Just got this little guy, the Xduoo X3. Sounds crap with stock firmware. Rockbox'd it and now sounds really good with lots and lots of settings, but using it now with defaults set. I think I paid about R1250 all in and landed, off Ebay. I bought it to have a decent portable that can at least play flac natively and take lots of storage. I added 2 x 128GB micro-SD cards - it has no on-board storage. It also has a 3.5mm 'line-out' in addition to the 3.5mm headphone socket. Same dac chip as in my Korg dacs, the CS-4398 - very nice. Still waiting on my Geek Wave player since 2014 so this fills the gap very nicely.
One needs to Rockbox it to get good sound from the very decent hardware inside. Once Rockboxed, you lose DSD playback ability from the Rockbox interface, but it has dual-boot, so one can revert to the original UI at will, which does support DSD playback.
What is really awesome sound wise with this little DAP, is the bass - it is frickin AWESOME! Articulated, full and tight. The rest of the spectrum is pleasant and very clear.
The physical button arrangement is not ideal and takes some getting used to, especially with Rockbox's additional functionality.
For any headfier, I can wholeheartedly recommend this model - the sound is superb. I like it so much with my old Philips SHP-895, that I have yet again acquired a Sennheiser HD598, but this time I ordered the HD598 SE, never really like the awkward colour scheme of the original HD598.
I'm also impressed with the battery life, looks like I'll het at least 12 hours on the first charge.
I also like the business-like screan of Rockbox.
So, who else has one or is getting one soon?
Here is the link to the manufacturer's page: http://www.xduoo.com/xduoo/En/ProductView.Asp?ID=3
and here's the Rockbox page: https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/XDuooX3
One needs to Rockbox it to get good sound from the very decent hardware inside. Once Rockboxed, you lose DSD playback ability from the Rockbox interface, but it has dual-boot, so one can revert to the original UI at will, which does support DSD playback.
What is really awesome sound wise with this little DAP, is the bass - it is frickin AWESOME! Articulated, full and tight. The rest of the spectrum is pleasant and very clear.
The physical button arrangement is not ideal and takes some getting used to, especially with Rockbox's additional functionality.
For any headfier, I can wholeheartedly recommend this model - the sound is superb. I like it so much with my old Philips SHP-895, that I have yet again acquired a Sennheiser HD598, but this time I ordered the HD598 SE, never really like the awkward colour scheme of the original HD598.
I'm also impressed with the battery life, looks like I'll het at least 12 hours on the first charge.
I also like the business-like screan of Rockbox.
So, who else has one or is getting one soon?
Here is the link to the manufacturer's page: http://www.xduoo.com/xduoo/En/ProductView.Asp?ID=3
and here's the Rockbox page: https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/XDuooX3
