[citral23]

Ok I first got really, really excited about that one (especially for 75€!) but I have now tempered a bit, waiting for feedbacks before ordering, specifically :

How bad/passable is the resistive touchscreen navigation? (let's face it, it won't be super duper nice like a modern capacitive screen)

How bad/passable is the autonomy? (Let's face it, dual AK4493 is gonna eat battery)

 

[IcedFrosty]

Ok I first got really, really excited about that one (especially for 75€!) but I have now tempered a bit, waiting for feedbacks before ordering, specifically :

How bad/passable is the resistive touchscreen navigation? (let's face it, it won't be super duper nice like a modern capacitive screen)

How bad/passable is the autonomy? (Let's face it, dual AK4493 is gonna eat battery)

Resistive touchscreen is indeed won't be the same as your smartphone's screen. And, to operate it, you'll have to use a bit of pressure from your nail (Don't use pressure from your fingers, it may defect it). If you know Walnut V3 (https://www.head-fi.org/threads/walnut-v3-dac-amp-with-balanced-output.858563/), it uses the same screen technology and even shares a bit of design similarities.
.
About battery life... This is what I've been thinking. It utilises a small 3.7V 2850mAh battery that powers up 2 AK4493EQ, one 4493 uses 203mW of power consumption x 2 = 406mW. That's the DAC power consumption only. Opamps need power, screen, the STMF controller also needs power. Does anybody knows how long will the battery lasts? Or how to calculate this stuff?

 

[citral23]

Hmm so 406mW on a 2850mAh battery vs 346mW on a 3000mAh battery for the DSD pro, it will probably have 6 hours on mp3 and much less on lossless.

 

[musicday]

If it really runs Rockbox, I will buy one.

 

[Merlin-PT]

https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/ReleaseNotes314
"Enabled configuring the master sampling rate to either 44.1k or 48k
New high quality resampler based on Hermite polynomials"

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,114021.0.html
"Whatever sampling rate you set in the settings menu is used for all audio. If you select 44.1k and play 48k files, they're resampled."
"We talked about automatic sampling rate switching, but there are too many technical issues involved in switching sampling rates transparently given the large number of features that would need to keep working. It made more sense to just optimize the resampler more, so we did that instead."


I've never used it, but I _read_ that rockbox resamples everything to a fixed, pre selected sample rate of 44.1KHz or 48Khz.
It doesn't do automatic sample rate switched to follow the source music file sample rate.

If the DAC supports all sample rates, there's no need to resample everything to a fixed sample rate, it degrades sound, uses cpu and drains the battery.

 

[citral23]

Otoh, we don't even know what the zishan firmwares do vOv

I don't think it's a big deal, playing DSD will kill your battery much more than resampling anyway. Or even playing Flac vs mp3 320, it's proven that nobody on Earth can tell the difference in a blind test, your battery will know however.

It is better to archive audio in hi res as we have the flexibility to recompres in 10 years with improved algorithms but to put on a portable player it's pretty much useless tbh.

Ogg, mp3 or m4a with high bitrate does the job perfectly, unless you're from Mars and can hear 25k frequencies.

 

[Merlin-PT]

We know that Zishan doesn't resample:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-zishan-dsds-corner.826185/page-85#post-14665733

Regarding the rest, let's just say I won't use rockbox.

 

[citral23]

If I get this player I'll try both and report on usability. Pretending you can hear the difference between 44k and 96k is the same as saying silver sounds brighter than copper or DSD is better than CD.

 

[Merlin-PT]

Let's just stick to facts: rockbox resamples to fixed freq., zishan doesn't resample.
It doesn't make sense to downsample if the DAC suports all sample rates.

 

[silverfishla]

Well, I think it's a choice. Many people like the Rockbox firmware (on other devices) because it's stable and has a good EQ, themes, graphics, games, audiobooks...etc. Some people like their full Hi-Res capable DAP, and can play a variety of formats (I mean, who likes to resample?). One thing to consider is that the MP3 format seems to be the cause of problems with the Zishan devices ( I don't know why) but whenever the Zishans do "hang up" it's usually on a MP3 (Zishan DSD, Zishan Z3).

 

[IcedFrosty]

Speaking of DSD playback, rockbox firmware doesn't support DSD. But if I got it, I would try both firmwares

 

[musicday]

Speaking of DSD playback, rockbox firmware doesn't support DSD. But if I got it, I would try both firmwares

No DSD playback, but Rockbox supports around 20 audio codecs and comes with many features and over 40 language support, amoung other great features never found anywhere else.
Been for over 10 years in development and it is absolutely free.

 

[Merlin-PT]

Personally I don't use DSD, I only use FLAC and MP3.
My post about rockbox was only informative.

Not about rockbox, but I can hear the difference between a "bad", cpu inexpensive _realtime_ resample algoritm to a good one (heavy on cpu).
I can't hear any difference of resamples with a good real time resampler, I tried this many years ago.
There are many realtime resample algorithms, not all sound the same, some are bound to HW restrictions (cpu, battery).

I assume Rockbox programmers can also hear the difference, they have low cpu resources and limited HW to do a good real time resample, but still, as I quoted they improved the resampler (they felt they needed to improved it), because as they say, it was too much trouble to recode all and do it right with no resample.
Still I think the best realtime resampler can't be implemented in the HW they support, I tried on my desktop and they eat a lot of cpu.

But all this information is pointless, so I didn't want to post it.
Bottom line is, if it sounds good and has the features you want use it.

 

[citral23]

I don't think it's pointless at all, it's interesting and explains your point of view much better than a bare "I won't use it for sure" that could sound like "it's not good enough for my titanium carbide, diamonds nano tubes ears" lol.

I think it will mostly come down to formats preference, don't see why anyone who ripped his CDs collection in .ogg would bother with a zishan player until now, but if they can install rockbox and use it it becomes an option.

Otoh if their collection is Flac and they don't want to compress, then yes dowsampling doesn't sound optimal (the point of a zishan being sound > rest, the quirky interface is not a big concern in the absolute)

 

[HeyManslowdown97]

One thing to consider is that the MP3 format seems to be the cause of problems with the Zishan devices ( I don't know why) but whenever the Zishans do "hang up" it's usually on a MP3 (Zishan DSD, Zishan Z3).

Because it’s firmware wasn’t designed to upsample highly compressed files it just reads the files as is so if there’s any digital errors or any binary code missing from the files themselves it will get hung up on it and most likely the files themselves are corrupt. That’s why they gave you a choice on the T1 to upload Rockbox to your Zishan player. And it Most likely has to be because of feedback they received by Users who play mostly mp3s.

It’s called Zishan “DSD” for a reason. You are better off playing mp3s on your Smartphone. Not sure why anyone would want to purchase a high res player to play mp3s! It’s a total waste of money! (imo)