I don’t see how this thing could be enticing and stay under $500. I think its feasible to make a phone that:
At least mid level DAP specs
Good camera
Latest Android running smoothly so needs good RAM and CPU
Really good battery life to manage as a phone and DAP
not be a brick
You could downgrade the camera but like @rattlingblanketwoman mentioned you can always add a dongle to your phone. I dont see how they could price this under $500 and it be good but also idk how it well it would do over $500
That is exactly the problem they have. Even LG couldnt survive…dont expect Moondrop which no one knows of outside of this niche hobby to do well in the mainstream world…
The only solution I can see for them if they really want to have a piece of the mainstream smartphone market, would be to do the same as OnePlus did in the past. Undercut the competition by a major difference, possible at a loss while they are building up their rep that way.
I think another approach is to build a modular phone where one could upgrade the camera, dac/amp, and battery. This way they could sell with lower specs with the promise of releasing higher end modules and see if the market bites
In all fairness, allot of what LG came up with was later adopted by other companies. Their problem was creating a new thing then immediately killing it off (like the modular attachments that wasn’t adopted because of how small the ecosystem was for it)
“A cornerstone of the Roon product strategy has always been to support a wide variety of partner audio brands. Roon’s role is to be the best possible music source, leaving rendering to products from companies that specialize in audio. Nucleus extends that strategy by having no analog audio outputs at all. External DACs, receivers, integrated amplifiers, and speakers can be connected either directly via USB, HDMI, or over the network using RAAT, AirPlay, or Roon’s other supported protocols.”
so… you are paying 3,7k AND you dont get an actual dac/amp in it???
(and they also dont say what is actually in it…)
Just so everyone knows. Aful messaged me on Facebook the other day to let me know that they are doing a DD+2BA iem. I have no idea about the price, but it is coming out this year. A few friends on my discord have knick named this the Aful Magic Performer 3, but I have no idea of the name or price.
This is in addition to Aful Cantor which I’m personally hyped for it having heard of it at CanJam. Think of a P8 with better tech and way better bass. (Tuning might change)
Apple just had it’s peepee slapped with a $2 billion fine in the EU for anti-competitive practices done via their App Store. this stems from an investigation that started in 2020 when Spotify alleged malfeasance on their part. this is 4x higher than the $500 million the fine was estimated to be originally.
