After verifying the Smartphone in Stock mode and testing in Stock mode i did the following adjustments which improved the usability a lot
First of all i installed F-Droid and with F-Droid the KISS Launcher (the best Android Launcher anyway). I then uninstalled as much applications as possible from the phone including the crappy Browser and app store and replaced the Browser with Firefox and the App Store with Aurora.
I heard you can also install the Google Play Store somehow, but who wants that. Aurora is 100% OpenSource and you can login to the Play Store either anonymous or with your Google Account (to get access to paid applications). It is also faster, has an simpler/cleaner interface and supports whitelists/blacklists so it doesn't mess around with applications that are available in F-Droid. Its basically the Play Store but better.
Soon after i noticed, that the app overview no longer works. Reason is, that the pre-installed Quickstep Launcher is always running in the background. If your forcefully stop it, it automatically restarts. You are basically forced to use the pre-installed launcher which is very annoying. I hope this gets fixed in a future release.
After that, it just works. Its an average Smartphone. For the price, it is surprisingly fast and the display is surprisingly good. Actually everything about this Smartphone is very good, including the Sound Quality.
There are no settings for the sound quality, nowhere. After the update, you could select some DSP features like the tube of VSDF, but they are only meh imho. The AMP Tube just makes everything sound very mellow and bassy. Its just an EQ. The VSDF+ does the exact opposite. It makes everything sound ""clearer" aka its just an EQ.
You can enable both at the same time which causes some very strange effects like strongly varying volume and stuff like that.
I recommend to just not touch them. If you have a good earphone, you don't need them anyway. Just use Earphones that sound good to begin with (i know, its a hot take
)
For an smartphone, that is by far the best sound quality i ever heard. If it wouldn't be for the annoying launcher issue, i would say the smartphone is already absolutely worth the 399$. Its an above average smartphone for the price. The addition of an fully balanced connection is just a nice addition.
It was good enough that i thought "Oh wow, i might compare that to my WM1ZM2" so i level matched them and made a blind test. To my own surprise, i was instantly able to hear the difference, its an day and night difference.
With the Walkman, every instrument is isolated, you can clearly hear the direction of the sound, the distance between the instruments, you can feel the stick impact and impact of the bass drum and stuff like that. The bass is much tighter and faster.
With the MIAD01, everything sounds a bit more mushed and mangled. The bass is significantly slower, the clearly audible distance between the instruments is much lower or even gone, stick impact is only audible, not feelable and stuff like that. If the vocalists sings close to the mic, you can literally feel the movement of the tounge. That is all gone with the MIAD01
So everything sounds flatter and more 2D. But That is more than an unfair comparison and hence i am not considering it in the rating of the smartphone. For an 399$ smartphone, and that is what i am reviewing, it is by far the best i've ever heard.
I compared it to my Xperia 1 IV and my Sharp Aquos (both Hi-Res Audio certified) and the MIAD01 is significantly better than both.
I only tested the 4.4mm output by the way as i have no 3.5mm cables at my hand and i don't really care about the 3.5mm performance anyway.
If Moondrop fixes the software bugs (especially that i can't use the KISS launcher and the annoying bloatware that can't be uninstalled) or, alternatively, provides configs to enable people to build AOSP themself for this device, its an 5* device
Update: I reduced the rating to 4 stars because you are not just forced to use Quickstep, it also resets after _every_ reboot.
I removed all the icons from the home screen (i use the app drawer only), but whenever i reboot, they are all back.
That is annoying as hell.
