MiFA Bluetoth speaker

This is the link, Im just lazy to rewrite it here

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4588693

Cayin N5 2nd Generation

I'll be straightforward with the review, despite i had a week of ownership, I had not the time to actually have an in depth tryout, too busy in life.

Layout

The DAP is quite easy to navigate and just upon unboxing, I can already figure out what buttons are at where and the positions of the IO. Just have a look at the images, I dont need to explain, just look at it

    

So you can guess which is for what right? good. Thats all for layout.

OS

The OS is generally functional as an offline player, thats how i tried mine. I dont quite believe in streaming as a "quality" audio on a dap. Transition between interfaces are smooth, read speed of indexing is good on my 200GB, doesnt take ages to index. I used the DAP in audio priority mode only, which is no eq influence or software interruptions to the audio.

Treble

The high notes is quite sharp and crispy. Good high extensions where you can hear the drum sets crashing down but does not irritate the ears. 

Vocals

Vocals is the sweet dough of the DAP. You can hear the forwardness of the singer which is quite important and necessary as it's the core of any music. Lead vocal and back vocals are separated quite well and at times could fool people with the layering.

Bass

Bass slam isnt very heavy, but the notes are clearly noted and does pops when it comes into focus. It does somehow lack the super low notes, those that brings the gloomy feelings to the music type. It just cant go that low, and lays flat at a point.

Driving ability

I was going adventurous and tried it with a couple of items i have, and particularly the LCD-2C. On the noble audio sage, it's all good and flowery, but on the 2c, it just couldnt push it to authority. In comparison, on my AR-M2, on the 3.5mm too, the sage picks up a whole lot of noise floor, hearing the device amp powering up, buzzing and hissing all the way, but it can drive the 2C really well.

As brother andykong pointed out, it's a choice of power and noise, they are both mutually exclusive, and i kinda agree on that. The N5 does have a lower noise floor but lack power for some headphones. M2 is noisy AF but can power high end cans.

So, is this dap considerable as an option? Well, to be frank, I had tried a couple DAPs before, as reviews mostly, so thats a week on each, the N5ii does come in mine at times, considering how easy is it to use, and with the good sound quality and versatility, I say its a buy.

The focal elar review

Special thank you to Starpickers for loaning the Elear for me for a couple days of use, despite having a sales boost campaign coming up and needing the Elear showcase.

Sponsored link below, do give them the support as they are enthusiasts with a small scale shop working their way up

http://www.lelong.com.my/merchant/StarsPicker.htm

With that out of the way, here is a brief though of me and the Elear. Do note that I only had a couple days with them, so the things here stated are *non conclusive*.

Setup: Aune S6 Optical - XLR based Elear
Song tracks: Stranger Tide OST by Hans Zimmer

An Overall outlook

Well, since this has an urgency of time, I didnt have exactly all the time i needed to test it out with every genre, and hence picked the most orchestral mix and vocal powered tracks from Stranger Tide.

My first impressions are that the soundstage is quite wide, giving a fully immersive experience to the music. Like for the mermaids song, there is really a creepy sensation to it, and when the suspense comes, I can imagine the movie scene in my head, where mermaids were rampaging all over the pirates with anger. The suspense made my heart go pounding mad.

On the near end of that track, I was anticipating Blackbeard's ship appearance, and by the all mighty queue of the music through Elear, I was like, HIS HERE!! You can feel the authority in bass that makes the impression of an almighty ship coming to wreck havoc. Oh yeah, blast them sonofabitches, my mind went thinking of the scene again..

So, with Hans Zimmer's magic trick, I can say that Elear can really show how capable are good tracks carving scenes in your mind. Elear has the bass depth and small sparkly tingling treble spikes that makes the music feel "entertaining and immersive".

Caveats

There are still some issues need to be addressed, though the audio department is really nice. First of all, like them users rant, the cables are unusually freakingly LOOOOOOOOOOONG. I could forsee a lot of people having to dime out and get another shorter cable just for the sake of having a shorter one. 

Second of all is the squeaking sound of the headbands, Yes, the headband squeaks if twisted slightly both ways. Dont know how people fix that, but there are remedies to it.

