iBasso Digital Audio Players

i everyone, I currently use the Chord Mojo with my iPhone with an Audioquest Diamond (all silver USB). I love the sound signature of Mojo, but I am tiring of the stacking. I was wondering if strictly looking on audio quality, how does the iBasso or other DAPs compare to the Mojo? Thank you so much! Btw, using 64audio U12t, and Nios.

Hi folks - new dx160 owner and was curious on how crucial the lurker firmware mod is? Worth it on the 2020 model? Any experiences?

I’m especially interested in the battery management and flexibility with the play store.

Main reason for purchase was a decent Android-based player at a decent price that could load apps.

I use (and am a big fan of) Plex and PlexAmp, and am hoping this replaces my current set up of my iPhone to Dragonfly Red to various headphones.

I havent used the 2020 model but maybe @Precogvision can chime in.

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Hey, I have the DX160 2020 version like Ant mentioned.

I’ve Lurker modded mine, but the DAP is just too slow performance-wise, and the Wi-Fi on it is pretty weak (you need to pull up next to your router haha) which kind of nulls streaming capability.

Battery comfortably lasts me the whole day with 5+ hours of listening, and it charges pretty darn fast. Great sounding DAP too, just don’t know if I’d expect it to be much more than that. Personally, I only use mine for listening to music (local files).

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Thanks for the info. Looking forward to trying the factory set up first!

Ugh, one more question. Isn’t so much a complaint, but a “is this right?”

When turning the volume dial it is sometimes very tight and then after a few clicks it has some wiggle. Is this common?

the iBasso DX300 looks promising! - from what I saw on the angry guys video on yt

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ibasso dx160 first impression

I am new to the audiophile world. This is literally my first dap. Obviously, I can’t give any useful comparisons to other options out there. But, I can, and will comment on the usability of this particular dap and how they work in general.

NOTE: There is a TLDR section at the end if you can’t handle gobs of text.

Introduction:

I am critical of the things I purchase (I am the king of returns). Yesterday I received a Fiio Q5s-tc which I consider to be a waste of money for me. The things that I couldn’t find in any reviews of the Q5s and this dx160 may be absolute deal breakers for some. This review will focus on the usability of these devices compared to some that I like. I will compare on sound within that, but it is not the primary focus.

Some background about me: I work in technology. I build and advise on building enterprise grade software. I am also an apple user and have been since the late 90’s. I continue to stay within the apple ecosystem because it is more complete and more coherent. I say this not to have a debate about apple, but to put the view point in context. In my professional life, I am a linux power user. I know both worlds of “easy and just works” and “can tweak anything to get what I want”.

Physical attributes:

This dap is not a giant among daps. Even such, I am not sure it has a place in my pockets. I will likely need to give up some other EDC (like a large leatherman) if I want to bring this into my life permanently. Right now, this is still an unknown. All I can say is carrying a second bulky phone shaped device is more challenging than I initially anticipated. In contrast, the btr5 could slide/clip anywhere. And the apple dongle also worked ok.

The case the dx160 comes with makes the buttons a bit frustrating to press. And yet, it really needs the case. The case does leave all the bits accessible, which is good. But, at one point, I thought the buttons just weren’t working. I got used to pushing them pretty hard, and it is fine. This has an upside of accidental pocket activation seems pretty unlikely to me.

One handed use is a bit annoying. In either hand, I feel a bit unstable pushing buttons or moving the volume. And I fully agree with antdroid about the volume knob taking a lot of turns to adjust the volume. Again, one handed, that is even more annoying. And activating the screen is also frustrating if you just want to see a song title (this particular aspect changes based on usage. Will get to that in connectivity below).

Initial Experience:

As an apple user, I was very quickly reminded why every time I tried to switch to android, I failed. It’s particularly bad here because this is not a flagship snappy current generation phone. It’s old and slow processor that is easily overwhelmed.

