The iBasso DX50

[h264]

I bought this player expecting a few things.  First, I bought it hoping to get a standard hardware setup (a Samsung Galaxy S3 hardware set) with a removable battery that would make for a lasting PMP for me to use.  I was also hoping it would measure and perform well enough to use with sensitive IEMs, but also have enough power for my full-sized headphones I have been known to take with me on my weekly plane rides.  I’m sorry to say I think it’s failed.

 

The hardware itself is a very pretty sight for the eyes with a brushed aluminum finish and a sleek look.  It has a touchscreen and three very LARGE handy play/pause, back, and forward buttons so you can use it without turning on the screen, which I can say from experience definitely saves battery life.  It’s quite large and about as big as a gen1 iPod (a “point” an Apple fanboy friend made to me about it straight away).  It measures quite well, outputting 219 mV at volume “197” with an output impedance of 1.54 at 1 KHz.  That makes it about half as powerful as the Objective 2 in a much smaller form factor.  There is, however, audible hiss with my Etymotic ER-4p which is CONSTANT at all volume levels.

 

Now here’s the problem with this product.  It would have been my top pick for a portable media player at any price given those specs alone and the very solid build of the product, HOWEVER, as Steve Jobs proved with the iPod, having a USABLE interface on the device that can be accessed quickly and navigated accurately is very important.  The iPod’s clickwheel, the often forgotten invention of Apple’s design team, was a major step forward in controlling a list on a small screen since you didn’t have to keep pressing a button over and over again.  All the sudden you could have a long list of music and actually FIND the song you wanted to play.  The iBasso uses a capacitive touchscreen, but … well, it was so hard to describe, and I made a damned video.  So here it is, my FIRST EVER video:

 

https://h264videos.shutterfly.com/pictures/8

 

I’d have paid $350 if the firmware actually worked.  Keep in mind I was using firmware version 1.2.5 which is eons ahead of the shipped firmware - version 1.2.2 - which contained such insufferable bugs as skipping the first two seconds of playback in every song, deleting and corrupting files on both internal and microSD memory, failing to boot or failing to turn on the display randomly, and skewing the DAC roll-off so it sounded overly bright and lean on the bass.  Frankly, I was giving it the benefit of the doubt by upgrading the firmware a few times before I made a review.  Sure iPods had silly bugs on release too, but nothing like “it doesn’t f-ing work”.

 

So a forum member I run with, @mr moose, scolded me for making a “spectacle” of the flaws on the device but not saying if I liked it or not in the video.  I’ve had some time to think about that, and I get his point completely now.  It’s wrong to make fun of a product’s flaws without offering constructive criticism about how it should be fixed. So, here it is: iBasso, please do not ship unfinished products to my doorstep.  This isn’t Ragnarok II or healthcare.gov.  I can’t just fix this by coming back next month when you finish it.

 

On a somewhat related note, I have an axe to grind related to unfinished and defectively designed products in general.  The recent release of CoD Ghosts and Battlefield 4 being prime examples, why is it that people accept the fact that a product they buy now is unfinished but WILL be EVENTUALLY?  Why do people accept that CERTAIN HEADSET MAKERS will take return after return of headsets that break in the same place again and again?  Does it make sense to spend $1500 on a headphone and then have the paint peel off, but be OK with that because the company fixed it for you, but not the major flaw in the design?  All these untested, unfinished, unknown flaws that a company releases on an unsuspecting public seem to go over with a general notion of “oh, they’ll fix it next time”.  So, here we are, in the great age of shoddy, where all our products are half-finished and half-broken from the start.  I guess I was one for buying this product. Well, into the drawer it goes with my Sansa e130, may it rest in peace.  Maybe when I run across a thread about hacking Rockbox onto it, I’ll pull it out again.

[mr moose]

I have a question.  If I may?  do you think that eventually software will fix the main issues this device has or is it possible that ibasso just skimped a little too much on the processing power so regardless of how good the software gets it will always be laggy and unresponsive?

[Focux]

i almost bought the DX50 too but i tried it at the store and really the screen is too small for touch..sure it looked and felt sexy as hell. however, the X3 was just 160 bucks..so..i couldn't help it..nice DAP tho. thinking of writing a review of the X3 this weekend he