Hidizs AP60 Pocket Hi-Fi Player Review

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Hidizs AP60 Pros&Cons

 

Hidizs AP60 Specs

• Output power: 35mW @ 32Ω
• Output Impedance: ＜0.1Ω
• Frequency response: 20 Hz~20 kHz (-0.5dB)
• SNR: >109dB
• Dynamic range: >105dB
• THD+N: ≤ 0.005%
• Channel separation: >106 dB
• Lossless formats supported: APE, FLAC, WAV, WMA, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, OGG, MP3, DFF, DSF, DSD 64/128

Packaging

Major kudos need to be given to Hidizs for the AP60’s packaging. Even the outside of the box looks high quality and somewhat premium. Opening the box serves to extend that first impression. Hidizs didn’t skimp out here, and it’s great to see a manufacturer take genuine pride in their product by giving it packaging that exceeds expectation. 

 

What’s in the box?

• AP60
• Screen protector
• USB cable
• User manual
• Service information card
• Warranty card
• Leather pouch
• Earbuds
• Products leaflet
   

Accessories

Not much is included with the AP60 other than a USB cable, a screen protector, a leather pouch, and some earbuds. The inclusion of earbuds was a pleasant surprise, although their sonic performance is nothing to write home about.
The leather pouch is a nice inclusion, although some kind of plastic case would’ve perhaps been better.
 

Design
Body and layout

The AP60 seems to be entirely made out of plastic, but it doesn’t feel overly cheap. In fact, the entire design looks strikingly similar to Fiio’s M3.

In the world of mini Hi-Res players, 3 models come to mind; the AP60, Fiio’s M3, and Shanling’s M1. As we unfortunately don’t have the M1 available for review/comparison, the AP60 will be compared to the M3 as the two have quite a lot in common in terms of design.
On the left of the AP60 we find the power and volume buttons. These were a bit of a disappointment, though, as they do rattle a bit. Along the right hand side is the microSD card slot, and at the bottom is the headphone jack and micro-USB port. The headphone jack looks especially cool with its oversized gold connector.

Just below the screen is a capacitive touch panel, which is entirely invisible if the screen is off. This is in contrast with the M3’s physical buttons. Overall, the AP60 seems like a beefed-up version of the M3.
It should be noted, though, that whilst the M3 is smaller in terms of depth, the AP60 doesn’t feel quite as premium as the M3. This is because the AP60 just feels a bit hollow. Even though the AP60 weighs almost 25% more than the M3 (40g vs 50g), the M3 just feels a bit more solid in the hand.

The AP60 does come in a variety of colours, such as black, blue, red, gold, and pink, and the paint finish seems like decent quality as it has a matte metallic texture, rather than a cheap-looking high gloss finish.

Screen

The AP60 sports a 2” 320×240 TFT screen, identical to that of the M3. However, the AP60’s screen is of better quality than that of the M3. Even on full brightness, the M3’s outdoor legibility is a complete and utter embarrassment, whereas the AP60’s screen fares much better. You’ll still struggle to see in bright sunlight, though. On the other hand, colours do seem more natural on the M3, whereas the AP60 has a blueish tint, giving images a much “colder” look. Unfortunately, viewing angles aren’t great, especially when tilting the device even slightly away from you.

User Interface

Hidizs definitely played it safe with the interface. It’s very simplistic, but it is intuitive. Unlike Fiio, Hidizs also didn’t try to use any kind of fancy fonts; for good reason. On such low pixel-density screens (200ppi), you really need a very easy to read font. However, in stark contrast to the M3, at no point does the actual software feel frustrating. It simply works. Where the M3 has a pretty annoying menu structure, the AP60’s is straight-forward and easy to get along with.

