[Spud1969]

Hello
New member here from the UK, Wales to be precise.
I have gone through the various personal music players over the years, walkman, disc man, mini disc, ipod, ipod touch but then decided to take a foray in to the world of daps earlier this year. I purchased a Sony NW- A45 second hand and the increase in clarity in the music I wanted to listen to was like night and day.
I have just splashed out on a HIDIZS AP80 Pro although I really wanted a Cowon Plenue D3 but Cowon seem to be having issues sourcing chips and that has been the issue for the last year or so( I have been on a waiting list) I did consider a Astell and Kern SR25 MKii but can't justify that amount of money at the moment.
I may return my HIDIZS to Amazon as I am disappointed with the volume levels even through the balanced 2.5mm jack,I was looking at the Shanling M1S at the same time I purchased the HIDIZS. Is there any way to increase the volume on the HIDIZS, will the M1S be any louder, is there a way of comparing outputs? The AP80 Pro isn't great with a blue tooth connection either whilst I am walking with bluetooth earbuds, the signal will drop out. Thanks for any help and advice .

 

[pbui44]

If you are fine with the Sony NW-A45 and just want more volume, then you can get a FiiO e12 used and see if the pairing will work:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314652958185

 

[Spud1969]

If you are fine with the Sony NW-A45 and just want more volume, then you can get a FiiO e12 used and see if the pairing will work:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314652958185

Thanks for your reply. I am new to the whole world of digital players and how technology has moved on so I didnt know you could get a headphone amplifier. Thanks for posting the link. The amplification is almost there, I would just like a little bit more on certain tracks.

 

[pbui44]

Thanks for your reply. I am new to the whole world of digital players and how technology has moved on so I didnt know you could get a headphone amplifier. Thanks for posting the link. The amplification is almost there, I would just like a little bit more on certain tracks.

You gotta love that Post-Beats-Electronics marketing and planned obsolescence.

 

[castleofargh]

Hello
New member here from the UK, Wales to be precise.
I have gone through the various personal music players over the years, walkman, disc man, mini disc, ipod, ipod touch but then decided to take a foray in to the world of daps earlier this year. I purchased a Sony NW- A45 second hand and the increase in clarity in the music I wanted to listen to was like night and day.
I have just splashed out on a HIDIZS AP80 Pro although I really wanted a Cowon Plenue D3 but Cowon seem to be having issues sourcing chips and that has been the issue for the last year or so( I have been on a waiting list) I did consider a Astell and Kern SR25 MKii but can't justify that amount of money at the moment.
I may return my HIDIZS to Amazon as I am disappointed with the volume levels even through the balanced 2.5mm jack,I was looking at the Shanling M1S at the same time I purchased the HIDIZS. Is there any way to increase the volume on the HIDIZS, will the M1S be any louder, is there a way of comparing outputs? The AP80 Pro isn't great with a blue tooth connection either whilst I am walking with bluetooth earbuds, the signal will drop out. Thanks for any help and advice .

AP80 specs mention a low/high gain selection in the settings, if you didn't miss that, then the M1 probably isn't going to be much help as it will only go marginally louder than the AP80 (I'm only reading the specs and tried neither).
For a general sense of your needs, consider that twice the power only means 3dB louder, while 10dB is what feels more or less like doubling of the perceived loudness. So depending on your situation, you could choose to get a big portable amp with a lot more power than your DAP(personally opinion: it's fine at a desk, but then you could have a desktop amp. And it's just a PITA on the move).
Or you might want to consider getting a more sensitive headphone.

The A45 has the less power, so I'm guessing you used a different headphone/IEM at the time?

 

[jsk ksj]

Thanks for your reply. I am new to the whole world of digital players and how technology has moved on so I didnt know you could get a headphone amplifier. Thanks for posting the link. The amplification is almost there, I would just like a little bit more on certain tracks.