The first thing, is it felt like I had to do everything several times before it “took”. Like setting up wifi, it’s like I entered my password and it did nothing. Did it again and it worked. Little things like that all over the place. The first thing I did was get the latest update.

For the life of me I couldn’t get it to pair with my phone so I can stream via bluetooth to it. I did figure it out (it was mostly not being used to android) but it does still give me problems connecting to my phone. I haven’t figured out the trick yet. I imagine my desire to smoothly transition between dap and phone sources is a lost cause. (or even just airplay from phone to bluetooth on phone).

Extra stuff:

I specifically selected this dap because it met a few functional criteria:

All streaming apps/google play is easily available (not pre-loaded, just a click away).

Bluetooth 5 is present as is AAC.
It runs android 8.1 which basically helps with the above.

It is the closest thing I could find to the “Apple Experience” without being an apple product.

In this respect it has been relatively simple. APKPure installed Apple Music and Amazon HD which are my only streaming services currently. Neither of them are as smooth as on my iPhone, but they work. Mostly. (Check some of the problems)

Many other daps struggle with the apple music thing. I did not want to be fighting that, so that narrowed it down very quickly.

Connectivity:

Streaming from the phone worked fine. I have mostly been using it to stream directly from Apple Music and Amazon. But, working in standalone mode has some UX drawbacks.

First, I really got used to having my watch be the center of “quick” controls. I could pause, skip and adjust volume very easily very quickly. Pulling a brick out of your pocket to do one of those things is really annoying. I have heard there may be a way to bluetooth link just the controls to the phone/watch. I have not explored this yet.

In addition, the screen activation and widget to view what’s playing lacks volume control and slider to jump around the song. This isn’t as annoying as the watch because I only really used these if the phone was already in my hand. Since the dap is never in my hand, everything feels like extra steps when I need them.

With respect to audio connectivity, I don’t have a lot to add. The connections mostly work. A note about bluetooth in the problems section.

Practicality:

Assuming everything was working as intended, there are still some challenges. I already discussed some of them in connectivity where pulling a brick out of your pocket sucks compared to using the watch.

But, when you do actually go mobile, that problem is even worse. It is the ideal time to be controlling this with the watch. This is the reason I insisted on bluetooth/aac. I honestly still can’t tell the difference between that and wired hd sources for most music. For me, the wired is peace of mind, not a requirement. And when I can tell the difference, it has been a matter of novelty and not effecting enjoyment of the song.

On top of that, unless I tether to the phone’s hotspot, I still have to tell my streaming services to download the music before I step out of the house. This is a particular problem when you listen to apple generated “stations” frequently. One reason I am not ready to drop Apple Music is the “me station” is superb. It plays a lot of music I know and like, and then a lot of related music I like and don’t know (sometimes by the same artists, sometimes by related artists). It’s very nice. This is basically shot down with the dap. I could tether it, but honestly, with the other reason to use bluetooth when mobile, it’s probably not worth it.

Problems:

This first problem happened while I was writing the review: the device can’t remember volumes of sources. So, when I switch to bluetooth, the volume on the dap has to be put way up. But when playing from the dap, volume is much lower. I almost blew my ears out switching just now. That’s a serious problem. This again brought to light how slow the volume knob is.

I already mentioned the having to do things multiple times. It’s weird how often that comes up. However, once setup, it hasn’t been as prevalent. Also, android is just stupid in terms of usability.

Skip button ends up just not playing the next song. At least with apple music, pressing skip just failed to start the next song sometimes. It would just switch to it and stop playing. Really annoying. It also seemed to ignore just pushing pause/play to get it going again. So I have to to turn on the screen, go into the app and press play. If this keeps happening, it would drive me bat crap crazy.

Bluetooth did not want to connect initially. After pairing I couldn’t get the two to actually talk to each other. It has since gone away and if I connect from the phone, it works. But I have to go to phone bluetooth settings and pick out the device. Then go to apple music. It’s like it won’t automatically maintain the connection. I will experiment more with this. But this is another thing that makes it completely unappealing to use.

