[Perico]

Thank you for your comments bsoplinger, the AP60 Hidizs seems very similar to D3, do you know if you have balance control ?.

 

[Perico]

And the Benjie T6 has balance control or just AGPtEK Rocker?, Also looking at a forum I saw that the Fiio M3 had balance control but it is difficult to secure and find it for sale. Please help...

 

[bsoplinger]

And the Benjie T6 has balance control or just AGPtEK Rocker?, Also looking at a forum I saw that the Fiio M3 had balance control but it is difficult to secure and find it for sale. Please help...

AGPtEK rebrands other Chinese company's products and they usually modify the firmware to improve it. Benjie makes the T6 primarily to sell in China, AGPtEK made their own version of the firmware and markets to the rest of the world. Its the same product. In fact I bought a Benjie T6 and put the AGPtEK firmware on it. There is a thread just for it.

The Hidizs AP60 MKII is physically almost the same size as the Xduoo Nano D3 with the AP60 being shorter, a bit less wide but fatter than the D3. The Hidizs has a balance control. As I've mentioned it just feels much more like a finished product than the D3. I neglected to mention that the AP60 also has Hiby, which allows you to connect with your Android phone via Bluetooth and control the player from an app on your phone and manage playlists and view your music files and I don't know what more.

 

[CardinalBlood]

Thank you very much for your answer CardinalBlood , now I do not know why the player decides that I have balance control and that it is small to replace my old sansa +, can you advise me?

I like the D3, but I'm still new at DAPs, so I do not have much knowledge to share.

 

[Perico]

Thanks again bsoplinger for your clarifications, now I know that the Hidizs AP60, Benjie t6 and AGPTEK Rocker have balance control but the Fiio M3 I still do not know. In addition I have continued looking for other small players and I have found the Shanling M1 that I have fallen in love aesthetically but it is more expensive than any of the previous ones and it seems that yes it has balance control (I would appreciate it if someone could confirm it to me).
Please help me to decide for one of the 5 players or another of similar characteristics. I will use it mainly in the gym to play mp3 of rock, heavy metal and music of similar genres that require powerful bass with in-ear headphones of 8 or 16 Ω.
My needs and preferences as well as balance control (to compensate for my deafness in one ear) and portability are as follows and in that order:
1. Powerful to not have to use an amplifier, I do not know if that is related to the db output, the mW, the Ω or do not know ..., what I really want is to provide me with a volume as high possible, I currently hear the music in mp3 format on my galaxy A3 with headphones in ear Sennheiser CX275 S that provide me 120 db and that's why they are already the seconds that I have since they are very powerful and decent sound for my taste, besides have control over the tracks that I play from my mobile.
2. That has a quality sound superior to sansa + (which I had in the past) and my current galaxy A3.
3. That I can reproduce the audio by folders that is how I have my library ordered.
I do not know if this is the right forum where to make this query and ask for your help, if it is not, please tell me where to do it.

 

[Roboturner913]

I've had the Rocker v2 for a few days and I love it. I'm not saying I wouldn't love the AP60. However, the Rocker has one major advantage over any other player being currently made (to my knowledge), and that's Rockbox compatibility. While the Rockbox port isn't complete, it will be soon and in the meantime the factory firmware is very usable.

I can tell you the Rocker drives my Sennheiser PX100 (32 ohm) and CX150 (16 ohm) very well. It also sounds pretty great with the Awei ES-800s which are a fantastic budget in-ear that sound at least as good as any $50 in-ears I've heard. I believe the headphone output goes up to around 46 mw which is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than enough power for any of these. Definitely noticeably more power than my Clip+, which I do still adore, but the difference is immediately noticeable.

Maybe it couldn't drive full-size phones effectively, I can't say because I don't have any to try.

The Benjie T6, as you've no doubt heard, is the same as the Rocker. I believe both the Benjie and Rocker have V2 versions, the only real difference being that the corners of the shell are rounded off.

 

[bsoplinger]

I own the Shanling M1 in addition to the Hidizs AP60 MKII. They're practically identical in terms of features, size etc. I feel that the Hidizs has slightly better control at the extents, both high and low, but I'd never describe the M1 as having a drop off or bump. The difference really is slight. I believe that the Shanling has more power but neither of these compact players are designed to drive 300 ohm load headphones and both would struggle and not show the headphones at their best. But either is more than adequate for pretty much any IEM except for those outliers with 150+ ohm loads. Both have a high and low gain setting. The display of the M1 is nicer. Again not by a huge amount. They really are rather identical choices. And based on Amazon Prime prices pretty close too, $130 for the M1 or the Hidizs. I think that the coupon is still good for the Hidizs though.

