Radsone Earstudio ES100 Bluetooth DAC & Amp Review

[Berwhale]

The link doesn't work for me, I'd be interested to see what it is. For low latency stuff I thought I had it sewn up. I know, I'll just link my two aptx-ll transmitter/receivers and I'm golden. Except I'm not, cos it doesn't default to low latency and I have no way of forcing it, at least on these devices. I remember reading an interesting article about Bluetooth codecs, I learned a few things. Hang on, wait right there..... I'm back. Miss me?. Here it is:

https://m.habr.com/en/post/456182/

Yes, I posted the same article earlier in this thread https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...etooth-dac-amp-review.9551/page-3#post-255221

The Sennheiser device is a Flex 5000: https://en-uk.sennheiser.com/wireless-tv-earphone-headphone-stereo-flex-5000 It's only £84.79 for 'B-Stock' on the Sennheiser UK Outlet shop. The one I bought appeared to be brand new.

 

[JustPoo]

Hmm, and I did read it about a month ago..

I swear it's a coincidence!

That looks like a nice TV solution, in an ideal world I'd buy that for my dad, but I know what would happen. I think I've bought him four types in the last ten years and they're all dead or MIA soon enough. Bit peeved about the last one cos it was sweet, I even used a wee Behringer EQ to bring out the vocals. If I could get him to wear his hearing aids it might help, the din from his headphones is louder than the telly!

 

[Veri]

@amirm Would you be able to measure whether the DCT filter this device advertises has any effect?

It's bit depth dithering ... I can't fathom that what they call is 'Radsone DCT sound' could be a thing

 

[JustPoo]

You could swap the P1's for some Shuoer Tapes...

I'm very tempted to buy some, must resist!...

£120: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07YCF8BK5/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=A166SV9QJZG8W0&psc=1

May I tempt you a little more? Bit peeved I was in such a rush to get mine now!

https://www.linsoul.com/collections/black-friday-sale/products/linsoul-special-set-deals

 

[Soniclife]

I bought one of these, it worked well, the app is very good, and it's tiny.

So small it fits in me IEMs case easily.
Bit it was super picky about what it would charge from, and the build quality wasn't inspiring, so it went back. I also had some dropout in very busy areas, even when the device was very close to my phone. Very people dense areas are a real problem for wireless communications, unlikely to be easily fixed.

 

[Berwhale]

I bought one of these, it worked well, the app is very good, and it's tiny.
View attachment 41138
So small it fits in me IEMs case easily.
Bit it was super picky about what it would charge from, and the build quality wasn't inspiring, so it went back. I also had some dropout in very busy areas, even when the device was very close to my phone. Very people dense areas are a real problem for wireless communications, unlikely to be easily fixed.

I've found that the Bluetooth works poorly when multi-point pairing is enabled, did you have MPP enabled?

 

[Soniclife]

I've found that the Bluetooth works poorly when multi-point pairing is enabled, did you have MPP enabled?

Hmm, I'm not sure, I think it defaulted to on, don't know if I changed it. It was only a problem in train stations where the density of smartphones is likely very high.

 

[Stan Smitchen]

Hello, do you think the 3.5mm jack of the es100 can easily drive that headphones I wanna use with them? And that would be:

Koss ksc 75 -60 ohm-
Venture Electronics VE MONK Plus Earbud (3.5mm Espresso Edition) - 64 ohm -


Even a Sennheiser hd 660s - 150 ohm - is possible to get driven well with that 3.5mm jack of es100?

 

[Veri]

Koss ksc 75 -60 ohm-
Venture Electronics VE MONK Plus Earbud (3.5mm Espresso Edition) - 64 ohm -

Sure~

Even a Sennheiser hd 660s - 150 ohm - is possible to get driven well with that 3.5mm jack of es100?

This will be more difficult but it will get "decent" volume. More so with a 2.5mm cable.

 

[Berwhale]

The output level estimator in the Radsone app says the HD 660s will get up to 123dB (150 Ohm @ 104 dB/1V).

 

[JustPoo]

Great success! Got the BTR5 today, it pushes the P1's with room to spare. It doesn't have all the app options of the ES100 which is a bit of a bummer for the tweaker in me, but it has enough. And it's tiny. So that's that, I'm free to roam with the P1's at last. Wooh!

 

[Berwhale]

Great success! Got the BTR5 today, it pushes the P1's with room to spare. It doesn't have all the app options of the ES100 which is a bit of a bummer for the tweaker in me, but it has enough. And it's tiny. So that's that, I'm free to roam with the P1's at last. Wooh!

