Luxsin X9 Smart Stereo DAC & Preamp

[hkessler]

A technical question . . . . for anyone with a more technical mind !

I am making a lead, to come out of the X9's RCA stereo out, and into an active mono speaker (Aventone MixCube). I am summing the Left and Right ground wires, and then running each of the Left and Right signal wires through a 4.7kΩ resistor first, before also summing them as well . . . the idea is to stop any voltage feeding back into the X9's RCA outputs.

Can anyone who is better at the technical stuff tell me if this looks ok to them ?
View attachment 474516

4.7k sounds about right, but since i recall reading earlier that sub out is following a different path than main audio, i am wondering if channel down mixing to mono could be accomplished in dsp to have regular stereo or dual mono on the sub out, user settable in the effects section.

 

[TynanW]

4.7k sounds about right, but since i recall reading earlier that sub out is following a different path than main audio, i am wondering if channel down mixing to mono could be accomplished in dsp to have regular stereo or dual mono on the sub out, user settable in the effects section.

I am using the main RCA out, as the sub out is not a full frequency output.

 

[Luxsin]

Please check out the new spectrum analyzer for X9, and let us know your feedback.

 

[TynanW]

Please check out the new spectrum analyzer for X9, and let us know your feedback.

I hope you don't mind frank and honest feedback !
It's amateurish, it's clearly not been designed by a professional graphic designer.


1) The 'PCM 44.1kHz' and '-20.0dB' don't share a common baseline.

2) The 'PCM 44.1kHz' and '-20.0dB' have different shades of grey.

3) The variations in font sizes are wild.

4) The kerning throughout, especially on the frequency markers is very poor.

5) The two circle icons (top right) sit on the baseline of the '-20.0dB', even a 1st year design student would understand why these need to sit slightly below the baseline.

6) The safe / warning / clip colours seem entirely arbitrary, separating at -4dB and -16dB . . meaningless / arbitrary markers in professional audio.

7) The L/R indicators don’t share a baseline with the frequency indicators.

8) The L/R indicators don’t share a font size with the frequency indicators

9) The peak hold appears way too fast (hopefully this is just a temporary animation) it looks like the “dancing peaks” you get on cheap addressable LED meters, pretty to look at but not of much use to someone looking to track peaks.


I could go on and on and on, there are a lot of very basic design mistakes, both technical and aesthetic, I have worked in design studios most of my adult life, if I handed this in, even as a rough visual, I would be asked if I am feeling ok, I am honestly not joking, the response would be confusion, no one would be annoyed or disappointed, it’s so far from a professional product that they would literally be confused.

I know almost nothing about how you make such amazing audio hardware, but I imagine the equivalent would be an engineer handing you a final - for production - prototype where the left channel was 4dB lower than the right, the channels were 180° out of phase and there was a very narrow 6dB peak at 4kHz !

Would you believe that in the world of design, especially UI design, each letter on the screen is antialiased by hand, one by one, such is the level of precision needed for a professional looking UI . . . this is how Google, Apple, Sony (etc) work . . . this is so far from that.

For me the most concerning thing is that you are unable to see this yourself, you've essentially taken my rough design and made it worse.

 

[TynanW]

Please check out the new spectrum analyzer for X9, and let us know your feedback.

Here is a cleaner version, dBFS and VU

 

[hkessler]

Here is a cleaner version, dBFS and VU

View attachment 475693

View attachment 475694

These are great! And Luxsin have been great with their Kaizen approach, just hope they will pay attention to the minutia which constitute the difference between slapping something together and having a polished presentation. Pixel-level alignment, typeface consistency, coherence, etc. Implementing this level graphics and meticulousness will put them a level or three above the rest. I still like your red-ish mockups better though with the narrower bars

 

[Sokel]

Please check out the new spectrum analyzer for X9, and let us know your feedback.

Nope.
Listen to the previous feedback.

The general feeling is far from premium, reminds SMSL.

 

[Luxsin]

I hope you don't mind frank and honest feedback !
It's amateurish, it's clearly not been designed by a professional graphic designer.


1) The 'PCM 44.1kHz' and '-20.0dB' don't share a common baseline.

2) The 'PCM 44.1kHz' and '-20.0dB' have different shades of grey.

3) The variations in font sizes are wild.

4) The kerning throughout, especially on the frequency markers is very poor.

5) The two circle icons (top right) sit on the baseline of the '-20.0dB', even a 1st year design student would understand why these need to sit slightly below the baseline.

6) The safe / warning / clip colours seem entirely arbitrary, separating at -4dB and -16dB . . meaningless / arbitrary markers in professional audio.

7) The L/R indicators don’t share a baseline with the frequency indicators.

8) The L/R indicators don’t share a font size with the frequency indicators

9) The peak hold appears way too fast (hopefully this is just a temporary animation) it looks like the “dancing peaks” you get on cheap addressable LED meters, pretty to look at but not of much use to someone looking to track peaks.


I could go on and on and on, there are a lot of very basic design mistakes, both technical and aesthetic, I have worked in design studios most of my adult life, if I handed this in, even as a rough visual, I would be asked if I am feeling ok, I am honestly not joking, the response would be confusion, no one would be annoyed or disappointed, it’s so far from a professional product that they would literally be confused.

I know almost nothing about how you make such amazing audio hardware, but I imagine the equivalent would be an engineer handing you a final - for production - prototype where the left channel was 4dB lower than the right, the channels were 180° out of phase and there was a very narrow 6dB peak at 4kHz !