 

[Perico]

Thanks for comment,
Roboturner913, I understand that with the Rocker and with the headphones of 16 Ω or more that you comment you have more power and volume that the sansa +, but is it due to the rockbox? I say this because I am clumsy and I refuse to change the official firmware of the products and I never dared to use the sansa +, without changing anything from the factory, is it more powerful than the sansa +?
Bsoplinger, does the Shanling M1 have independent balance control to adjust the volume in left and right channel?
The other big question I have, is how do you assess the power and volume generated by an audio player ?, I know that in a headset sensitivity (db) is the main factor to know the volume they can generate, but when the Ω is varied, or the mW of the player's output according to Ω ... I lose myself and I do not know anything ... could someone clarify that to me? Will I get more volume with any of the players discussed than with my Galaxy A3?

 

[Roboturner913]

Thanks for comment,
Roboturner913, I understand that with the Rocker and with the headphones of 16 Ω or more that you comment you have more power and volume that the sansa +, but is it due to the rockbox? I say this because I am clumsy and I refuse to change the official firmware of the products and I never dared to use the sansa +, without changing anything from the factory, is it more powerful than the sansa +?
Bsoplinger, does the Shanling M1 have independent balance control to adjust the volume in left and right channel?
The other big question I have, is how do you assess the power and volume generated by an audio player ?, I know that in a headset sensitivity (db) is the main factor to know the volume they can generate, but when the Ω is varied, or the mW of the player's output according to Ω ... I lose myself and I do not know anything ... could someone clarify that to me? Will I get more volume with any of the players discussed than with my Galaxy A3?

Sansa Clip + headphone output is 15 mW @ 16 ohms
Rocker's headphone output is 46 mw @ 16 ohms

And don't get me wrong, the Clip+ is still brilliant. I'm not bashing it by any means.

Rockbox has nothing to do with power output, it does allow you to fine-tune the sound but it cannot alter the player's basic hardware. For instance, I have an iPod Nano with Rockbox on it, but it still sounds like crap because the Nano is gutless and no amount of Rockbox settings I fool with are going to "fix" that.

I don't have Rockbox on my Rocker right now anyway, at the moment it's in beta and the installation is too complicated for me. So I'm comparing apples to apples, more or less anyway.

 

[bsoplinger]

@Perico yes it has a balance control. I tried to convey that they are almost identical feature-wise. Minor differences in hardware, firmware implementation etc so that each is unique but overall much like each other. I've used the Hidizs more recently so I'd pick it over the Shanling. I'm rather certain if I'd used the Shanling more recently I'd likely pick it instead. They really are similar.

 

[Perico]

Thank you for commenting, now I have finally managed to reduce the candidates to one of these two:
Shanling M1, in favor, its design, manufacturing materials, greater power (35mw 32 Ω) and connectivity.
Fiio M3, in favor, its smaller size, 24-hour battery, price (half) and the possibility of interacting with the control of my Sennheiser CX275 headphones (to change or stop tracks).
Considering that it is for the gymnasium and to use it with the Sennheiser CX275 S of 8 Ω - 120db I think the Fiio m3 is more appropriate, but it has less power than the Shanling M1 and a much lower design and materials.
One last piece of advice, please?

 

[DatGameh]

Hey guys!
I think I know the brand of the DAC used in this device
It's called the Rockchip RKNanoD-L.
I recall seeing a picture of the chip in Nymphonomaniac's review.

In case it wasn't mentioned yet, that chip is a Chinese "multimedia chip" which basically combines the CPU and DAC into one chip.
More can be seen here: https://www.cnx-software.com/2015/0...cortex-m3-soc-for-iot-and-audio-applications/
Now, you'd think that the chip is a custom chip designed specifically for the xDuoo Nano D3, due to the same name. But actually, the RKNanoD came back in 2015.
It makes me wonder why a device is named after it's CPU. Pretty odd, really.

By the way, can anyone summarize the experience with the Nano D3's firmware v1.3? I think it was mentioned at a certain page, but I kinda forgot which one.

 

[bsoplinger]

… By the way, can anyone summarize the experience with the Nano D3's firmware v1.3? I think it was mentioned at a certain page, but I kinda forgot which one.

Each release they attempted to correct the navigation errors, as in choosing back when playing a song should show the folder that contains the song, and seem to have made it worse. The first firmware update mostly took care of the first few seconds of each track being cut off. Now it seems to happen occasionally to just the very first song being played. Still no gapless. So if you are a playlist and shuffle only type person who has no need for gapless playback it should behave acceptably for that. As a more general player, not so much.

 

[DatGameh]

Each release they attempted to correct the navigation errors, as in choosing back when playing a song should show the folder that contains the song, and seem to have made it worse. The first firmware update mostly took care of the first few seconds of each track being cut off. Now it seems to happen occasionally to just the very first song being played. Still no gapless. So if you are a playlist and shuffle only type person who has no need for gapless playback it should behave acceptably for that. As a more general player, not so much.

Really? That's a shame. So it's better just to stick with v1.0, I guess.
What about RockBox? It's an old custom firmware known to be supported by many players. Do you think compatibility may be possible with this device?

 

[duo8]

Really? That's a shame. So it's better just to stick with v1.0, I guess.
What about RockBox? It's an old custom firmware known to be supported by many players. Do you think compatibility may be possible with this device?

There are a few notes on rknanod on rockbox wiki
Apparently it won't work.