A tiny Linux-powered Hi-Fi player with physical controls, a whale on its back, Tetris inside, and far more personality than I expected.
  • mursejoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1 month

    I’ll always have fond memories of my iPod classic with the 160gb storage. Endless playlists!

    • BigBrainBrett2517@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 month

      Oh goodness… The day mine died was a day I’ll never forget. So sad. What I wouldn’t give to see the songs on those playlists again for reference.

  • Übercomplicated@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1 month

    TLDR: digital audio player with 3.5 and 4.4 mm outputs, a Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC, Bluetooth 5.3, and USB DAC functionality.

    Pros:

    • Linux based system
    • physical volume wheel
    • looks cute and well-made
    • Bluetooth
    • good DAC
    • low THD+N: 0.0015%
    • competitive price
    • EQ, unclear if parametric EQ

    Cons:

    • Kickstarter
    • only up-to 256 GB storage (my library is ≈ 550 GB)
    • low-res Bluetooth, only SBC support
    • mediocre op-amp, RT6863, only 61+61mW@32 Ohm, basically unusable for headphones
    • there’s a lot of good competition, see Fiio’s Echo Mini, Echo Nano, Disk, Qudelix-5K.
    • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1 month

      This is really helpful, thanks. I was especially curious about the power output. I have a specific pair of headphones I use for low output devices (other than IEMs), so I’d be OK, but if it had enough power to handle more of my headphones I’d probably dive in.

  • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    1 month

    Well, that article really made me consider getting a dedicated music device again after decades of using my smartphone.

    • candyman337@piefed.caEnglish
      1 month

      Tbh, we rely too much on smart phones, even though it’s really cool to have a single device that does all these things, I think it was overall bad for society. Now the releasers of the software for these devices basically monopolize how so many things are distributed and what content they can have.

    • PerfectDark@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 month

      A few months back I had a grand plan about buying a ton of options, going from entry level to high-end, a refurbished and done up iPod, a Zune, a feature on the PSP’s sound capabilities…but after two or three I got distracted

      Reviewing this was a pleasure, and reminded me why something like this little fellow is magic for music. The sound difference between FLAC on this V.S. streaming is enormous!

      I’m so glad you liked my artivle/review/impressions! :)

      • candyman337@piefed.caEnglish
        1 month

        Can you really tell the difference? Like even compared to lossless streaming, I know there are some songs where it seems to be better detailed but that also could be my own bias, on top of that, I know some songs don’t even have lossless versions released so if you buy the flac you’re literally just getting the CD quality version anyway.

        • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1 month

          I usually find that I can only tell the difference between high quality compressed music (v0 or better) and flacs with specific tracks that I know extremely well and only when using really good speakers or headphones. Some of the streaming services have noticeable lower quality, but it is usually good enough. The main reason I keep flacs around is for being able to burn a cd to transcode to other formats.

        • a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1 month

          If the streaming is lossless it would be impossible to tell the difference as they would be the same file.

          But for many streaming services yes, you can certainly tell a difference.

        • PerfectDark@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1 month

          Hi there!

          I am not Gardiner, but he is one of my best friends! While you’ll know Gardiner from his YouTube (I assume!), he and I run the site together, equally. His focus will be no surprise to you, but mine is almost entirely the gaming scene, and then some forays into new things :)

    • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1 month

      I switched to using a dedicated DAP because I haven’t been able to get a phone that fits my needs with a headphone jack. am considering getting this, if the kickstarter was active I’d be tempted to get it at the $75 price. There’s no way I’d pay over $100 though, there are too many caveats I have with this device considering I already have a DAP that is OK.

      • crazyduck@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1 month

        Take a look at the fiio echo nano, might be right up your alley. ~50-60€ DAC, 3.5mm audio jack, small form factor, retro look

        • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1 month

          fiio echo nano

          I’ve actually had it on my list for a while, but I haven’t had the best luck with Fiio products, especially their portable dac/amps so i am a bit leery.

        • soulBit@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1 month

          +1 for Echo Snowsky, great cheap DAP for flac files, and has Bluetooth support if you’re in a pinch. Only downside is the slightly crappy UI design.

  • AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1 month

    Are there any headphones that include an opus player with a micro sd card?

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
    1 month

    Cute design, though probably only good for carrying a few favourite albums around, as without a scroll wheel, it’ll be painfully slow to navigate through larger music collections.

    • ObsidianZed@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 month

      Does it not have a scroll wheel? Admittedly I skimmed the article but it appears to have A wheel of some kind.

      • PerfectDark@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 month

        No, this is the on/off (and lock) switch, by pressing it in, but it is the volume wheel!

    • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1 month

      I have about 100 albums on my little DAP and it isn’t as bad as you’re probably thinking. If I had thousands of albums, yeah, that would be a no go, but I really don’t want to be text searching on my music player generally. As long as it has filter menus for artist and genre and the UI isn’t totally brain dead it is likely fine.

      • ranzispa@mander.xyzEnglish
        1 month

        100 albums is quite a small collection, I believe I have more than that on my phone.