In total, there is 1 menu screen, along with 5 sub-menu screens. The main menu (which is actually the home screen) lets you choose between Music browse, Music category, Music setting, and System setting.
Music browse takes you directly to the file structure on the card or the OTG connected external storage.
Music category is for browsing through your collection via the loaded meta-tags.
Music setting is for updating the library, changing the gain setting, changing the DSD output mode, accessing the equalizer, and gapless playback, among a few others.
System setting is where you’d go to change the language, USB mode, brightness, turning on Bluetooth, formatting the card, performing a software update, and a few other settings.
The 5th menu screen appears when you press the menu button whilst on the Now Playing screen. This little “pop-up” circular menu allows you to quickly change the gain setting, delete a track, add current track to favourites or playlist, or change the playing order to regular, repeat, or shuffle.
All in all, all the settings seem to have been categorised correctly and intuitively.
The only minor frustration is the touch-pad. The individual touch areas (buttons) are placed a bit too close to one another, which sometimes results in unintentional or miss-presses. For example, you might want to hit the “back” button, but then you end up pressing the skip-forward button instead.
It should also be noted that the touch-panel is entirely unavailable if the screen is off. This means, if you want to skip tracks, you’d have to turn on the screen first. However, you can set the volume-rocker keys to act as skip buttons for when the screen is off. This was some very clever thinking on Hidizs’s part.

Transferring files over USB is sufficiently fast, using an ADATA 64Gb microSDXC UHS-I Class 10 card, 1.63Gb worth of data (42 files, including 1 folder) took 4 minutes.

Battery life came as a pleasant surprise. Hidizs claims that the AP60 will be able to play anywhere between 10 and 12 hours. Well now, after playing Lorde’s Pure Heroine (192kHz/24-bit) at a volume of 75/80 on low gain through the MEE Audio Pinnacle P1 (50-ohm), the AP60 finally gave up the ghost after 12 hours and 54 minutes of continuous playback. 

Sound

When using higher impedance headphones/IEMs, such as the MEE Audio Pinnacle P1, the AP60 has enough power to drive them even on low gain at a perfectly acceptable loudness. However, it just doesn’t have enough power to drive them to how they really should sound. It’s quite odd, you would think that if 2 players/AMPs can drive a set of headphones/IEMs to the same volume level, that both would sound rather similar (discounting the colouration that each player/AMP would add to the sound). But that simply isn’t the case. Properly driving headphones/IEMs can make a world of difference.

Below is a graph of the AP60’s frequency response curve (black) compared to that of the M3 (red).

We can see that the M3 has a flatter response curve, albeit a little uneven, especially in the 70-2,000Hz region. Most noticeably is the fact that the M3 has more sub-bass, particularly between 7 and 70Hz (roughly 6dB roll-off). The AP60, on the other hand, seems to have about a 9dB roll-off between 7 and 100Hz, and whilst the M3’s response remains pretty much flat all the way to 20,000Hz, the AP60 has a slight increase (about 0.25dB) between 4,000 and 20,000Hz.
Judging by the response curves alone, the AP60 should be a slightly “brighter” sounding DAP, but it isn’t. Instead, the AP60 has a smoother, better controlled, more refined sound. At first listen, even with the volume matched to within 0.1dB, the M3 sounds louder and appears more detailed, until you notice that in fact it actually has a more “brittle” sound, especially towards the upper registers. Vocals are perhaps a little too laid back on the AP60, but not entirely veiled either.
Overall, the AP60 has a pretty neutral sound signature, slightly leaning towards the brighter side of the spectrum. This is most likely due to the fairly large roll-off in the bass and sub-bass region. As such, it just lacks some fullness to the sound. But, compared to the M3, it’s without a doubt a step-up in terms of absolute sonic maturity and refinement.

As far as hiss is concerned, the AP60 fares very well. Although some users have reported noticeable hiss, in our tests it was exceptionally difficult to hear hiss, even with some pretty darn low-impedance IEMs such as the Dunu DK-3001 (13-ohm, 110dB sensitivity). The M3, on the other hand, exhibited far greater levels of hiss.

