With the ori come with box AKG earpiece, yes, the sound is so so, but is better than other brand phone stock earpiece.
But once plug in Sony IEM, huge improve! Hence i doubt will have further improvement or not if add in a DAC Amp....

Bro, interest to know that is TIdal Hifi Music quality has much different with Spotify Premium Music quality??
The price is double up...

really? interesting. didnt expect a flagship can be bad. considering its expensive too.
meanwhile LG v20 and i also heard Oneplus 3/5 are not bad. and these are considerable cheaper.

Don’t think she was talking about the IEM but the phone itself. Or you can just ask her orangegurl

Haven’t heard it myself so I can’t comment, just sharing another owners opinion lol

I heard some tracks with stringed instruments and sibilant vocals there's a pronounced distortion, sort of a "frrrrrrr"sound. At first I thought my Aune T1 when I was using had kaput tube, but then I tried Tidal and set it to Master and output device as my DAC and it sounds clean.
Other than that its the usual improved SQ people use those buzzwords like large soundstage, cleaner, black background, etc. For me it just sounds cleaner and clear.

You can just try the trial period first, all functionalities as the full version but for like a month I think. Plenty of time to think about it. It still costs less than a CD per month. If you buy one CD a month, you'll only have 12 a year. But if you sub to Tidal (or any other) you can listen to any songs you want for a fee.

This post has been edited by penmarker: Dec 7 2017, 05:48 PM

Spotify Premium offers at most, MP3 (Lossy Audio) at 320kbp/s while Tidal Hi-Fi allows streaming of Lossless audio at 16bit/44.1kHz (and if I'm not wrong, Tidal Master(MQA) allows up to 24bit/96kHz ). Basically, compressed audio vs lossless audio. Usually, lossy compression will cause the really high frequencies to be lost, and can result in distortion in some cases. In lossless audio, the audio is also compressed but encoded in such a way that no details are lost, which will also result in a bigger file size. Usually, the difference is negligible on lower end audio gear but if the same recording is mastered differently for lossy and lossless audio, then the difference will be much more noticeable. So it comes down to whether or not you feel that the small difference in details is worth it to you and/or you have the necessary audio equipment for the said details.

Putting that aside, the pricing not too bad la bro. I sometimes buy JPop Hi-Res albums and those can easily cost RM100 for a single album.

The Tidal Master music file can be support by Phone too?
Found this Tidal have family plan like spotify too, u guy got any group here in forum who created for sharing slot?
i can't found any thread about this...

The difference will be there but negligible. Unless you change your source, the improvement will not be as noticeable.

The Tidal Master is currently available for desktop only. Even if there is for phone, I'd doubt you would use it on your phone as it'll drain your Data really quickly unless you have unlimited data plan. If I recall, I don't think there's a thread for that.

yo bro whats up, why tagging me XD

for me yes the note 8 sound bad for me, i cant accept the sound stage at all, AKG iem is really bad, the name AKG make it famous only haha, i can give u try the cheapo earbud is way much better than note 8's IEM,

note 8 is not an audiophile phone usage, i'll try the LG V30 soon and will try to compare it

Spotify Premium is using OGG format, MP3 has already obsolete.
Spotify Premium has more choices of songs and the sound quality is very good.

Hmm... haven't used spotify for a long time. Thanks for correcting me on that. However, OGG is still Lossy and is only slightly better than mp3, AAC at 320kbps can provide better results. The reason I don't use spotify is the lack of JPop

Sorry, wrong post.

This post has been edited by Edifier: Dec 7 2017, 09:43 PM

I have both spotify and tidal but most of the time I listen to Tidal because the master quality is amazing. I really wish spotify will go for 16bit/44.1 kHz in the future. Spotify has more songs of choice and if the song that I want to listen to is not on Tidal, I use fidelify instead of just normal spotify.

Finally got my tracking no. from Massdrop..
My Hd6xx is coming!
But haven't decide on dac/amp yet. Lol..
Guys, what do you think on the new iFi Audio nano iDSD Black Label?
It is on Amazon for usd 200.
Is it good?

Based on couple reviews that I've read, it works great with HD650 and come close to micro BL. My review unit is coming in 2 weeks or so; can only confirm how it compares to micro BL after it arrives.

Guys, anyone know here in KL where to repair dac/amp? Mine one is a smsl dac/amp. The sound coming out from the dac was breaking badly. It was a brand new but instead of replacing the item, the seller will bear the cost of repair. Dang it, this thing killin' me.. 😑

This post has been edited by husainipangeran: Dec 18 2017, 10:02 AM

A1:
- Cheaper
- Need separate charging
- Got own volume control, might be confusing having 2 volume controls (on PC/phone and amp)

K1:
- Slightly more expensive
- Charge from PC/phone
- Some phone may need USB HUB (if not enough power), and abit faster phone battery drain
- Since it's a DAC, no separate volume control

Sound-wise, not sure. But beside driving higher-impedance headphones, little to gain sound-wise as modern smartphones already have very good DACs (based on GSMArena reviews).

Hello there guys. Im thinking of buying dac+amp to replace my asus xonar dx.

The budget is below rm500. It will be use to pair with my headphone Audio Technica ATH-500x

Application is mainly use in gaming and casual music listening.

So can anyone suggest the model within that price range?

Tq..

My Hd6xx already in FedEx lorry to its last destination in US right now.
So I need to pump up my research for my first (probably last, lol) dac/amp for it.
At the start Im thinking for the cheaper options like Shit Fulla 2. But after awhile I decided to spend a lot more as I'm afraid the need to upgrade later..
So, my budget is 400usd..
After so much headache so far, I have two options.

Ifi Idsd micro black label,
+portable
+the best sounding?
-over my budget but I'm willing to buy used.

Audio GD NFB11 @ R2R11
+great sounding. (better than the micro BL?)
-not portable

I also have extra candidates as Safe Options.
ifi idsd Nano black label.
+portable
+cheapest among the three.
-can it push my hd6xx to the full potential or around 80% of the potential?

So, what is the best possible as end game?