Sound:

The other device on this level I have is the Q5s. I already wrote a short post about why it sucks for me. But, the sound, did not suck when wired. And I do believe, on the Dunu Zen, the Q5s does win in the sound department for me. I did not a/b test this. The Q5s went back in its box when it became apparent it wasn’t a solution to my problems. But, I think everything felt a bit tighter and more dynamic on the Q5s. Now, conversely, the dx160 feels a touch more musical I think. But it’s lost on the Zen, as the zen does that for me. In the end, the Q5s felt better to me. It’s dynamic range seemed particularly strong. That is something I appreciate as it increases note impact across the board. And I like that. I am doing this comparison from memory. So volume matching and a/b testing was out. That said, either are fine.

Both the Q5s and dx160 are better than the BTR5 but not by the leaps/bounds I was hoping. And, I think, it has more to do with the available power than the dac. It seems like the zen scales well with more power and peak to peak voltage. In casual listening, the BTR5 is more than enough. My work day is filled with casual listening, so I am not sure this dap is worth the hassle in that regard.

Conclusion:

As you can see, I am very picky when it comes to usability. A dap has some benefits but also plenty of flaws. In the end, I would love TOTL amp/dac with no screen or storage, but great bluetooth and wired connectivity. A better implemented Q5s would absolutely be closer to the ideal for me. At this moment, I am not sure a dap is really the right solution. A BTR5 + an iDSD micro Signature, may just be better in the end.

I appreciate any/all constructive feedback. I especially appreciate suggestions to solve some of these issues.

TLDR Section:

Unrefined in every way compared to apple products.
Size possibly eliminates the “convenience.”
As a streamer, having to load onto the device is annoying.
My personal use case may be better served by a better portable dac/amp.
Sound quality may not be better enough to accept the annoyances over the BTR5.

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Very nice writeup @Dynamic.

Thanks @prfallon69. I have been enjoying this. Helps me work out what I want out of this stuff.

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I just want to provide a quick update:

This dap has been an exercise in frustration as a streamer. It has, in just about every listening session, had one or more of the following happen:

  • External controls stop working
  • Simply stop proceeding to the next song (two apps!)
  • skip button stops the music and opening the app is the only way to play it again
  • music stutters

It’s like I have all the flaws of an unstable bluetooth connection, except without the bluetooth.

I have been switching to my apple dongle more and more often. I just wired to the BTR5 to try that.

This dap, this dap ain’t the dap.

Will see if hiby r6 2020 or ibasso dx300 can entice me enough to pay up. Both are thoroughly modern and fast daps with full google services.

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If you have an iBasso DX200 and you’ve experienced all its lags and poor battery life try this mod available on Github. It’s a night and day change. In order to avoid problems do it only if you’re familiar with OS tweakings and do it only with microSD card method.
Worth the hour you’ll spend doing it.

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I recently received a DX300 and will be writing up a review of it soon. Does anyone have any specific questions they’d like me to address?

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Congratulations.

The parametric EQ feature in Mango OS please! Take your best headphone that responds well to eq, set up a profile in the Mango PEQ, and let us know what kind of difference it makes. Maybe use one of Chronos’ profiles if you have one of those headphones. Thanks :smiley:

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chasmore

3d

I am roadtesting an IBasso DX240 which is working really well except in one respect and that is the Bluetooth connection. I have tried it with a Sony Soundbar, Bowers and Wilkins headphones and Sony in ear phones and the same issue crops up with all - and it is a dangerous one.

When I switch the bluetooth device on and press play on the DAP, the volume is deafening until I twiddle the volume knob slightly at which point it drops to normal. It happens every time I reconnect the bluetooth device to the player but wjhile it remains connected I can pause and play as often as I want and it doesn’t happen - the volume level remains normal.

Anyone have any ideas?

Bro could you help me to export your mango player from your ibasso and send it to me?