I have the Lotoo PAW S1 at home waiting for me in my mailbox when I get home from holiday. From what I have heard other people say it is one of the best sounding dongle dacs available and it sounds more refined than most entry to mid level dacs. No bluetooth which limits it’s flexibility but that is offset for me by the fact that it doesn’t have a battery so it’s one less thing to remember to charge. I love the simplicity of plug and play. I had the Dragonfly Red before and it didn’t have great synergy imo with some of my headphones so I ended up selling it. I also didn’t like carrying the combo of phone + dfr in my pocket because I would sometimes lose connection at the usb c port on my phone. To eliminate this with the S1 I purchased a super short right angle usb c cable and I plan to use velcro to attach the S1 to the back of my phone case. This should give me a more solid connection and I won’t have to worry about the dongle flopping around in my pocket and losing connection.
Oh yeah they look pretty good, I agree I also prefer plug and play. Just sucks that it doesn’t have a 2.5 balanced. But that’s a minor issue.
Yeah if you have already invested in 2.5 cables that would be a bummer. On the other hand I had already invested in 4.4 so their choice of balanced output was actually a bonus for me because it meant I didn’t have to start buying 2.5 stuff just to use on the go. Also I happen to really like the form factor of the 4.4 jack. It just feels really robust to me.
I’ve never tried actually but I think it needs battery to be connect to a phone. Otherwise it would drain. But if you plug it into a pc you can set it to just be a stand-alone dac/amp. I would’nt worry too much about battery though. It fast charges and I use mine on high gain st relatively high volume for my more power hungry cans and the battery holds out nicely. For iems on low gain and lower volume I don’t think battery will be much of an issue.
That sounds good, it would mostly be for iem use, so that’s good to hear.
Stuck between getting this or the lotoo paw s1 and either the penon orb, lz A7, thieaudio legacy 4 (or just shell out savings with a clairvoyance but not sure if the performance increase is that great)
I’m kinda interested in the lotoo myself to be honest lol. I mean if you don’t plan on using the Bluetooth much, it’s sounds like a good choice. Something tells me that the lotoo would probably sound even better but the btr5 is definitely no slouch. But I wouldn’t know since I don’t have the lotoo… yet… lol.
Not as much power as the btr5 which shouldn’t matter for you since you’re running iems. I like the option of running the btr5 with my more power hungry cans, I mean it drives most of my stuff well.
But also 4.4 connected on the lotoo vs 2.5 on the btr5 and I would take 4.4 over 2.5 any day lol.
Yeah see I’m not so interested in the Bluetooth. Just don’t think Bluetooth tech is that great. Wonder why WiFi transmission isn’t more popular. Remember being able to send music or games from one phone to another with WiFi-direct which was way faster. I don’t really understand the requirements for any of this wireless tech, so just talking nonsense now.
Would you take 4.4 over 2.5 because the 4.4 is thicker and would be more reliable not to break over time or is there a sonic benefit?
4.4 is thicker and thus more durable, no difference otherwise.
Do it! Lol
But seriously I’ve been listening for the past couple days and I’m impressed with this thing. I love the plug and play without fretting about battery. Haven’t used it from my phone much because I’m waiting on a right angle USB C cable so I can’t comment on that much. The sound is really impressing me though. It’s pretty smooth and organic sounding and it’s got some authority to it. I much prefer it to what I remember about the Dragonfly Red (which I know you had at some point because we got the same Elegia deal.)
Difficult to implement.
You would have to run all kinds of services on one device (basically run a full router, including DHCP and NAT) just for that to work.
Bluetooth does not require any of that. Just confirm neighbour and send away (oversimplified).
Thanks for clarifying
Nice. I’ll keep it in mind for sure. I just got the bifrost, ifi can for fun, and I’m waiting on an elex, denon d5200, and my eikons at the moment so I think I’m in need of a pause lol. I only worry about the power output on it for my more hungry cans, which I guess I could use the btr5 or my other amps for of course lol.
I still have the dragonfly though lol, i have it to my gf for the computer I built for her. Works well enough for her purposes
Yeah just more reliable and durable. But yeah agreed. I mean, AirPlay is a thing that that’s uncompressed isn’t it? I sometimes just use my m11 as a airplay receiver for my iPhone lol. Like if I was to use it as a source for speakers or something.
Oh yeah i hadn’t heard of or used airplay before but that sounds like a neat feature to use.
Sounds like it’s time to start paying attention to your mobile setup! Lol
Haha don’t tempt me man. I’ve gotten enough eyes rolled from the mrs. in the past few weeks lol.
I know the feeling. When my wife sees me boxing up another pair of headphones to send out and some other stuff coming in the mail she will look at me like the madman I am.