This is a review and detailed measurements of the Hidizs AP80 Pro Max stereo Digital Audio Player & DAC. It was sent to me by the company and is on sale for US $189.
The pictures from company and elsewhere makes you think this is the size of a mobile phone but it is much smaller and lighter. It literally fits in the palm of your hand with its 2.9 inch display. It has extensive functionality including wifi, parametric EQ and such. User interface is a bit sluggish compared to modern mobile phone but not enough to be annoying or anything. One thing I did not like much was the slow rotary control to adjust volume. You have to turn it dozens of times to go from max to zero. You can use the touchscreen level indicator but it is small and hard to grab vs menu items below it.
There are both 3.5mm and 4.4mm analog headphone outputs. I focused my testing on the latter.
Back to PEQ, seems like it supports a number of applications programming it. I did not try it.
Finally, do note that this has a battery in it and can play local content with up to 2 TByte SD card, compared to using a dongle which draws power from your phone.
Hidizs AP80 Pro Max Measurements
I connected the device using 4.4 mm and got this into 300 ohm load:
Distortion is below -120 dB which is below threshold of hearing and in the same league as some of the best desktop DACs. Noise then limits SINAD to a very respectable 111 dB:
I was however dismayed to see just 2 volt output rather 4. This will limit power when driving high impedance headphones. The 3.5mm is lower still and hence the reason I did not measure it.
Back to noise, it is quite respectable for a DAP:
Residual noise is higher than average though when driving ultra-sensitive IEMs:
This may be better with 3.5mm.
Multitone test shows the incredibly low distortion levels regardless of device category:
Jitter is almost non-existent:
Choice of filter and frequency response is what we typically see:
The good filter implementation results in very nice wideband noise and distortion vs frequency graph:
As predicted, there is not a lot of power for high impedance headphones so best to stay with efficient ones:
Better stay with a lower impedance one:
Conclusions
It is so impressive to see so much functionality in such a tiny player yet with performance that is clearly optimized. Across almost all tests, you are getting desktop class performance and a good one at that! The only miss is 2 volt output vs 4 volt. And perhaps a gain setting to reduce residual noise. If you use an IEM that is not too sensitive, neither is an issue.
I am going to recommend the Hidizs AP80 Pro Max. It is the first DAP that I have really liked due to its small size, weight and low cost.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The pictures from company and elsewhere makes you think this is the size of a mobile phone but it is much smaller and lighter. It literally fits in the palm of your hand with its 2.9 inch display. It has extensive functionality including wifi, parametric EQ and such. User interface is a bit sluggish compared to modern mobile phone but not enough to be annoying or anything. One thing I did not like much was the slow rotary control to adjust volume. You have to turn it dozens of times to go from max to zero. You can use the touchscreen level indicator but it is small and hard to grab vs menu items below it.
There are both 3.5mm and 4.4mm analog headphone outputs. I focused my testing on the latter.
Back to PEQ, seems like it supports a number of applications programming it. I did not try it.
Finally, do note that this has a battery in it and can play local content with up to 2 TByte SD card, compared to using a dongle which draws power from your phone.
Hidizs AP80 Pro Max Measurements
I connected the device using 4.4 mm and got this into 300 ohm load:
Distortion is below -120 dB which is below threshold of hearing and in the same league as some of the best desktop DACs. Noise then limits SINAD to a very respectable 111 dB:
I was however dismayed to see just 2 volt output rather 4. This will limit power when driving high impedance headphones. The 3.5mm is lower still and hence the reason I did not measure it.
Back to noise, it is quite respectable for a DAP:
Residual noise is higher than average though when driving ultra-sensitive IEMs:
This may be better with 3.5mm.
Multitone test shows the incredibly low distortion levels regardless of device category:
Jitter is almost non-existent:
Choice of filter and frequency response is what we typically see:
The good filter implementation results in very nice wideband noise and distortion vs frequency graph:
As predicted, there is not a lot of power for high impedance headphones so best to stay with efficient ones:
Better stay with a lower impedance one:
Conclusions
It is so impressive to see so much functionality in such a tiny player yet with performance that is clearly optimized. Across almost all tests, you are getting desktop class performance and a good one at that! The only miss is 2 volt output vs 4 volt. And perhaps a gain setting to reduce residual noise. If you use an IEM that is not too sensitive, neither is an issue.
I am going to recommend the Hidizs AP80 Pro Max. It is the first DAP that I have really liked due to its small size, weight and low cost.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
