone much smarter than I will need to address this with you.  Although the Rockbox'd 800 can play FLAC 24/192 files, I think these files are down-sampled to 16/44 or 16/48....  Xuelin is actually working on a new player (iHifi 990), that is supposed to play DSD 64.  I am very curious to how this player will eventually turn out....

 

[Fastyz400]

Just curious, bought an fiio A3 amp.  Can someone post a link of the line out cable that I should buy?  Thanks in advance.

 

[cynan]

  Just curious, bought an fiio A3 amp.  Can someone post a link of the line out cable that I should buy?  Thanks in advance.

 
 Any male-male 3.5mm (1/8 inch) cable should work. Doesn't it come with one?
 

  I think the potential may be there, but the current Rockbox firmware is not set up for DSD and lord knows that Xuelin has barely been able to develop firmware to handle 16/44 FLAC.  So, someone much smarter than I will need to address this with you.  Although the Rockbox'd 800 can play FLAC 24/192 files, I think these files are down-sampled to 16/44 or 16/48....  Xuelin is actually working on a new player (iHifi 990), that is supposed to play DSD 64.  I am very curious to how this player will eventually turn out....

 
Seems that most (all?) Rockbox implementations downsample to 44.1 kHz (otherwise the rockbox package would need to be modified to suit the capabilities of each player)? If so, perhaps once 24/192 DACs and implementations are ubiquitous enough (which they really should be by now) a near-future rockbox build might support higher frequency range and bit depth by default? The Ihifi 800 doesn't seem to do more than 48 kHz for most formats (although this really isn't that clear in the limited documentation I've seen (ie, the relevant specs seem to conflate sampling frequency with sampling rate across formats. For example, lossless formats such as wav flac and ape are listed as 8k-48k, which looks like kHz, or sampling frequency, while lossy formats such as ogg and mp3 are listed as 8-320k. Problem is, is that 320k isn't a normal sampling frequency, this looks more like a sampling rate, ie, 320kbps. I imagine some of this clarity is lost in the Chinese-English translation, but even in the Chinese specs, they have these lumped together. Strange). As far as the firmware not supporting > 16/44, that is quite puzzling/. Surely the processor can decode it real time without issue using just as much resources as it takes to downsample?. It must be that the code the firmware was based off of originally only supported 16/48 and for some reason was never modified. Or maybe it actually is a hardware limitation (eg, some cheaper interface chip that realys the input PCM signal to the DAC)?
 
All to say, that if you are really worried about getting the best SQ from the Ihifi 800, rockboxed or otherwise, you might be better off playing properly mastered 16/44 flac files to avoid any potential loss due to truncation artifacts in software downsampling 24/96 or 24/192. But in actual use, this probably isn't noticeable, particularly on this level of gear, so maybe the convenience of having high-res flacs just being compatible out ways everything else. 

 

[Fastyz400]

 Any male-male 3.5mm (1/8 inch) cable should work. Doesn't it come with one?


Seems that most (all?) Rockbox implementations downsample to 44.1 kHz (otherwise the rockbox package would need to be modified to suit the capabilities of each player)? If so, perhaps once 24/192 DACs and implementations are ubiquitous enough (which they really should be by now) a near-future rockbox build might support higher frequency range and bit depth by default? The Ihifi 800 doesn't seem to do more than 48 kHz for most formats (although this really isn't that clear in the limited documentation I've seen (ie, the relevant specs seem to conflate sampling frequency with sampling rate across formats. For example, lossless formats such as wav flac and ape are listed as 8k-48k, which looks like kHz, or sampling frequency, while lossy formats such as ogg and mp3 are listed as 8-320k. Problem is, is that 320k isn't a normal sampling frequency, this looks more like a sampling rate, ie, 320kbps. I imagine some of this clarity is lost in the Chinese-English translation, but even in the Chinese specs, they have these lumped together. Strange). As far as the firmware not supporting > 16/44, that is quite puzzling/. Surely the processor can decode it real time without issue using just as much resources as it takes to downsample?. It must be that the code the firmware was based off of originally only supported 16/48 and for some reason was never modified. Or maybe it actually is a hardware limitation (eg, some cheaper interface chip that realys the input PCM signal to the DAC)?

All to say, that if you are really worried about getting the best SQ from the Ihifi 800, rockboxed or otherwise, you might be better off playing properly mastered 16/44 flac files to avoid any potential loss due to truncation artifacts in software downsampling 24/96 or 24/192. But in actual use, this probably isn't noticeable, particularly on this level of gear, so maybe the convenience of having high-res flacs just being compatible out ways everything else. 