I am giving away, for free (well, £5 p&p) a little headphone tube amp. Might be fun for you to experiment with. If you have a paypal account, pm me.

https://www.head-fi.org/classifieds/nobsound-amp.50415/

 

[Spud1969]

I am giving away, for free (well, £5 p&p) a little headphone tube amp. Might be fun for you to experiment with. If you have a paypal account, pm me.

https://www.head-fi.org/classifieds/nobsound-amp.50415/

Hi
Thankyou for your very kind offer but it appears I have missed out!?

 

[Spud1969]

AP80 specs mention a low/high gain selection in the settings, if you didn't miss that, then the M1 probably isn't going to be much help as it will only go marginally louder than the AP80 (I'm only reading the specs and tried neither).
For a general sense of your needs, consider that twice the power only means 3dB louder, while 10dB is what feels more or less like doubling of the perceived loudness. So depending on your situation, you could choose to get a big portable amp with a lot more power than your DAP(personally opinion: it's fine at a desk, but then you could have a desktop amp. And it's just a PITA on the move).
Or you might want to consider getting a more sensitive headphone.

The A45 has the less power, so I'm guessing you used a different headphone/IEM at the time?

Hi
Thanks for your reply.
I will have a look through the settings and find the high/low gain .
I did use the same I.E.M's to compare the volume levels between the two players. I am still playing and comparing the same tracks with the same i.e.m's across the two players. I haven't looked at the sensitivity of the ear buds I am using, they are a reasonably cheap pair but the sound quality(to my ears) is very good. I also have some sound magic e11c which are award winners in the what hi-fi awards so I will have a play with them as well. I am on a bit of a budget so not looking to spend more than £100 on headphones, whether they are wired or bluetooth.?

 

[jsk ksj]

Hi
Thankyou for your very kind offer but it appears I have missed out!?

yes, sorry about that, it was snapped up.

 

[Spud1969]

yes, sorry about that, it was snapped up.

No worries, I was out and about and hadn't checked my emails so missed your kind offer.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hello
New member here from the UK, Wales to be precise.
I have gone through the various personal music players over the years, walkman, disc man, mini disc, ipod, ipod touch but then decided to take a foray in to the world of daps earlier this year. I purchased a Sony NW- A45 second hand and the increase in clarity in the music I wanted to listen to was like night and day.
I have just splashed out on a HIDIZS AP80 Pro although I really wanted a Cowon Plenue D3 but Cowon seem to be having issues sourcing chips and that has been the issue for the last year or so( I have been on a waiting list) I did consider a Astell and Kern SR25 MKii but can't justify that amount of money at the moment.
I may return my HIDIZS to Amazon as I am disappointed with the volume levels even through the balanced 2.5mm jack,I was looking at the Shanling M1S at the same time I purchased the HIDIZS. Is there any way to increase the volume on the HIDIZS, will the M1S be any louder, is there a way of comparing outputs? The AP80 Pro isn't great with a blue tooth connection either whilst I am walking with bluetooth earbuds, the signal will drop out. Thanks for any help and advice .

Did you set the AP80 Pro to high gain? If not that should be somewhere in the settings.

If you did or you just tried it and it's not loud enough...you'll really have to just go with the larger players with more power since power and acoustic output are logarithmic. Meaning you need to double the power for every 3dB gain, ie, very perceivable difference. Perceived double the output volume is 10dB and that would be something like 8.33X the power.

 

[Spud1969]

Did you set the AP80 Pro to high gain? If not that should be somewhere in the settings.

If you did or you just tried it and it's not loud enough...you'll really have to just go with the larger players with more power since power and acoustic output are logarithmic. Meaning you need to double the power for every 3dB gain, ie, very perceivable difference. Perceived double the output volume is 10dB and that would be something like 8.33X the power.

