Onkyo DP-X1 Digital Audio Player

I rate it 5 stars not because it's perfect but for the money it's a deal. Not to many bad but I was surprised this didn't have a speaker like the single DAC model made by Pioneer. Also, it doesn't contain information on how to use the balanced output. After much research I had to buy an $85 cable and a special connector that needs to be attached to a modified headphone. There are no such thing as balanced headphones that can plug into the unit, at least that I can find. The included player is not that good because seems it wanted me to select one of Onkyo's earphone and couldn't select none, then later somehow, "other" showed up so chose that then I could use it but the user interface is poor. Then when I went to use it again the earphone menu showed up again and the "other" was missing so just chose a random Onkyo earphone. The player then locked up and had to reset the device. After resetting the player worked ok. I downloaded HiBy so I use that player so the included player is not a real issue but unless you get the right DSD player most free ones won't play DSD. So regular output works fine and no problems and plays DSD well with excellent audio. Most my stuff is FLAC which sounds about as good as DSD. The player handles over 400 megs and is the primary reason why I got this as all my audio is FLAC and DSD HD. Also another great feature is it is Android 5.1 and obviously supports thousands of apps from the Play Store. But I also have lots of movies and t.v. shows stored so and they all play great and sound good also. I have tons of photos also. I wish this had a camera and gps. The wifi works excellently and all my apps on my other Pioneer XDP 100R transferred fine without any effort. Obviously this is good for traveling as I can watch movies and listen to HD music or play games, etc. To take advantage of the dual DACs however you need to have balanced headphones configured. I am new to this balanced stuff and still learning but it seems from what I read there are balanced headphones for sale somewhere but super expensive, much cheaper to buy headphones then mod yourself, so that's what I will do, but Onkyo should have at least provided the 2.5mm adapter and have instructions on how to wire it up. You are not going to find a better DSD player at this price and even the super expensive ones don't support this much memory. This will upscale MP3 and lower resolution but I don't need to because I only have HD loaded. I haven't tried MQA format as haven't seen any and not sure if the software is ready for updating. The unit has fairly sharp edges which would hold better if rounded like phones. It is heavy on purpose though as the metal case is used for shielding and heat sinking. I had to use DSD download service from Europe because I was in Hawaii and when I tried to download and pay with paypal for a U.S. DSD provider it said I was in a foreign country so cannot download and pay from this service. So that ended that and went straight to Nativedsd.com and haven't looked back. They are an excellent DSD provider and reliable and no problems with downloads. The music I listen to is strictly classical so I am picky on how music sounds obviously. They have lots of unique versions of classical pieces which I don't have in my traditional collection. Transferring the music is a no brainer and haven't used their PC interface because I can just put the micro SD card in my computer and copy right over, very fast especially if you got to transfer several gigabytes. Battery life seems good and much shorter however if you are watching movies. I have lots of music videos I ripped from DVDs also and all work fine. For the money this has all the others beat. My previous one I bought before I learned about this was the Hifiman dsd player and it was totally garbage and returned it. I would prefer Burr Brown DACs but you can't have everything for this price. The ones with Burr Brown DACs can't compete with the value this has.