Now the weight of the headphone is quite subjective. It is not as heavy as the LCDs, BUT they are also not as light as the HD650 i own. So where does the weight be at? I think it's all good for home desk use without fatigue, but it is not quite the street friendly type.

Conclusiion

SO with a good audio quality but a *meh* design quirks, is the headphone purchase worthy? If you can live with the problems, then by all means go for it, it's quite worth the price. For me and my wallet, I would, if there is a used pair with warranty still, even better.

VE Zen review

It doesnt take much explanation on Venture Electronics, they have made a dent in the earbud market and is good at it. Their owner Lee is very active on FB as a social leet and also showing that he is the mastermind behind all things VE.

And here I will make a short comment on the VE Zen that I have, which runs in the following setup:

PC - Optical - Aune S6 - balanced VE Zen 2.0

Soundtrack reference: Nightwish - Endless forms most beautiful

Band shortie:

Nightwish is a Finland band which fuses female vocals with great metal element and a grand piano orchestral. Great album mix and with Floor Jansen leading the magnificent vocals. Some tracks even show traditional Finnish instruments, which becomes sort of an exploration.


On the Zen balanced, this is what i find:

Treble

Treble is crispy and short, doesnt clip even on high volumes, well controlled and versed. In a high mix of treble hit ups and downs, the details like the background high hats still can be heard clearly. Magnificent.

Vocals

Vocals is a bit of mix bag, on the female vocals, it does really good, but on the male vocals, it seems slightly on the dull side. The lack of bass touch makes the male vocal seems "less masculine". Guitar strikes do real good, with each plucks are on point.

Bass

Well Zen does not have the depth of bass and volume, as expected. Earbuds can only do so much, and too much bass will vibrate the earbud shell i guess.

Soundstage

It does feel a bit weird, but this thing beasts through the soundstage echoes like a boss!! This is the point where I'm totally taken off guard. You gotta try some orchestral to really experience it, I just cant.. cant.. cant describe it.

Conclusion

Want a hassle free, easy to carry, durable AF, and instant take on/off ear piece, well, put this in your list, i can double down that you will not regret it.

Cayin N3

This N3 is from part of the tour review of Cayin, but I do reserve the right to be unbiased in this review.

Introduction

In the hands, the Cayin N3 is very light, much lighter than I was anticipating. The DAP grip was good thanks to the thickness of the unit though. There is only 1 slot of micro SD, which I find as a defeat compared to Fiio which has dual SD in almost all their DAP lines.

Hands on

The navigation of the N3 is very simplistic and straight forward, you will easily get through everything and head to where you want by just a couple clicks. Menu and functions are pretty self explanatory

Listening session

IEM pairing: Noble Sage with Snugs tips, EA Ares 2+

Music: Variety

In an overall sense, I will illustrate my impressions in 3 sections, bass mid and highs

Bass

Bass wise the N3 couldnt power the bass power of some music i used, like from Beyonce which pounds a lot of low tones in songs like Diva. I only hear pops and shallow bass, but I cant blame the DAP which is of this size.

Mids

Mids are nice and smooth, mixture of vocals and guitar strings are well separated. You can easily feel the separation of tones in the music.

Highs

Highs are crispy but it doesnt overdo it, tingling sens of cymbals and high hats are heard but they do not go crashing on your face. Control is good on the N3.

Soundstage

Tested some orchestral tracks and I find the soundstage somewhat lacking which makes me feel this N3 is more suitable for studio albums. 

Conclusion

Well, I didnt go into Bluetooth cause I dont have any AptX device to try with so I omit that part out, but as a low cost no bullshittery DAP, this might be worth considering, bang for the buck where it counts. Lightweight, adequately powered, straightforward UI, good enough in my books.