Can you set the EQ on the DAC like the ES100, or is it all done in the Fiio App?

 

[JustPoo]

You can yes, but it's limited. There's five EQ presets in the app and on the DAC - rock, pop etc, but only one custom EQ setting. So I've tuned it for the P1 and it's great, but switching headphones would be a pain as you can't save your preset and swap it out for another custom profile. So it clearly has memory for six presets but they've locked down five of them. So yes you can enable/disable or switch them on the DAC itself, as well as the app, but it's a missed opportunity. You never know, there might be an update as more get into people's hands.

 

[Severian]

I badly want a DAC with LDAC, 2V output, and a Radsone-like app to do some basic EQ adjustments. PEQ would be great of course, but the Radsone app is plenty capable of the general tonal balance adjustments I'm looking for.

 

[Berwhale]

Video of the app settings for the BTR5...

I think I might hold out for the Qudelix. It had gone very quiet on their website, but they posted an update on this thread yesterday:

https://www.qudelix.com/forum/qudel...-trust-the-kickstarter-campaign-if-it-happens

 

[JustPoo]

I was waiting for the Qudelix too but I'd waited long enough to get an amp/DAC for the P1's as it was. When the BTR5 popped up on Amazon a couple of days ago I couldn't help myself. A bird in the hand and all that. I'll be watching out for the Qudelix though, it's shaping up nicely.

Being able to force LDAC is nice, but I'm not sure if I can force it to APTX-LL when it's not connected to my phone. I use sleep earbuds to watch the telly in bed and it'd be nice to be able to use my low latency capable transmitter as an actual low latency transmitter rather than it defaulting to whatever it wants to. Maybe there's transmitters that allow manual selection, I'll have to look into it.

After playing with the BTR5 for a bit I have to say it's a nifty little gizmo. I really hope they add some more custom EQs but apart from that I don't feel like I'm missing anything and it sounds great, it really does perform. I haven't tried it wired yet, but with UAPP I'll have access to a PEQ etc. It's certainly tiny enough to stick to the back of a phone and I only own it in order to get some extra power without lugging another phone sized device around!.

Actually I saw an interesting digital transport on Aliexpress the other day, they may make a good pairing -

￡55.48 | TempoTec Variations V1 Hifi Digital MP3 Player WITHOUT analog and supports Bluetooth LDAC IN&OUT for USB DAC&AMPLIFIER

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32996995824.html


- edited link as the previous one was from the app and from what I remember it tries to force you to install it.

Further edit - listening to it wired using UAPP with the PEQ and hi-res files it's really nice. One problem, I can find short right angle to right angle USB C to micro USB cables aplenty, but not a single USB C to USB C version. I'm using one from a portable USB charger that's about 15cm long with straight plugs and it's unwieldy. Has anyone seen a C to C cable that looks like one of these?

 

[Crandall]

@amirm If you have some time, would we be able to measure the Signal to Noise ratio at 50mv for this device? Especially since it's so often recommended for sensitive IEMs due to the lack of hiss.

 

[tifune]

This review is a bit confusing to me - it seems as though the measurements were done using the USB connection via unbalanced 3.5, which is only 44/16 I believe? To fully understand what the ES100 is capable of wouldn't we need to use a Mac and/or LDAC BT via balanced 2.5? I realize human audibility may not be greatly impacted but I def noticed a difference when I switched from 3.5 aptX to 2.5 LDAC on my Westone W50s. Thanks!

 

[Veri]

This review is a bit confusing to me - it seems as though the measurements were done using the USB connection via unbalanced 3.5, which is only 44/16 I believe?

Unbalanced has nothing to do with it, it was tested over USB is why it's 44/16.

To fully understand what the ES100 is capable of wouldn't we need to use a Mac and/or LDAC BT via balanced 2.5? I realize human audibility may not be greatly impacted but I def noticed a difference when I switched from 3.5 aptX to 2.5 LDAC

LDAC is 990kbps while USB uses no compression. So testing over bluetooth would only be worse. USB shows best case performance.
Also, 2.5mm balanced power was tested in the power measurements. You can see its performance relatively to apple usb adapter each time.

 

[Crandall]

Unbalanced has nothing to do with it, it was tested over USB is why it's 44/16.


LDAC is 990kbps while USB uses no compression. So testing over bluetooth would only be worse. USB shows best case performance.
Also, 2.5mm balanced power was tested in the power measurements. You can see its performance relatively to apple usb adapter each time.

Measuring over USB using a Mac would be best case performance, since it allows 24bit/48kHz vs only 16bit/44.1kHz(or 16/48) on a PC.