iBasso DX50 HD Studio Mastering Quality Music Player with Wolfson WM8740 DAC w/ 64GB MicroSD & External Audio Connection Kit[Full USA One Year Warranty from Authorized iBasso Dealer]

PROLOGUE:I’m just some Joe Schmoe who likes listening to music a lot. Some friends and co-workers have called me an “audiophile” for whatever that prickly word is worth. I own various amps, headphones, and speakers, but in the end I just try to enjoy music.My first dedicated DAP was the Sansa e200 series from 2008 or so. The physical controls, blue LED ring, and metal-backed case was to die for for a fledgling teenager like myself during that period of life.Around late 2014 I “upgraded” to this iBasso DX50. I was in college then and very much I remember spending so much time with this thing waiting between classes in the hallways. The e200 was able to load Rockbox and that definitely spurred my interest in getting the DX50 since it was also able to run Rockbox.Anyway, life goes on and the DX50 got placed in storage around 2017 or so when streaming music basically took over my buying individual music tracks or albums. Don’t get me wrong, I still love streaming services and subscribe to various services here and there, but I have been recently wanting to get back into using dedicated DAP’s to get away from my phone while listening to music.Now that i’ve been in the workforce for the better part of the decade, I have more disposable income and a chance to try out some new music players, services, and headphones. In the past year or so I have been scouring around the internet, specifically buying DAPs and portable amps to get back into listening to music on the go.And honestly, after spending so much money on new xDuoo’s , FiiO’s, Cayin’s and whatnot, I've come back to the iBasso DX50….REVIEW:Pros:-Well built-Not heavy-Doesn't get warm/hot (can’t believe im typing that but ive noticed others DAPs can sometimes get warm)-Easy to use UI-UI is usually non-intrusive and out of the way-Quick to respond playback controls and volume on WPS (While Playing Screen)-Fantastic physical transport controls-Easy to replace battery-Easy to find/purchase battery-Did I mention the removable battery?-Great Rockbox supportCons:-Could use some rubber feet so it doesn't slide around so easy (easy to add my own though)-Screen resolution is showing its age-No aliasing of text and images in stock/Mango OS-Touch screen controls wonky sometimes-Stock OS doesn't seem to do gapless (fixed as of latest update)-Supposed distortion of >10% when playing loudly through 16ohm and lower impedance headphones/iem’s (personally untested)Part 1 – The PhysicalsThe exterior of this is great in my humble opinion. Solid construction, nice clicky front 3-transport buttons, volume controls and screen controls flanked on the sides. I honestly have no complaints about the actual construction and the layout of the buttons.The screen resolution is not the best however. Even for 2014 is was only average. But otherwise it’s perfectly fine and usable. The good news is that the screen has great viewing angles, so it’s probably an IPS screen or something similar instead of a bottom-of-the-barrel TFT.The battery is removable and replaceable by the same battery used in the Samsung Galaxy S3 (among other Samsung phones). And the newer Hewlett-Packard “Prime” graphing calculators use the same battery style as well, so expect them to be in continuous production for the foreseeable future (as of 2022).If I had to absolutely choose one nitpick or change something, I would probably make the headphone output a quarter-inch style instead of the 3.5mm.Part 2 – User Interface and Usability(I do not use m3u / playlists so I cannot comment on the capability and usage of those on the DX50)Actually using the DX50 in it’s original operating system is for the most part drama-free. It does have some peculiarities, and is probably the weakest part of the DX50.As a device with a touchscreen from 2014, it’s got a few quirks to deal with. There have been times when I scroll through a list of folder and files on the device, and the swiping action of the finger going across the screen has sometimes made the DX50 think that I am clicking on a single item. It happens at least once or twice a day if I use it. Maybe I give it too much lee-way but it hasn't bothered me too much.Pressing the on-screen back-button can sometimes be a chore with how small the button is.The DX50 has a “random” play mode, and it works like any other MP3 player. The only problem is that it doesn't remember what song it played previously. i.e. if I want to go back one track while in random mode, it won’t play the previously-played track. It will just play a random file. I get “random” is “random” but ive never had any other player play randomly after pressing the previous-track button. Personally this is the WORST part of the DX50 for myself. If this was fixed it would have been a stellar and amazing DAP considering my other smaller issues with it.The DX50 can display album art, but it’s non-aliased so it’s very pixelated and kind of ugly. Not really a big deal for me.There is a DAC mode for use with PC but there is quite a bit of delay in the output. Without any kind of lip-syncing, its kind of useless in my opinion. Also it has literally bluescreened my PC when I unplug the DX50 from the PC while the DX50 is in DAC mode. The newer firmware’s have a DAC mode for Linux but I haven't had the opportunity to test it out with my Ubuntu and Cent/Rocky machines just yet.After all is said and done, once you are set in a place and playing a list of music files it becomes a smoother experience (sans the music-randomize quirk mentioned above).Volume controls are easy to use and don’t linger on the screen for very long.The top-mounted physical pause/play/transport buttons all respond instantly with very little delay.The power button acts as a screen-off button which is nice.There are still some quirks however. I can’t replicate it 100% of the time, but for whatever reason it sometimes doesn't play the first couple milliseconds of music after selecting a file. I have an older firmware on here so maybe its fixed, I will need to install it to see if its any better. (NOTE as of latest update it still does this with all files. There is a soft-start on all tracks when you select them individually. However gapless is working perfectly now.)The built-in EQ is okay. You can turn it on and off, and play around with the how more or less you want of certain freq’s. You cannot change the frequency of each EQ like you can in Rockbox, but its good enough to do the job.Battery life is decent. It’s actually the primary reason I chose the DX50 over the DX90. I get about three to four days of use while listening to music at work or out and about before it needs a recharge.Last thing to note is that this accepts SDHX memory cards of up to 2TB. Good future proofing from a 2014 device that still holds up today.Part 3 – SoundIt sounds…...good? I honestly can’t really tell the difference between the DX50 versus any other competent and well-engineered amplifier stage from other brands of DAPs and amps like my xDuoo XD-05 or Cayin N3 Pro or THX AAA. At least with headphones under 80 ohms and at regular non-painful volume levels.I’m really not the person to ask for if you need someone to tell the difference in sound from A player vs. B player where one sounds “expansive” or “more chocolaty” and what not. It sounds good and it sounds accurate.The ONLY difference i’ve ever been able to tell, was when I play music loudly to my MDR-V6’s from my Sansa e200 vs. the same music and headphones on the DX50. The Sansa e200 couldn't reproduce some of the lower notes in bass heavy tracks at loud volumes like the DX50 could, and the high’s became somewhat shrill at the same time. The DX50 plays music like a champ on anything 32ohm-120ohm (or more) with at least 90dB/milliwatt or so efficiency.Note that iem’s and headphones under 32ohms may suffer. There is a huge Spanish-written report online that reviewed the DX50 and DX90 with measurements of noise level, IMD, and crosstalk. And using headphones of 16ohm at volumes above “220” (on the DX50’s scale) increased the distortion to 10% or more. So if this is something you want to avoid, I would advise against using very low impedance headphones with the DX50. Anything at 32ohm and above will be fine. If you absolutely need to use anything lower, then this is where the DX90 will shine and play better as it does not have the same distortion levels when using those types of low impedance headphones/iem’s.CONCLUSIONIt’s a great DAP all around. The UI isn't the absolute greatest and again the weakest part of the DX50. But everything else, from build quality, sound quality, battery replaceability, ease-of-use, and physical controls. It has everything I need and nothing more that I don’t.I like this so much that I noticed Amazon still sells brand-new DX50’s at the same price I got it at in 2014. So I have a second back-up unit in case the first conks out.