Review looks simple, i know, but hey, Im not here to write a novel, and people will ALWAYS say you must go to try it to see if it fits you, so why do i need to write a 10 page declaration heh?

iDSD Black Label by iFi

direct link to the review

https://www.head-fi.org/f/showcase/ifi-audio-micro-idsd.20201/reviews#review-18157

Next stop RHA CL750 + DACAMP

CL750
https://www.head-fi.org/f/showcase/rha-cl750.21740/reviews#review-17777


dacamp
https://www.head-fi.org/f/showcase/rha-dacamp-l1.21738/reviews#review-17789

Blog reactivate

since headfi.org is now a mess and I couldn't link to my cumulative reviews, I'll have to use back my site here, and i will slowly scan through the reviews i had made and link em here, and on the following day, until headfi has what i want, I'll be writing up here again

so first to go, RHA CL1 linked
https://www.head-fi.org/f/showcase/rha-cl1-ceramic.21739/reviews#review-17761

Questyle Q192

This here is a rare piece of hardware, the Q192, discontinued product, and you hardly can find any info on this dac amp

http://www.head-fi.org/products/questyle-q192-dac-with-headphone-amplifier-silver/reviews/17463

iFi iCan Nano

http://www.head-fi.org/products/ifi-ican-nano-portable-headphone-amp/reviews/17536

TFZ Series 1 and 1s (silver cable)

why does everything end up in headfi? beats me, part of T&C of reviews i guess
http://www.head-fi.org/products/tfz-series-1/reviews/17538

Cayin i5

still part of a global review tour, but is a terrific piece of hardware

http://www.head-fi.org/products/cayin-i5/reviews/17598

Fiio X1ii review

Since i made the primary review on the headfi site as part of the T&C  of the loan of X1ii, and so here's a link to the review

X1ii review

Sennheiser Amperior

Quite some time ago, a fellow acquaintance sent me the Amperior, but my Magni and Modi wasn't reaching me anytime soon, so I had to wait for the M&M to arrive before i start the review on the unit.

Appearances 

The amperior on first look is a very versatile and mobile headphone. It is an on-ear instead of over ear. Design wise some may suggest it odd looking, and I agree to a certain extent.

The first thing that I couldn't understand is the extending socket cable for the Amperior. Secondly would be the cable near the top of the driver cans, why did they do it like that, it's not like mainstream users are able to replace the drivers and the cable connecting both sockets.

Sound

Treble

The treble on Amperior seems a bit lacking in comparison to the Q701, but they are in totally different league, I would think the Amperior will have suffice treble to be powered by DAPs out there. 

Mids

The vocal is very forward, in comparison (yet again) with Q701. They really excel with rock music genre, and something like Linkin Park's Hunting Party really makes the Amperior feel like a badass! Forward sounding music, yeah, great!

Bass

Bass is quite light on the Amperior, it doesn't go down to sub bass, and will rattle a bit when trying to do so. Typical music will have suffice bass translated, but lacks the downright power of sub bass. 

Soundstage

The soundstage of Amperior isn't exactly wide to be said, maybe cause I'm used to Q701 that the Amperior feels lacking in this section. It is quite confined although not restrained. 

Conclusion

IMO, this Amperior will serve really well as a mobility option, but not suffice to be a home relaxing audio headphone option, since the leather on the cups will cause sweat around , and the audio quality puts it in second class, next to other on ears, but better marginally.

Fiio X5 Review: Flat Head

Special thanks to Fiio for this amazing chance to test the Fiio X5 that has not been released in global market (as of the time this review is written). X5 has been debuted as the next big thing in budget multi-functional DAP. Let's see how does it stand up to the test.

Packaging

Packaging pic below is pre-release items. Final retail pack list of accessories are in list below the image.

I have to say that the accessories are quite complete, with everything you will need. The promo code is 15% off purchases from HDTracks, and is repeatable use.

Design

The X5 gives a similarity looks to the IPod, but with more functions and slots to use. There are 2 microSD slots, Line out, Micro USB slot, and other illustrated in the pictures below.

Navigation

Navigating through the X5 interface could get some used to. The top left button is the menu, top right is back, bottom left is a track backwards and bottom right is the forward. The center is clickable and the black region is actually a coarse scrolling wheel for navigations. I myself am not quite fond of such a layout, cause I intend to make press errors and get lost a while among the buttons that does different things when in different menu layouts. Later I also realized that while playing the center button can be pressed to pop up the volume dialog and use the scroll wheel to navigate audio volumes.

