Just bought this, sounds great so far. But something just occured to me: the manual says "16-600Ohm" and I'm using mrspeakers AEON, and although they are INSANELY hard to drive they are only rated to 13Ohms...is this going to be an issue?
I love the app btw, such a GREAT idea, but done SO badly. PLEASE God, Pioneer if you're reading this, PLEASE the app needs ongoing media notification (like any music player app would have). This means that I can use it with my watch (since media notification are transferred onto androidwear), or even just change songs without exiting what i'm doing just to go into another app.
Any comparisons to the Sony NW-A35 dap?
I returned the A35 for xdp-30r. I can't fully comment on the difference in various aspects of sound, BUT: A35 amp section is at least a lot weaker than xdp-30r. Especially when you do balanced. Again, I didn't have A35 for too long, plus i'm using mrspeakers, so really xdp-30r will sound a lot better, more open, more details etc, if nothing else then purely because A35 wasn't pushing the AEONs properly.
The overlay is part of the temporary retailfull screen protector. Just peel off from one of the 4 corners of the glass.
is that just for onkyo or does the pioneer have a retail screen protector? cuz i've tried with my nails around all the corners and i am simply NOT seeing how there's something on the screen except the glass.
Linn are one of a few other companies who have a very specific opinion on MQA, although bear in mind they have interests of their own to protect, and possibly sour grapes! But there are a lot more companies of excellent reputation, and more importantly a whole load of music lovers, who are beginning to understand why MQA is quite the opposite of DRM and, in fact, a very, very smart piece of thinking and implementation. It's because there has been so much misinformation spread about it I felt the need to correct the DRM comment, as I believe (quite the opposite of Linn) that MQA is absolutely brilliant for music.
Essentially, it's -
A) one of the only ways of streaming hi-res music at currently available bandwiths for most people and better fits the available storage capacity most DAPs, etc. (Without MQA it is highly doubtful Tidal would be streaming thousands of beautifully remastered hi-res titles, which are growing hundreds by the day and sound far superior to their CD quality counterparts through an MQA capable system).
B) genuinely *better* for the artists and consumer, since both are aware the genuine tracks are being used/purchased (I've been burned I don't know how many times by so-called 'hi res' music, from sites which should be reputable, which turned out to be nothing more than upsampled CD or even MP3s. I've also experienced this on vinyl 'reissues'. Disgraceful.).
C) of superior sound quality, especially with hardware enabled second unfold due to very clever (in MQA parlance) deblurring, which actually does have an audible difference *if you listen on a system designed end-to-end with MQA specs fully met* (most people commenting, including Linn who manufacture competitive products, likely haven't ever heard this).
D) will play on any equipment at all, and has NO DRM of any kind, since the file will always play at slightly better than CD quality (recording ADC 'deblurring' is already implemented) on any equipment capable of playing an ordinary Flac or similar. Then, if your DAC is MQA renderer capable, you get 'full fat' MQA up to the sampling rate it can handle. The best way to think about this is it's the same as you couldn't play, say, a 24/96, or 24/192, or DSD file unless your DAC was capable of it, but with MQA at least you can always play the slightly better than CD res on any equipment.
Anyway, this is excellent reading if you have a little time and wish to know about MQA in detail and have any misconceptions or concerns answered, from the horse's mouth -
https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers
Just a clarification btw, while I understand what you're saying, MQA is basically good for when you need higher than CD quality audio without taking up the extra space that needs (usually due to bandwidth considerations) right?
I mean, is there any real reason I'd download an MQA file? As long as the FLACs are from reputable sites wouldn't buying a 24/96 or 24/192 FLAC basically be same, (or better, since a lot of players can't do MQA but are perfectly capable of 24/192). I get your point about "authenticity", but really if MQA is just a way to compress a master quality file, wouldn't i be better off just getting said master quality audio directly? There's nothing about MQA by itself and inherently that stops people from doing wierd crap like upsampled audio with it. The fact of the matter is that MQA is only used by recording studios to encode their masters, so there's a certain assumption made about hte process involved in getting from recording to MQA. OTOH, if the same studio got you a 192/24 FLAC from the same recording, and mastering, then it would sound the same, in fact, and WITHOUT the need for special hardware.
This is my fundamental issue with MQA. I don't see the point. To me: If you are really THAT starved for bandwidth i don't think you're going to bother with streaming any kind of hifi to begin with . (think people living in india or something). FOr me at home, I have gigabit internet so I just download 24/192 FLAC from sites like hdtracks and 7digital (past experience has shown me that those two sites are reputable), and then i don't need to bother with MQA or getting hardware MQA.
Additionally MQA, to me, encourages a certain type of attitude towards music encoding and transportation. We need to get AWAY from compression of any kind. ANd yea i know the marketing about how MQA is "the music just like it was recorded" etc, and I appreciate the kind of effort that MQA is getting. But, honestly why bother with all of this? Why not just do the EXACT same thing, in terms of process and mastering and encoding and just give me the full on 192/24 FLAC, with no fancy encoding and "folding" that needs special hardware, and not to mention licensing fees and specialised algorithms etc. Now companies that make DACs need to have one more extra thing to put into their DACs (afaik you need to license MQA, and pay them money to be able to develop a DAC that can properly decode it)...why? I love simplicity, and to me, there was nothing wrong with FLAC, not inherently. All the issues with FLAC (like upsampled flacs masquerading as originals etc) are issues that have to do with the process and how FLACs get to people, can't we just put our efforts into making sure of those kind of things instead of inventing a new file format?
Also: I'm always apprehensive about things that claim to be better than other things with no compromises. MQA, in a lot of sites claims to be better than CD quality FLAC but with the same size...how? FLACs can be compressed to begin with so it's not just regular compression. It's just a personal hang-up of mine, has nothing to do with facts or science.
Also note: AFAIK MQA on the DP-S1 is done via software not hardware right?