So, all my 24/192 files are down sampled to 44.1kHz?

 

[cynan]

Got the Ihifi 800. Loading rockbox went smoothly (thanks XVortex!). Though I was a bit worried to see that after overwriting the old .rockbox fold with the update, it was substantially smaller. Oh well. seems to work . Incidentally, the PC I used has a core-i7 Sandybridge gen processor, running Windows 7. So at least the core processors up to Sandybridge (which I think came out in 2011?) seem to work with the rockbox loader.
 
I was a bit disappointed to learn that rockbox can't seem to access the on board flash memory (but this is minor as it is only 8GB). 
 
My biggest disappointment was that some of my best media is encoded as ape files. The Ihifi 800 just can't play these (44.1 kHz and around 512 kbps). They don't play at all with the Xuelin firmware. On rockbox, they try to play, but it brings the player to its knees - the whole thing becomes unresponsive and laggy and the sound stutters.
 
The sound quality on the stock firmware isn't very great from the limited listening. Rockbox does seem to improve it (more separation and accurate details - the stock firmware sounds like there is a slight muddy/hollow filter added). 
 
I think the Ihifi is a step up from my cell phone (which, for a cell phone is not terrible - it's an Oneplus One). And the cellphone (android) can play ape files! Again, the Ihifi 800 just has more separation and detail, and a bit more energy and airiness in the upper mids and treble. However, the Ihifi 800 is a bit lacking in bass - particularly below 80 Hz or so (the upper bass is actually not so bad and has a nice tone and tightness to it). But I haven't played with the EQ yet, so maybe I can tweak things a bit more to my liking in the bass department.
 
All in all, decent for the money. However, I think the next portable sound upgrade I'll be trying will be a DAC/Amp combo to stream from my phone. But now that the Ihifi 800 is here, not a huge rush for that just yet.

 

[Fastyz400]

  Got the Ihifi 800. Loading rockbox went smoothly (thanks XVortex!). Though I was a bit worried to see that after overwriting the old .rockbox fold with the update, it was substantially smaller. Oh well. seems to work . Incidentally, the PC I used has a core-i7 Sandybridge gen processor, running Windows 7. So at least the core processors up to Sandybridge (which I think came out in 2011?) seem to work with the rockbox loader.
 
I was a bit disappointed to learn that rockbox can't seem to access the on board flash memory (but this is minor as it is only 8GB). 
 
My biggest disappointment was that some of my best media is encoded as ape files. The Ihifi 800 just can't play these (44.1 kHz and around 512 kbps). They don't play at all with the Xuelin firmware. On rockbox, they try to play, but it brings the player to its knees - the whole thing becomes unresponsive and laggy and the sound stutters.
 
The sound quality on the stock firmware isn't very great from the limited listening. Rockbox does seem to improve it (more separation and accurate details - the stock firmware sounds like there is a slight muddy/hollow filter added). 
 
I think the Ihifi is a step up from my cell phone (which, for a cell phone is not terrible - it's an Oneplus One). And the cellphone (android) can play ape files! Again, the Ihifi 800 just has more separation and detail, and a bit more energy and airiness in the upper mids and treble. However, the Ihifi 800 is a bit lacking in bass - particularly below 80 Hz or so (the upper bass is actually not so bad and has a nice tone and tightness to it). But I haven't played with the EQ yet, so maybe I can tweak things a bit more to my liking in the bass department.
 
All in all, decent for the money. However, I think the next portable sound upgrade I'll be trying will be a DAC/Amp combo to stream from my phone. But now that the Ihifi 800 is here, not a huge rush for that just yet.

 The EQ helped a great deal in the low end for me at least.  I agree, I really didn't like the xuelin firmware sound.  It sounded like a tin can.  I was a bit upset until, I installed rockbox.  I decided to purchase a set of ATH-M50X Professional Studio Headphones & Fiio A3 Amplifier.  To bring more richness to the sound.

 

[jdog]

@XVortex,
 
There appears to be a problem with the Rockbox firmware for the 800.  With the Xuelin firmware, the player has an absolute black background with no hum or buzz.  However, using the current Rockbox firmware, there seems to be an overall decrease in power, but there is a noticeable buzz when the screen is on.  This does not happen with the Rockbox'd 960 and I haven't noticed this on the 770c.  Is it possible that the Rockbox firmware for the 800 bypasses the LPF or one of the amps?  Is there any way that you can try to correct this problem?  Thanks for your consideration...