Hidizs – AP60 Hi Res on a Shoe String
Hidizs AP60 DAP
Pros
- Extremely well priced and plays many formats
- Supports APT-X, A promise of full digital out will make for great Chord Mojo Transport
- Great packaging, screen protector, leather bag, half decent earphones.
Cons
- Only has 1 Micro SD Card Slot and no onboard storage
- Bass Linearity and Some slight strain the mids and soundstage areas
- UI a little crude and take a while to get used to
Sound quality
The chapter you should all have been waiting for, we have turned the DAP over, weighed it in our hands, plugged everything in and fired it up and shuffled through some of the more important menu options.
But what’s going on between our ears? I am aware of other reviews warning of a dip in the lower frequency range of the Hidizs AP60. I put on reggae. Legend by Bob Marley, in all the grittiness of the permanent Jamaican Summer. I am currently putting the Westone W60 IEMs through a review. They have 6 drivers in each shell. They are very special. The W60s give lots of bass weight to what they are presented with.
There is no shyness with these IEMs. ‘No Woman No Cry’ live at the Marquee puts me right in the crowd. The impression is not of any failings in the DAP itself but more in the performance of the IEM.
As a vessel for it’s audio companions, the music and the earphones, the AP60 is doing a grand job. Stereo separation and depth are what they should be. I see not much to criticise here in the soundstakes but of course an A/B comparison is necessary to see what we might be missing.
I have a Colorfly C3 as a similarly priced product at hand I purchased a few years ago. It is a beautiful machined metal DAP and is almost as tiny in it’s square shape. But it won’t handle hi res so it fails straight away to hold with the competition. I have an Ibasso DX100 I can compare the sound with. Let’s see what the DAP that started this craze has to offer against it’s tiny cousin.
The DX100 has more refinement in the sound and reveals a slight strain to the sound of the AP60 and a trace of distortion in the treble region. There is an effortlessness to the signature of the DX100 that you would expect in a DAP that was Ibasso’s flagship when it was introduced and got every other manufacturer back to the drawing boards to see what they were capable of doing with a budget that size.
The signature of the AP60 you can expect is of a detailed reasonably extended range. Bass is there if you have topflight IEMs to bring this out. The bass may not have the linearity of a flagship DAP but there is plenty enough warmth there to keep you cosy.
The earphones
Given the overall cost of $89 how much must these earphones be worth? The stretching of the thin fabric covers over the sizeable drivers was a task. Care must be taken here. There is only 1 set so they cannot be split. The buds are worn down from the ear but don’t any huge microphonics. They don’t isolate particularly well. The cable is reasonable enough quality and the terminals are all finished adequately.
There is some reasonable presence in the mids although these are bass shy in my ears. The avoidance of harshness has been considered with these earbuds and they are well rolled off in the treble area. Soundstage is tight and squashed because we are mainly dealing with mids. There are no reasons at this stage to recommend selling your IEM and stay with the HidiZs. They are of the standard smartphone quality and you may feel they could stay in the box and perhaps the leather pouch could nestle your Hidizs DAP in relative luxury.
Conclusion
I was disappointed some of the claims; made by every website I went to that sold this device, for want of a better word were false. I hope this changes in the future but for $89 we must work with what we are given and look at it now. Firmware changes are commonplace and can transform what a digital device can achieve. In this we have hope and the prospect of some pleasant surprises to come. For now I give you the AP60 as is; a tiny, light, fast, efficient, hi res capable DAP that can do bluetooth with a decent sound quality and an unreasonably elegant finish for one so cheap as this fellow.
There are many elements in the Audio Chain. My opinions as to what matter most are arguable. The hobby we have remains a contentious one from the outside. You have something you believe in but to a stranger ; well they wouldn’t understand. Those within the hobby have their own ideas as to what makes good music.
If everything is right we don’t have to worry, if there is a potential weakness in the chain could we get away with it?
Could a decent IEM overcome some, or all, of the shortcomings in a cheap digital player?
To answer this, let me tell you what I think is needed to make my music sound great.
The music is first, without that we are listening to hiss. No one likes hiss. Well recorded subjectively enjoyable music is a must.
The next is what happens between your ears, the setting, ambience, duration; all these things change.
The constant is the headphones, they come after the music. I think they are the next in the chain. A poor set of IEMs will sound poor whatever you plug them into.
But a world class IEM will shine in pretty much anything. Provided we have something which can store what we want to listen to and play it at a volume reasonably loud enough for every setting do we tick the boxes?
In this aspect the Hidizs AP60 cannot be dismissed as an alternative to getting some decent sound quality, in fact a league up from your smartphone. It does what it says on the back of the matchbox. A fraction of the size. A fraction of the price.