My experience is coming from iPad 4 and 5 and Cowen that reads FLAC files. Far and away, it is superior in sound quality with Bose QC 15 and Etymotics ear buds to any portable music source I've experienced. I'm sure that it sounds even better with higher-quality earpieces. I can even detect an improvement in low/medium-res MP3 files over listening on the iPhone and Cowon. I recently purchased a DSD version of M. Jackson's Thriller, and I could hear instruments and riffs I've never heard before. Summary: from my prior experience, this is far and away the best media player in its price range. The A&K, Pioneer and others were rated lower in the A/V publications, so I'm happy with the purchase for sound quality alone - EXCELLENT I've taken some time loading files onto 2 200GB SanDisk storage in the 2 open slots. Using the X-DAP software, it works ok, but is a little awkward. Once you get the hang of the interface, and it copies pretty easily and quickly even on a USB 2.0 link. It seems to want to try to re-load files that you've transferred before, but as others have said, it ignores duplicates. Even loading several GBs of AIFF and FLAC files at a time, it plowed through them in a reasonable duration. I'm starting to work through playlists from scratch, and that is time consuming and not streamlined or particularly enjoyable. If possible, I hope to figure out how to transfer playlists from iTunes to avoid the drudgery of creating them from scratch. I also understand that there may be limitations in searching and grouping files across the 3 storage media (internal, and 2 SD slots for 400+GB). My current collections will not bump up against that limit any time soon unless I start to purchase DSD versions exclusively. Summary: X-DAP is ok, but immature and needs to flesh out both features and "how to" documentation. It is more than adequate to load data, but not close in quality to the playback features. - FAIR/GOOD. The Android interface is fine and from what I've read, appears to be better than the competition. I am not a big Android user (IOS and Windows 10 mostly on devices), but it's familiar and seems pretty complete, at least for an inexperienced user. While I would not use this as a primary all-inclusive device outside of the music playback functions, it seems pretty good as a basic Android platform. I would also say that having to purchase SD cards does make the DP-X1 more expensive in practice, as the 32GB internal storage is minimal for a collection of any size. Summary: The Android platform and storage expandability are generally positive features in spite of jacking the price up with SanDisk SD cards - GOOD My learning to use the DP-X1 is still a work in progress, and I'll provide additional feedback when I have it. I'm not experiencing loose headphone jacks or loss of music files as others have reported, and the quality of the device appears to be very high. I have no current regrets about purchasing it and mostly agree with the positive feedback that most have provided, both A/V magazine writers and users like myself. Summary: Recommend purchase if you want an affordable, portable device with large capacity and excellent sound quality - VERY GOOD

Bin nicht so der Freund von kantigen Ecken, fasst sich auf Dauer nicht gut an. Etwas veraltetes aber vereinfachtes Android System. Die Musiksoftware ist top. Mir fehlt aber ein separater Regler für die Basseinstellung, wie beim S1(hat mir gut gefallen). So könnte man den Bass mal schnell etwas nachregeln ohne gleich den ganzen Equalizer zu verstellen. Das wäre für mich eine sehr wichtige Funktion, weil ich auch oft die Kopfhörer wechsele. Der Klang lässt keine Wünsche offen. Keine Probleme bei der W-Lan Verbindung und bei der Bluetooth Verbindung, was beim DP-S1 überhaupt nicht funktioniert hat. (der ging wieder zurück)

Ho comprato questo lettore usato per l'ottimo prezzo proposto. Dopo più di tre mesi posso dire di aver fatto un ottimo affare. il DAP è perfetto, senza un graffio o difetti e suona favolosamente con i file flac o dts

Sound is excellent. The Onkyo Music Player software is total crap, however. If it had the ability to display "Album Artist" separately from "Track Artist", and actually managed to play without stopping and restarting at the beginning of the playlist all the time, it would be much better.