Would you believe that in the world of design, especially UI design, each letter on the screen is antialiased by hand, one by one, such is the level of precision needed for a professional looking UI . . . this is how Google, Apple, Sony (etc) work . . . this is so far from that.

For me the most concerning thing is that you are unable to see this yourself, you've essentially taken my rough design and made it worse.

Thank you very much for your professional feedback. This is exactly what we’re glad to see, more interaction with users helps us create a UI that better meets their expectations, which has always been our goal.

Here is my response to the points you raised:

On the X9 screen, the top-right area with a height of 42 is a status bar, used to display the current input/output ports and volume. It remains consistent across all X9 UI interfaces. On the VU interface, the top-left area shows the codec information of the currently playing track. As you mentioned, the font size and spacing between the left and right sides don't share a common baseline. Our original intention was to make the font slightly larger on right side, so users could read the details more clearly. This is something I can ask the team to adjust. We will also make more careful refinements in terms of unifying font sizes and baselines.

Just to clarify, the video I shared earlier was a quick version to validate results. Our design and software teams have been focusing heavily on our new product lately, but the final version to be released for a beta firmware, will definitely look much better.

-Luxsin

 

[Gurra1980]

Why can't I upgrade my unit to the newer firmwares? It's connected to wifi.

 

[dimon0869]

Thank you very much for your professional feedback. This is exactly what we’re glad to see, more interaction with users helps us create a UI that better meets their expectations, which has always been our goal.

Here is my response to the points you raised:

On the X9 screen, the top-right area with a height of 42 is a status bar, used to display the current input/output ports and volume. It remains consistent across all X9 UI interfaces. On the VU interface, the top-left area shows the codec information of the currently playing track. As you mentioned, the font size and spacing between the left and right sides don't share a common baseline. Our original intention was to make the font slightly larger on right side, so users could read the details more clearly. This is something I can ask the team to adjust. We will also make more careful refinements in terms of unifying font sizes and baselines.

Just to clarify, the video I shared earlier was a quick version to validate results. Our design and software teams have been focusing heavily on our new product lately, but the final version to be released for a beta firmware, will definitely look much better.

-Luxsin

Thank you very much for your professional feedback. This is exactly what we’re glad to see, more interaction with users helps us create a UI that better meets their expectations, which has always been our goal.

Here is my response to the points you raised:

On the X9 screen, the top-right area with a height of 42 is a status bar, used to display the current input/output ports and volume. It remains consistent across all X9 UI interfaces. On the VU interface, the top-left area shows the codec information of the currently playing track. As you mentioned, the font size and spacing between the left and right sides don't share a common baseline. Our original intention was to make the font slightly larger on right side, so users could read the details more clearly. This is something I can ask the team to adjust. We will also make more careful refinements in terms of unifying font sizes and baselines.

Just to clarify, the video I shared earlier was a quick version to validate results. Our design and software teams have been focusing heavily on our new product lately, but the final version to be released for a beta firmware, will definitely look much better.

-Luxsin

I really want you to add a large horizontal level indicator to the firmware, previously proposed by TynanW. This proposed solution is almost perfect, except for slightly increasing the fonts.

 

[Gurra1980]

There is one more problem, the eq settings that I added in the app is gone, is there a way to get them back, I have a 90% finished peq for sundara and hd 650, I don't want to add those manually and have to set them again. And yes it's connected to the same network.

 

[Luxsin]

Why can't I upgrade my unit to the newer firmwares? It's connected to wifi.View attachment 475819

Please reboot the device, unselect the "receive beta version" and try again

 

[Luxsin]

There is one more problem, the eq settings that I added in the app is gone, is there a way to get them back, I have a 90% finished peq for sundara and hd 650, I don't want to add those manually and have to set them again. And yes it's connected to the same network.View attachment 475824View attachment 475825

Seems more like the control APP is not linked to the device, please try to scan the QR code on the device (About -> mobile control) to check again.

 

[Gurra1980]

Please reboot the device, unselect the "receive beta version" and try again

Will my saved eq curves remain?

 

[Gurra1980]

Seems more like the control APP is not linked to the device, please try to scan the QR code on the device (About -> mobile control) to check again.

It's linked. And on the same network.

 

[Luxsin]

Will my saved eq curves remain?

No worries, all your saved EQ settings remain on X9.
Regarding the control APP, when you are not able to find your personal EQ profile, are you able to increase the X9 volume by using APP?

 

[davve35]

No worries, all your saved EQ settings remain on X9.
Regarding the control APP, when you are not able to find your personal EQ profile, are you able to increase the X9 volume by using APP?

Can you change the outputs manually on the headphone amp? So only one is open at time, etc you have one headphone connected to the 4.4mm and one to the 4 pin xlr.

 

[Luxsin]

Can you change the outputs manually on the headphone amp? So only one is open at time, etc you have one headphone connected to the 4.4mm and one to the 4 pin xlr.

This is not supported. When user select "headset" as output, all three headphone connections output sound at the same time, cannot limit to any particular one.

 

[Luxsin]

Time to select new spectrum analyzers. Please pick two from the four options. In fact, the only difference between 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 is the color gradient.

I personally prefer 3 and 4.

 

[VilmFilm]

I wonder if the price will ever drop or stay the same. If it's was around $600 or $800 I think would be a little more reasonable? And I'm definitely sure more people would consider?