HIGH RES AUDIO: News on AoS [Archive] - The Art of Sound Forum

lovejoy

21-04-2016, 10:50

I bought an XDP-100R last week after the guys at my local Audio T very kindly loaned me one for a week. I'd been looking for something for travelling around with to cut down on the bulk of having an Android phone connected via Y cable to my Meridian Explorer2 and an Anker battery to keep it all playing for more than an hour. The main criteria was that it was a. more portable and b. sounded at least as good as the Meridian and phone combination. MQA compatibility was a partial consideration also.

I'd been put off it initially by the reports I'd read of it having nowhere near enough volume headroom, but that seemed to be a software limitation and sure enough they released a new firmware that got rid of it, so I've got volume to spare now.

It's a real joy to use. Having been familiar with Android anyway, learning curve was pretty much zero. I've installed Tidal, BBCiPlayer Radio, Soundcloud, Bandcamp and a few internet radio apps but avoided anything non-music related, so together with the built in player apps it now plays ANYTHING I throw at it. I have put 2 x 128GB Micro SD cards into it. Started loading one card with Hi-Res material - a mixture of 24/96, 24/192 PCM and DSD along with the tiny amount of MQA I have at the moment.

Everything I play sounds sublime. It just seems to bring out detail in everything. It's even breathing new life into my old MP3s of stuff I don't have in any other format and it has a sense of timing you very rarely here in ANY digital kit - It even beats my IQAudio DAC on that front.

I am completely hooked on it. It has changed the way I listen to music and I take it EVERYWHERE. It's even sat on my desk at work all day every day and that's not something I've ever done before.