Sound

This category will be layout into 2 different sections. One for the DAC only on desktop config, while another on the Headphone output as a portable DAP. Coaxial is not used cause I don't have the use of it.

Line out

For the line out, I had it compared to my trusty old DACPort LX that I had for years, and find no reason of changing it. In direct comparison, LX has a much higher gain than of X5. The sound on the X5 is deeper but does require quite abit more volume on the amp to run it. 

Second point, the LX is a "right off the bat" plug and play, but the X5 needs their own driver pack to be downloaded and installed in order for it to work. It might be due to the feature of 24bit/192khz that requires the specific driver. The driver installed on Windows 7 without any hiccups. The X5 will show the sample rate of the song that is currently playing, which is a plus for me in particular.

Oh, and the X5 does charge while using as a dedicated DAC, which is convenient.

For this section, still my LX beats the X5, by gain and clarity, but technicality goes to X5. If you need the 24/192, this might be a good choice.

Headphone out

For this section, I'm using X5 with the Q460, which is my daily "on the go" headphone.

Treble

The treble on the headphone out is quite weak to say. There isn't as much clarity on the high notes as what I could hear on the Sansa Clip+ which makes me wonder how Clip+ can do something I was looking forward on the X5. The X5 is plain flat on the treble, which sounds a bit boring and lack of impact on some power  house songs. Clip+ brings the fun and energy more than X5 is able to.

X5: 0

Clip+ : 1

Vocal / Mids

Vocals are done very well on the X5, as vocals are supposed to be portrayed flat to showcase the actual voice of the singers. Any coloration beyond this point makes it sound nice, but unauthentic. Background singer voices doesn't cover the main singer's vocal, and in simple, X5 has great vocalist power for me.

The mid range area of instruments are generally still a flat, but has much more attraction for me. It's quite hard to describe it, but particularly favorite the mids on Justin Timberlake's songs and also Avenged Sevenfold.

X5: 1

Clip+: 1

Bass

Bass, I can say, is quite light weight. Not much mass on the bass region, as Jason Derulo's Talk Dirty has some serious bass pumps, and X5 just doesn't cut it. It is sometimes so light that it just feels absent. Quite sad on the case that X5 is priced in such a way that it only focuses on function and omits "taste" in their headphone output.
X5: 1
Clip+ : 2

Conclusion

All I can say is the X5 are for listeners who are purists to their music taste. They will demand everything is flat, so they can hear the characteristics of a mastering, but for average users, this might not be a great choice, and psychologically will make you feel that you have just wasted your money on something that dull. So, better be damm sure that flat music is what you are after, or not regrets might influence you.

At the meantime, I will stick to my Clip+ until the next big thing comes along.

Alessandro MS1

Thanks to Alan for the loan unit, I am going to review the MS1, not the MS1i as previously mentioned.

MS1

Design

The design on the Alessandro and Grado series always has to feel weirdly classic to me. They are still one of the more famous open back headphone line ups known to head-fi. They expose the drivers so much that it can be used as a pair of speakers themself. The MS1 itself is quite light and can be used for long durations without a problem.

Sound

Treble

The treble on MS1 is quite clean, the high pitches are clearly portrayed, especially on classical orchestras. They do real nice on it. The cymbals are crispy, and not ear deafening piercing at all.

Mid

Guitars and vocals do remarkably well on the MS1. Vocals are quite laid back on the MS1 compared to what I remember of MS1i. Guitars strike with authority and makes rock very sensational to listen to.

Bass

Bass on MS1 is quite a polite one. Not too much power on it, but has the beats that you can feel the presence to. I like to refer it as a "polished" bass rather than a "quantified" bass.

Soundstage

There isn't quite much soundstage on the MS1. It is still that Grado / Alessandro house sound that is more a studio sound than a stage sound. Separations are quite clear cut, and can be dissected into left right mid back and forward starring.

Conclusion

You know I like to cut the bullshit descriptive illustrations going as thick as a JR novel, so I will just tell you what kinda music will suit the MS1 or in fact any Grado related cans to say. Rules of thumbs when it comes to Grado / Alessandro is Rock music and Metal Music or anything that is similar to it. Now, that's a fact! So, unless you are into these music genre, Grado / Ales is a must have, for other genres, try first before deciding to get it, it's a 50/50 chance you will like it.

