… There’s something about having a fixed library, one that I’ve put together myself, that makes listening feel more deliberate in a way that streaming never really did…
Yes there is. Welcome to the 20th century.
I have an Echo Mini, and I have come to really enjoy using it, both as a DAP and a usb DAC. I will say, the software isn’t great. For example, whenever I add new files to the SD card, “favorites” are just wiped out, rendering the feature basically useless. Sorting is weirdly inconsistent. These are things that could be fixed with firmware updates,
I don’t get why the firmware is closed source. Don’t they have much more to gain by opening it and allowing enthusiasts to help improve it? What is the benefit of keeping the source secret?
Just spotted that there’s been a firmware update.
Just be careful, updating basically resets all settings and favorites, dark mode to light etc
I mean, natch, lol. But thank you for letting me know! Point 3 looks interesting.
I both love and hate mine. The fundamental sound quality, size, weight and aesthetic is great. And I love an interface that means album artwork doesn’t matter.
Being a universal USB C DAC is great.
But the software quality control is horrendous. Every update introduces a new bug, you can’t update without wiping all your settings, and some albums won’t show the tracks in the right order no matter what I try.
Tracks are ordered by creation or modified timestamp iirc. There’s a script you can use that will go through your file list and update the timestamps based on filename order so they match.
(Thats the stupidest thing to sort on tho, idk why they did that)
Oh wow. So that’s what it’s doing. I could see it was ignoring most metadata that other software would use, but never thought of that.
Great to have an answer, but a shame it’s such an incredibly stupid one!
Edit: With the help of a python script made by Claude I’ve made things better.
But even now that things are ordered correctly many albums ”start” at track 10 and finish with tracks 1-9, so I have to scroll back to go to track 1. Madness.
We feel the same. It could be so much better than it is. It’s never clear why the order of files is why it is.
It’s not bad but they are usually useless unless you have high quality music, even then you need some quality headphones or IEMs to make proper use of it. I’m not against it but software usually sucks and updates are really rare, until then I’m not sure I can buy another one.
I have no comment on this product, but i respect their music choices. Meds absolutely fucks.
It’s funny to have been on the front end of the rapid consolidation of devices only to see the tail end of it when we distribute them again.
I remember, back in like 2005, camera phones and media phones were starting to properly come out, and I didn’t want it. I had a cell phone and an mp3 player and a digital camera, and I kinda liked it that way.
I mean it’s definitely pretty phenomenal. I actually still have an 80 gig iPod from back in the day. It is a superior music player.
But I just can’t see myself carrying that around and my phone. Nowadays, most of the music that I listen to is Pandora or YouTube music.
I have a mp3 collection on my phone but it’s very curated.
I miss my Palm and Ipaq…
I had a palm centro and it was the coolest phone in my highschool. I had a non-phone palm device before that too, as a hand-me-down. It had the writing system for text input which was really cool. I loved those Palm devices.
I also have one of those. Really nice, premium-feeling hardware and great sound quality, as expected from Fiio. They really should have added some additional buttons though. Forward/back, menu navigation and volume control all using the same 2 buttons is quite annoying. The software is also rather clunky and basic, comparable to the average mid-2000s “nugget” - I guess that might make it even more nostalgic for some. In any case, it’s cool having my own dedicated device for music I own again. Right now, it’s a solid 7/10 device for me, but could easily become an 8 or 9 with better software.
How is the Bluetooth audio?
I don’t own any bluetooth headphones, so I haven’t tried it. From what I’ve read, it’s fairly basic support and not really the focus of the device.
What’s the software situation? Is it open source? Can you flash your own thing?
Not open source unfortunately. People have started reverse engineering the firmware update files though, so you can already flash a slightly modified firmware at least.
I’ve tried enough custom os players to know that they are never good. Ofren you cant do something as simple as play a random album, search by name, or go to the currently playing album/artist.
I prefer android, so I can install any player.
Well, in my experience Android DAPs tend to be so underpowered they can’t even run their stock version of Android smoothly.
Agree with all your points!
The metal body is so very satisfying. But the cheaper (and almost toy-like) Innioasis Y1 had a far better menu system with that scroll-wheel
The body is what bugs me: I got it for an old-school feel but I found it way too light. And yeah, the buttons are not at all intuitive. I’m overall disappointed
People here are complaining about another device to carry around, android phones not having enough storage, streaming being better etc.
There are programs and apps to stream your own. I have a nas (network attached storage) where I keep my music. It came with a music player and a mobile app out of the box that can stream and cast my collection. Plex can also do it quite easily. I’m sure there are others too.
Navidrome + Audinaut for home, local cached files for the road. I too wonder if I would carry another device. The sound quality would need to be killer.
I find Navidrome to be pretty fantastic. I set it up on an orange pi I had laying around just last week.
Exactly this.
Also plexamp is a great player and if you give it a couple of GB of file cache it even works offline (for recently played stuff).
This is the way.
Plexamp is just wonderful, even if the Plex music library management is slightly lacking. Before I moved my music to a Plex server on my NAS I used DoubleTwist’s Cloud Player and streamed my own music out of my Google Drive storage. This was 10 years ago, but it did the job well enough. However Plex made all my music available all the time directly on my phone. No moving of files to cloud storage necessary. Easy switch.
I have a teeny tiny 2015 smartphone with a headphone jack, an SD card, the SIM removed, and a copy of Foobar2000 installed. It was never fast enough or capacious enough to be a very good portable internet portal, but it runs something simple like Foobar2000 very, very well. The battery still lasts longer than the one in my actual phone does. And it was (in a sense) free. Reduce Reuse Recycle.