One of the major advantages of the AP60 is the addition of not only Bluetooth, but the Apt-X protocol as well. Surprisingly enough the Bluetooth signal range was exceptionally good, matching that of a modern smartphone. Heck, not even Fiio’s 2^nd generation X1 could hope to be as good, despite costing more than the AP60. As far as Bluetooth sound quality is concerned, the AP60 is again a pleasing performer.

Read: FiiO X1 2nd generation Bluetooth Portable Player Review

Value

So, at the asking price of $90, how much value does the AP60 pack? Well, quite a bit to be perfectly honest. But where the AP60’s real value comes in is not so much in its relatively good sound quality, but rather its versatility. Fiio’s M3 might only cost $50, but it doesn’t have Bluetooth, nor can it be used as a desktop DAC, but more importantly, you cannot use the M3 purely as a source to output the digital data to an external DAC. For $10 more than the AP60 you could get Fiio’s 2^nd generation X1, which is a better looking, better built, better sounding, but larger device, which also offers Bluetooth (but not Apt-X). But again, the X1 also can’t be used as a desktop DAC, nor can it output to an external DAC either. You’d have to go to the $150 price-point of the Shanling M1 in order to get the same versatility that the AP60 offers. It should be clear, then, that the AP60 packs in quite a punch at this price-point. Not only can it be used as a perfectly fine sounding standalone mini-DAP, but it can triple up for use with a computer or even a high quality external DAC (such as the Oppo HA2-SE, iFi Micro iDSD BL, or even the Chord Mojo). The AP60 has yet another trick up its sleeve in terms of Bluetooth. You can actually connect the AP60 to your smartphone, and then the AP60 can serve as a wireless DAC/AMP for when you want to use apps such as Tidal, etc. It is this versatility that makes the AP60 a respectable and easily recommendable device.

 

Rating

The NO BULL rating system is designed to take as many aspects of the device into account as possible. As such, we have a basic rating, as well as a final rating. The basic rating rates the product purely as a high quality portable audio device, and is generally a good indicator of how it stacks up to its rivals in terms of standard features and specs. The final rating, however, grants bonus points for any extra features and specs that aren’t quite as common, and is a great way to judge the product as a complete package.

Packaging
Look and feel: 8 / 10

Included Accessories
Screen protector: YES
Protective case: YES
Cables: YES

Build
Quality control: 7 / 10
Seems durable: YES
Screen quality: 6 / 10
Intuitive interface: 9 / 10
Responsive interface: 9 / 10
Comfortable button layout: 7 /10
Internal storage: –
Accepts external storage: YES
Relative silence when inserting cables: 8 / 10

Sound
Sound stage: 7 / 10
Detail retrieval: 7 / 10
Sibilance:  6 / 10
Instrument separation: 7 / 10
Neutrality of sound signature: 7 / 10
Ability to EQ: YES
Plays lossless audio: YES
Plays 24-bit: YES
Hiss: 8 / 10

Portability
Small size: 9 / 10
Relatively low weight: 10 / 10
Battery life more than 8 hours: YES

Value
Competitive price-point: YES
Relative value: 9 / 10

Manufacturer
Released the device with relatively bug-free software: 7 / 10
Is prompt with software updates: 6 / 10
Is active and prompt on forums/social-media: 7 / 10

Basic Rating: 7.3

Bonus points

Bass boost: –
Various digital filters: –
Allows 3^rd party apps: –
Number of cables included: 1
Number of gain positions: 2
Fast charging:
How premium the case feels: 3 / 5
Bluetooth: YES
Apt-X: YES
Premium look and feel of the device: 3 / 5
Number of digital connections: 1
Number of analogue connections: 1
Power adapter included: –
Balanced output: –
Dual card slots: –
Touch screen: –
WiFi: –
Dual DAC setup: –
Premium DAC chip(s) used: –
Screen protectors included: 1
Use of metal and/or glass: –
Plays DSD: YES
Plays 32-bit: –
Ultra low power-saving mode: –
Wireless connection quality: 10
Gapless playback: YES

Final Rating: 8.7

 

Lastly, a massive thank you to Hidizs for sending us the AP60 for review!