Hi
Yes I did go in to settings and have a play about and switched the gain to high. It does sound a little louder thanks. I have been looking at the Astell and Kern SR25 mkii. I have been looking at the specs of that player to see if it has a higher output but to be honest I don't understand all the numbers I am looking at to compare the AP80 Pro and SR25 and what I should be looking at . Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hi
Yes I did go in to settings and have a play about and switched the gain to high. It does sound a little louder thanks. I have been looking at the Astell and Kern SR25 mkii. I have been looking at the specs of that player to see if it has a higher output but to be honest I don't understand all the numbers I am looking at to compare the AP80 Pro and SR25 and what I should be looking at . Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

One problem with the A&K players for your particular concern is they tend to not publish the actual power output, only the other performance numbers. This isn't necessarily a bad thing especially for portable players where so long as you use high sensitivity IEMs you'd really care more about the other stuff that basically tells you whether it has problems driving such IEMs, like if the noise floor might be a problem with high sensitivity drivers, or if there might be distortion due to damping factor loss on dynamic drivers (or noise on BA drivers) given the player's output impedance, etc.

Basically, think of this like instead of measuring power draw and gaming FPS @ resolution and settings or task completion time benchmarks, all you get would be more like coil whine loudness and core temperatures of the CPU and GPU when running certain games and other types of loads like media creation, scientific computation, or dropped frames on Adobe, etc. Or kind of like if the car doesn't say how much horsepower it has and how fast it is around a benchmark track like the Nurburgring, and instead just tells you how many Gs it can pull when drawing doughnuts (which is a legit handling test, just that...well...all it tells you is how much grip it has because a better handling car can draw tighter doughnuts).

If you want to compare other DAPs, look for one with at least double the power, like the Fiio M11S but in balanced mode.

Or if you're open to trying out other IEMs, go with one that has about 115dB/1mW or higher sensitivity.

 

[Spud1969]

One problem with the A&K players for your particular concern is they tend to not publish the actual power output, only the other performance numbers. This isn't necessarily a bad thing especially for portable players where so long as you use high sensitivity IEMs you'd really care more about the other stuff that basically tells you whether it has problems driving such IEMs, like if the noise floor might be a problem with high sensitivity drivers, or if there might be distortion due to damping factor loss on dynamic drivers (or noise on BA drivers) given the player's output impedance, etc.

Basically, think of this like instead of measuring power draw and gaming FPS @ resolution and settings or task completion time benchmarks, all you get would be more like coil whine loudness and core temperatures of the CPU and GPU when running certain games and other types of loads like media creation, scientific computation, or dropped frames on Adobe, etc. Or kind of like if the car doesn't say how much horsepower it has and how fast it is around a benchmark track like the Nurburgring, and instead just tells you how many Gs it can pull when drawing doughnuts (which is a legit handling test, just that...well...all it tells you is how much grip it has because a better handling car can draw tighter doughnuts).

If you want to compare other DAPs, look for one with at least double the power, like the Fiio M11S but in balanced mode.

Or if you're open to trying out other IEMs, go with one that has about 115dB/1mW or higher sensitivity.

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any recommendations for IEMS with those sort of sensitivity figures.( I may start a thread or do a search for a thread to seek recommendations.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any recommendations for IEMS with those sort of sensitivity figures.( I may start a thread or do a search for a thread to seek recommendations.

I have the Westone2 (117dB/1mW) and Aurisonics ASG-1.3 (120dB/1mW). Both work fine with Samsung flagship phones...then I ended up needing to charge a dumb dongle anyway (on top of a recent Android update that effed up USB audio digital output to my desktop system again), so I now have a Hidizs AP80 (using it via line out to my amp). It's already overkill for those but if you really need to go louder then instead of more power then higher sensitivity is one way to go.

Unfortunately these IEMs are also not being made anymore but my beater IEM, a Nicehck DB1, still has the Hidizs AP80 as overkill for it even at 106dB/1mW. But in your case with an AP80 Pro already making more power, depending on what you were driving before, this might be insufficient...not to mention the DB1 has a rather odd shape to the shell on the side that contacts the ear conch.

What exactly were you driving with the AP80 Pro before? At the very least look into the sensitivity of that and try to find something that has roughly the same impedance but has at least 6dB higher sensitivity.