I have a Sharp Wish 2. It’s just as you say.
i alwaya have 512GB android phones and happy with my MP3 collection, and a few movies thats all I’ve done for the last few pones sans SD card. There are still a few adnroid phones with an SD slot. My Nokia XR 20 has an SD slot and a headphone jack. I use it as a backup phone on my bike though with a Quad lock
Jealous you got the metal one. I bought the earlier plastic version. They’re supposedly making a Echo Nano version too
Quite the ad. There are a ton of devices with similar specs just like this on the market. The price is good so if you like the design and want an off-network device this will do fine.
I fucking want one
I really recommend it!
The metal case is a standout to me, I just love to hold it!
How is the Bluetooth?
It didn’t drop out for me once, I tried with 4 different Bluetooth earbuds (two from Sony, one Sennheiser and the last from Motorola)
What’s the benefit of this device when you can just put your audio files directly on your phone or laptop already?
Phones distract, phones nowadays have no headphone jack (fuck Bluetooth), Laptop isn’t very portable. I love having a dedicated device for music.
Edit: oh, and no fucking Touch Screen bullshit. I can just reach into my pocket and blindly operate the thing.
My phone is a distraction machine. Having dedicated devices allows me to focus better.
It’s smaller than a phone.
It has a long battery life.
It’s a proper high-res audio device. Much better audio quality than what you can get with bluetooth, a built-in headphone jack or most dongles. Even has a balanced output.
And finally, it’s just more fun.
What do you use it with if not with headphone jack nor Bluetooth?
I do use the headphone jack. I was referring to a phone’s built-in headphone jack in the above comment, as that was the point of comparison.
Most phones dont have enough storage for a medium sized music collection. Most phones dont have a headphone jack.
I would argue both points.
First, most phones have at least 20GB, which is a LOT of music storage if you’re using 320vbr compression, and if you’re an audiophile who absolutely positively must have flac for everything, you’re already going to be familiar enough with storage to know what size microSD card to get. Add in a synced dropbox/gdrive/nextcloud/whatever folder, and you don’t even have to manually plug it in to transfer files anymore, so space is kind if irrelevant.
Second, most people who are mobile are going to be listening with bluetooth headphones, and those who aren’t can still use a USB-C to jack adapter, which are pretty inexpensive and ubiquitous now, have passthrough charging solved, etc. For the audiophiles, there are very good USB-C DACs out now.
I guess I’m just confused about where this device fits into my life. If I’m mobile, it’s extra stuff to carry that duplicates functions I already have on me. If I’m home, I have fixed audio equipment that is way more versatile.
Sure 20gb is alot of music but it’s not alot of photos, videos, and apps. That stuff ads up quickly especially if your not using cloud backups for said photos and videos.
Also if your already automating syncing why not just run a audio server and connect symfonium to just stream the content, if you have connectivity issues I believe symfonium does offline downloads like most music apps.
And yea the device kinda is just an extra thing to haul around, now give me a battery backup that has inbuilt storage with the ability to act as a mobile media server I’m all over that.
I just try to use my phone as little as possible so like dedicated hardware. If I’m walking the dog my phone is off and I’m enjoying nature sounds. If I’m walking dog in a more busy less serene environment I use wired headphones with a dedicated player. Either way my phone is off and I’m using dedicated equipment.
All Android phones support Opus which makes it a great format if storage space is limited, as it’s optimized for low bitrates. You can go as low as 64 kbps if you are not picky. 128 kbps is near transparent and certainly enjoyable, while 192 kbps is basically a 320 kbps mp3 equivalent.
At 128 kbps, one can store 5000 songs even if they have just 20 GB to spare, as mentioned above.
Opus (and its predecessor Vorbis) is intended for telephony. It’s compression algorithm is optimised for low latency encoding of speech.
Opus is a hybrid codec, it combines codecs for both speech and higher quality audio/music.
USBC to headphone jack adapters, at least on my phone (Pixal 9 GOS), are noisy as hell.
Any usb c to p2 i tried breaks in 2 weeks (haven’t tried those bulky dacs). But I agree, I got no use or space for another device in my life unless I really really just don’t want my phone to distract me.
Most phones dont have enough storage
And neither does this thing. 8GB is absolutely laughable and then it can’t even handle SD cards above 256 GB? That’s considerably worse than my cheap, 6 year old phone (64GB internal storage, supports up to 512 GB SD cards and has a headphone jack).
This thing would have to be really cheap, like < $50 cheap to be worthwhile.
I’d reccommend an android dap.
For the music collection’s size, you could look into navidrome and have your server host your stuff, and your phone will just be streaming it.
But maybe this isnt a solution for everybody
Ideally, higher quality audio circuitry.
Because it’s a phone. People can call you on it.
I was alone, falling free, trying my best not to forget
Nice! I’ve been eyeing these for awhile. This was a great read and has me convinced to get one.
Thank you!
I’ve had a great time trying these out, and finding the one which will stick with me. You’ll have a great time with this, and while it is in the post you can start getting, building and curating your music collection! :P
(which color will you opt for?)
I didn’t know they were on AliExpress, so now I’m definitely after that dark green. Was looking at the black with a red button because I didn’t like the light blue or pink amazon had.
I have curated my music for awhile. I still prefer burning discs and listening to those in the car instead of streaming lol.