Five stars for how this thing sounds playing FLAC files. BUT one year and 2 weeks after I bought it, the USB port crapped out. Yep. 2 weeks after the warranty expired. Also, right out of the box, the charger didn't work. It caused the unit to cycle off/on rapidly. I used another charger and that worked just fine.

My iPod had its hard drive fail, so I needed a new music player. As this was the latest in a long line of Apple failures, I decided they would not be on my shopping list. I was torn between this and the Fiio X3, I did a lot of research and didn't end up finding a winner. What finally sold me on this model was the user replaceable battery. I figured the first time a battery failed it would pretty much make up the price difference. I like the physical buttons on the front of the unit, they remind me of the earlier iPods that had that feature.I have about 90gb of music in various formats, so I went with the 128gb card. I use Media Monkey to organize my music. When I connected the iBasso it immediately recognized it and the SD card separately. I synched the SD card, it took several hours to load it. Once it's loaded, you need to scan the card which takes a couple more hours.I took it to work the next day to play around with it. The sound is certainly good, I'm no audiophile, so to my ears it's easily a match for the iPod. The music does seem clearer, with better instrument separation. Not knowing what the gain switch is for, I found that I liked the high gain setting the best. After researching it, apparently the gain is used to boost the maximum volume level. I switched it back to low gain and boosted the volume, as if I understood correctly that conserves battery life. It sounds good at any level though.The UI is where my couple of issues come into play. My first problem is that compilation albums are broken out when you search by artist. That means I have to scroll through approximately 30 million artists (give or take a few). That alone is a problem, but coupled with the fact that it sometimes saves its last location, and sometimes doesn't makes it a bit more annoying. I haven't figured out the pattern of why/when it goes back to the beginning and when it doesn't. The other thing about the UI that takes some getting used to is that the touch screen is a bit quick on the gun to open an album. I notice this when I'm scrolling through the songs. It seems to happen less frequently if I scroll on the far left, maybe it's my finger motion there, or maybe that's the region you are expected to scroll in.Another issue I found, was that not all of my music loaded. This ended up being my fault, but I learned a few things along the way. When I was trying to debug this problem I read that the card needs to be formatted as FAT32. I thought that must be my problem, so I went to Windows to do that, and found out you can't from Windows directly. You need to download a utility to do it. I did that, reloaded the card, and the same songs were missing. The next thing I found were comments that this unit doesn't like songs that end in a single quote. So I went through, and renamed songs. Well that didn't make a difference, and I noticed that this bug must have been fixed as I had some songs ending in single quotes on the unit. At that point I wrote to iBasso. While I waited for a response, I kept looking, and found the problems. For one, I had a bunch of iTunes protected content, as I'd always used iPods/iPhones, it never dawned on me. That explained a bunch of missing songs, and the others were due to a funky mp3 conversion utility that must have done something wrong as there was no data tagged about the songs. I converted those and was back in business. Ibasso responded in 1 business day asking for samples so they could fix it in the next release, excellent service and response time.Overall this is an excellent player and I'm very happy with it. It's great that it includes screen protectors and a case (although I ordered the leather one instead as it was half price when I bought the player). I keep that inside of an AmazonBasics case (the one for the Passport Essential) so it doesn't get knocked around in my briefcase too much. I'm hoping those couple of UI tweaks get addressed, and I have no doubt they will, it looks like iBasso is constantly improving the software.