At Last! This is the third music player I have tried and I love it! All the features and functions work pretty well as they should straight out of the box, which is not my experience of the Astell&Kern AK70 or Fiio X5 III. The sound was great straight out of the box but over the first few days I found its musicality improved considerably and to my ears is superior to both other players. If your primary kick is from musical slam and drive then you may find the X1 a bit too polite; even so I suggest you give it a go because the overall presentation is fantastically musical and very consistent across all genres of music and types of file format. The X1 is only slightly let down by its angular and slab-like looks, lack of good DLNA support and a few minor operational quirks. I forgive it all of its little problems because it sounds so good. Highly recommended. There may seem to be a lot of cons but they are all niggles compared to the performance of the DP-X1. Pros Build quality is great. It just works! The AK70 and X5 III had loads of issues with features just not working reliably, if at all and I returned them both. The X1 just works straight from the box. This means that it streams from my NAS, plays through apps such as Tune-in radio, which the X5 doesn't and the line-out is good compared to both the AK70 and X5. It also sounds very good straight from the box, which was not the case for the X5. However the Onkyo continues to improve over the first few days of use. Sound Quality. I would describe the sound as neutral with a lovely bled of precision on every note coupled with a wonderful analogue-like integrated smoothness. There is no bloom in the bass which can make it seem bass light, but over a few days the bass changes in depth and detail and is far better in quality than the X5 III and on a par with the AK70. There is little of that digital effect that can make each instrument seem unnaturally isolated and slightly sharp. The Onkyo creates a sound that feels naturally integrated and that is much more than its individual parts. Yes the subtle detail is there so I can follow every instrument or vocal, but I don't need to because the music just flows through me and that's real musicality. The sound-stage is just about right, whereas for me the AK70 has such a large sound stage that the music looses its cohesion; the X1 stays focused and grabs you even when you are doing other tasks. There are great dynamics and a lovely open mid-range with good top end that allows percussion to have real splash and sparkle, although not quite as good as the fiio X5. The X1 just sounds...right and is fatigue free. My only slight complaint is that it could do with a little more drive and impulsion, hence the feeling that it is slightly laid back or polite, but it still rocks, but is a little less emphatic and toe tapping than the AK70. One of my favourite albums is, 'The Spinners' by the Detroit Spinners, which has always been at its best using my 35 year old vinyl LP played on my £3500 turntable, but the Onkyo captures that wonderful natural analogue rhythmic and smooth soulful sound better than my £8000 CD player and is approaching the musicality of my turntable! It is possibly the least digital sounding digital player I have heard and in this case that's a very good thing. The Onkyo Player app. The supplied player app is one of the best and easiest to use. The screen. It has a lovely screen, which is helped by its size. Equalisation. Always liked the Onkyo equalisation and it was far better than that in the Fiio player app on the X5. Having said that I play it with either equalisation off or flat. Plug and play. The other two players needed loads of faffing about with settings to get the best sound depending upon how you were litening and what you were listening to. Once set up for a sound that you like the Onkyo sounds good no matter what you throw at it. Cons A bit of a slab. Although it's well made it feels very angular and thick and isn't a thing of beauty or particularly nice to handle. Not good for the Gym. May be a bit musically laid back and just impractical due to size and no cover or holder. Too much Android. The Onkyo comes with all of the Google bloatware that is completely unnecessary such as google sheets and calendar! I spent twenty minutes disabling all of this rubbish. Battery. I get about 8 hours out of the battery if Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are turned off, but only 4 or 5 hours if not. No case was supplied and I am having difficulty finding one. No screen protector supplied. X-Dap Link App. Unnecessarily large and complex app for transferring songs between the X1 and PC. I uninstalled it and just use drag and drop, which works fine. Buttons. The control buttons are too small and close together. It's just a niggle but it is difficult to select the correct button quickly. SD card slots. A this price I would have expected a covered tray insert system and it is possible to accidentally eject the cards (I have done it once) and there is no protection against dust. This is niggle made worse by the fact that there is no supplied protective cover. The Onkyo player app doesn't see my NAS, however I can use the DS music app from Synology to stream music, but to my ears this doesn't sound as good. Some advice Takes over 5 minutes to boot up first time so don't panic. Takes 20 minutes to update all of the android bloatware. Takes a few days to sound at its best. use the balanced output if you can as it significantly improves the sound and musicality. My machine recently crashed and I thought it was dead. I could find no information regarding a hard reset. There is a small hole in the bottom. push a paper clip into the hole and at the same hold down the power button after five seconds or so it should re-boot. It worked for me. The manual makes creating playlist look complicated. Just use the plus symbol on bottom right of player. Standard player app doesn't see a NAS. I used synology DS Audio app, which worked fine but doesn't sound as good. Download a file manager (ES file explorer) to delete tracks and albums from the player. Possibly better to use a gain setting that puts the volume control between 120 and 140 of maximum (160). Play around with equalisation (I prefer OFF or FLAT), digital filter setting (I prefer SLOW as it gives a sweeter edge to vocals) and the lock range adjust (I prefer near NARROW). X-DAP Link app is well over the top so unless you want yet another music library app I just plugged it in and used drag and drop to transfer files. Don't forget to mount and unmount SD cards before inserting and removing (I do). Buy the faux leather case (can be found by surfing internet). It is £45 but adds protection and dust proofing for SD card slots and it softens the looks and feel. Equipment used during review. Sennheiser HD25, Grado 325e and AKG 451 headphones. Little Dot 2 valve headphone amp, Chord SP2600 integrated amplifier into Tannoy Dimension TD8 speakers. Also connected to Creative Gigaworks desktop speakers.

I think it's a good music player. My only problem is with the implementation of Android, it needs some work. Battery life not the best either. The delivery was very fast though.