        If I can not easily browse through 1000 artists this has no value to me.

        • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1 month

          I only put around 100 or so albums at a time on my DAP and/or phone, my full music collection is easily 100 times that large. It would be insane to try have that on any portable device since the collection is always growing and being curated/tagged. Also, most of my music listening is from my desktop, not my DAP or phone, so 100 albums that I swap out now and then is ideal.

          • ranzispa@mander.xyzEnglish
            1 month

            I mean, I have more than 100 albums in CDs in my car; probably some 200 or 300. I’d expect a digital device to be able to stash more music than my car can.

            But I do see the use of swapping music in and out; it is what I do with my phone, but that is mostly due to limited storage; if I could I’d store way more than that in my phone.

            • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1 month

              I think we just listen to music differently. I found that having too much music on a device, be it a phone, DAP , sometimes just USB drive, was more trouble than it was worth. I was having a hard time distilling down my music collection like that, where with the 100 or so albums it was meant to be a quick sampling that didn’t need to cover all the bases.

              • ranzispa@mander.xyzEnglish
                1 month

                We probably do. I do listen to quite a lot of albums, I probably listen 100 different ones in one or two weeks.

      • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1 month

        That’s still easily 20+ clicks to get to the specific song you want to hear in this thing

  • DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1 month

    I would get this if it had a search function. Idk why no one ever thinks of a search function with things like this.

    Edit: I’m still probably going to get it after thinking about it at work all day. But I do still think search would be nice

  • p3nj@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 month

    literally just got my btr15 today I guess imma buy this toi

  • dil@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1 month

    I really need to backup my music, pure apple music and sc mightve been a mistake, great for discoverability, but I shouldve been downloading and backingup everything, every once in a while a song gets taken down

  • fubarx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 month

    It’s really unfortunate Apple dropped the iPod Nano. The ones with a physical scroll wheel and small display were just the right size for sticking in your pocket and going for a walk, run, or bike. Great way to leave distractions behind.

    This one looks like it’s got some good design ideas. Nowadays, most people have streaming playlists. If they add software to snapshot those playlists onto the device in high quality, they might have something.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.todayEnglish
      1 month

      Okay here’s what I don’t get.
      Awesome little gadget, good DAC, and the only Bluetooth codec it supports is SBC? No aac, no aptx hd, no ldac, no LE Audio?

  • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 month

    The idea is great of a Linux-powered DAP is brilliant; if there’s one letdown with 80% of all DAPs, it’s the clunky software and UX. However, the device itself looks ghastly IMO.

    Edit: I thought the software could be customised due to it being Linux and whatnot. It doesn’t seem to be.

    • magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1 month

      What are you talking about that thing looks adorable?

      Would look cute dangling from a bag/purse or something.

      Honestly my big hangup is trying to justify a dedicated player when a decent DAC can be had for as cheap as like $50

      • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 month

        I think it looks way too childish, even for one of those retro handhelds. I just don’t get why it needs to look like a Game Boy (which it doesn’t really, if anything it looks like a Pokémon Mini).

        Maybe I’m just too much of a manly man to enjoy such things, idk.

        • magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1 month

          Looks its not my fault you neither want to be cute nor whimsical, lol.

          If I had a use for it I’d try to get one color matched to some good nail polish, maybe print out a custom case to match it with my portable meshcore node too.

    • Yttra@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 month

      I think the Linux thing is pretty common in this area, actually… For example, a lot of Hiby’s cheaper players that aren’t on Android also use plain Linux 4.4 under the hood, I believe

  • devfuuu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 month

    It looks cute. But first time I heard headphones being called monitors and IEM keywords. Had to go search what the hell that was about. Also never heard about a 4.4mm connection. Calling something as capable to read “books” when it’s just txt files is a bit overselling it. And at that size is probably something more like a notes reader. I didn’t see anything written about the battery life and if bluetooth works properly and how that affects battery.

    • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1 month

      The manufacturers website lists a 1200mAh 3.8v LiPo battery with a runtime of 8-10hrs BAL, 10-12hrs PO if using wired headphones, and 6-8hrs if using wireless

      I’m not actually sure what BAL and PO means

      • GEEXiES@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 month

        I’m not actually sure what BAL and PO means

        “Balanced output” and “Phone output”? Like the former for when using the 4.4 mm balanced connector and the latter for when using the standard 3.5 mm one… I guess.

    • Akasazh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 month

      Also assuming for the ‘audiophile’ market often means overpriced stuff with lots of buzzwords and confrontation bias.

  • LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.socialEnglish
    1 month

    I’ve been rocking a Hifiwalker H2 with Rockbox installed for the past couple of months. I highly recommend.

    • unbuckled_easily933@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1 month

      I’ve heard conflicting info regarding the maximum size for an SD card in one of these. Can you confirm or deny if it can take a 1TB card? If so, it really sounds like the perfect device.

      • LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.socialEnglish
        1 month

        Sorry I can’t confirm. I’ve seen reports on Reddit that 1TB cards actually do work but haven’t tried myself.