theBIT unveil their flagship Hi-Res Player – Audio Opus#2

theBit Opus#2

8.9

Sound and Build Quality

9.6/10

Specifications/Features

9.0/10

Value For Money

8.0/10

Pros

• Top tier high spec signature
• Very easy to use and fast boot times
• Competitive Pricing

Cons

• Only has 1 Micro SD Card Slot
• Volume Dial Lock on software would be nice

Ease of Use

The Audio Opus thinks it’s an Android 5 phone which can only play music. It is a touchscreen player which works smoothly and responsively with only 2 external switches . The volume wheel and the case which has a rocker switch allowing next track previous track or pause.  With practice this can be easily achieved without a need to take the unit out of your pocket.

If you know Android , you pretty now how to access everything you need and how to change everything you need.

The drop down settings contain all the phone type essentials ; date, time ,battery percentage, WiFi switch, Bluetooth switch but wait ; there’s more.

The next half of the options contain the customised code which will be used to tweak the music on the DAP.

Line Out(watch that one), Equaliser(3 customisable presets which default at completely flat) Sleep(you can preserve your battery life by telling the device when to switch off) repeat and shuffle.

The dedicated music player has no stop. You wanna stop , you switch off. Otherwise the Opus switches off it’s display as intervals starting from 15 seconds and going up to 30 minutes.

The window has the most important control in pride of place as a gold round icon in the bottom centre of the screen. That is, of course, “Play”. Left and right controls are as expected in black background with white lettering , easily viewable in complete darkness and with the screen brightness set to minimum.

Neat features like this help to conserve the battery. There is album and lyric display available on the Opus and the lyrics , bit rate and file size are found by a press on the middle of the screen.  In the top right of the screen is a short 3 line icon . This is where all that great music is contained. A press up here and you have drop down menu options ;

Playlists, Favourites, Folders, Genres, Artists, Albums and Songs. All easy enough to work out, all in A-Z by default. There is a left arrow in the right hand corner to scroll through the various screens and just keep on pressing it if you’ve got here by accident. You’ll get back to the main screen within 3 clicks ; it won’t take too long.

Build

The screen is a 4” TFT IPS screen and gives a vibrant display with 400×800 resolution. There is a screen protector supplied which is plastic. Plastic! Looks we are not dealing with a Gorilla Glass display here either. Plastic screens (can you tell?) are not my cup of tea. You are trying to protect a screen from getting scratches on it. And you do that by….putting a plastic screen over it that shows up scratches. That doesn’t make sense to me.

It doesn’t to most of the phone manufacturers either. Even a £60 smartphone has Gorilla Glass on it. I think there may just enough room for a gorilla glass protector to fit over the Opus#2 and it not bulge out from the pouch. That would , for the sake of a £4 expenditure on Amazon, be my first (and only) customisation of the DAP.

This would ensure a scratch free fully protected screen which would have a brighter screen as a bonus.

The display is moved along quite nicely by the Quad Core Arm Processor with 1 Gb of Ram, this is what makes everything seem so smooth and effortless. The muscle power has been put in the right place – behind the scenes.

The Opus needs to be seen to be appreciated. It looks beautiful in a modern, sculpted way. Lines are tastefully curved and brushed subtly into the bezel of the player. There are 5 understated colours used ; jet black, charcoal, slate grey and a dark blue for the leather pouch that comes as standard to protect your investment(in sound).

There are 4 silver hex screws inset into the DAP , one on each corner at the front . I like the mechanised look this gives the DAP but wonder whether this doesn’t slightly detract from all the other cosmetic flourishes present.

The leather pouch is a masterwork ; from the front we have a tastefully finished cut away container. The Opus 2 fits precisely into it. Precision machined access holes for the USB and the 2 hex screws are great touches. The top half of the pouch then comes away on the right and the bevelled contours of the volume wheel and the platform it is supported on now come into view.

The angles of the Opus 2 now reveal themselves as part of the design solution to protect the body from damage. The leather sleeve fall short of completely covering the screen because it doesn’t need to. Discrete shaping means that the DAP sits on 80% of it’s surface and the remaining 20% can be used to gaze at admiringly. And why not?

Turning the leather casing over reveals a closely stitched rectangle within which is embossed Opus#2 , web address and country of origin. The rest falls gently towards the side of the DAP.

The Opus#2 is heavy for it’s size. Much heavier than a phone. I suspect behind that weight lies the secret of this DAP’s success. Decent amps even on micro devices like this need a bit of weight behind them to do anything decent with the sound. My DX100 is a brick in the just the same way but has a 3rd more thickness, and is only sporting 1 ES9018 Chip.