Alessandro MS1i review coming soon

Nothing much to say, but thanks to a recently met friend, who coincidentally also called Alan (which is my name too anyways FYI), lend me to try his MS1i, and hence, I will have a chance to reminiscence on the good old days when I had a MS1i. Ah~ the good old days when everything seems like curiosity and hype.

Observation of bass port of Q701

Here are my observation of the bass mod for Q701. With the sticky removed, bass had more volume, treble got slightly more appearing, so are dynamics.

With the sticky on, soundstage was greatly different, though bass is lesser volume but with the same authority. The high "tings" get more appearance in comparison too, those are like the super highs.

So, for you readers, bass mod for the bass and treble up, or no bass mod for the flat sound and wide soundstage?

Schiit Magni

Schiit ( named exactly what you think it is ) is a company established by Jason Stoddard. Their ideal is simple, clean, powerful, made in the USA using USA parts. I love them for the plain humor they imply on their site, and also the design of the item. Oh, not forgetting the great sound from a simple circuit board implementation.

Some do feel that simplistic means lousy, this redefines it! Here we will talk about the Magni, an "entry" level $99 amp that packs some absurd power. 1.2W RMS per channel on 32 ohm, like seriously.. and on 600 ohms, 130mw RMS. So, who says $99 amp cant get you nowhere?

Magni

Design

I absolutely love the aluminium looks of the Magni. It looks real simplistic and is a definite space saver on a desk. The Magni is connected via RCA ONLY. 

Rear

There are 2 variations for voltage and 4 types of plugs to choose from.

Sound

When I plugged in this amp, I was skeptical for a $99 amp. I wasn't expecting something extraordinary, apparently from the early part of this article you should know I had my mind turn upside down.

Treble

The treble on Magni is really really nice. From an orchestral perspective, you can hear all the minor details that are in the music clearly. The high hats are just plain crispy. All the little "ting tings" possible in a music is clear cut and apparent. No top parts of the music gets let off.

Vocal / Mids

Wow, the trumpets in this Magni is mesmerizing.  Vocals mix real well with the trumpets in "Trumpets, by jason derulo" That really proves that vocal isn't always necessarily be overturning other mid range audio parts. Piano, goosebumps, period!

Female vocal is quite sweet and warm on the "Vertigo" duet between Jason Derulo and Jordin Sparks. Their mix with the piano really caught me in my emotions!

Bass

I used "Talk Dirty" by Jason Derulo to test the deep down bass of Magni, and it did not disappoint at all! Beats can go real down thumping, but very well controlled and precise. It will not give you the WAAAYYY overpowered bass that "some brands" will give, but instead quality speaks better than quantity.

Soundstage

The soundstage projected by the Magni is very wide, as explainable in "the fire rises" by Hans Zimmer. The whole scene can almost be very well positioned, with every instruments pin pointable to their exact location, near or distanced. Echos transverse wide and clear without early cut offs.

Dynamics are very well done in Magni. It feels like everything is equally appearing and mix real well together, giving you the feeling that this is at the Alo Audio level material but at a $99 price level.

Conclusion

Well, with that many praises from Head-Fi, and Jason with his humor, I can say it is undeniable that Schiit is making them a challenger to be reckoned with at this already diverse market of amp and DAC options. If you do have an interest in audio, the first step to go for will be the Magni, it's $99 pure awesomeness! I wonder what other Schiit will sound like.. Schitty perhaps? haha. For Magni, I give a 100% definite recommendations, no questions asked!

Q460 coming soon; JDSLabs USB OTG Mini to Micro arrived

2 notes here to mention real fast.

1. Q460 coming soon

Following the line up, I have the Q701 for quite some time, the Q460 will soon to follow for a review. 

2. JDSLabs USB OTG Mini to Micro

Well, in short, the cable has arrived, and my days of convenience to use my android S3 to connect to my Hippo cricri+ using shorter cables has arrived. YAY!

More to come soon! Thats all for now