Pioneer XDP-30R-B High Resolution Digital Audio Player - Black

I would advise extreme caution about buying this DAP. 3 out 5 of my micro SD cards refused to be recognised by this player. They were all good quality high speeds cards e.g. Sandisk Ultra exFAT of various sizes up to 200 GB that continue to work in other DAPs of varying makes. The 2 cards that worked were a Samsung 64Gb and a Sandisk 32Gb for what it's worth.I've seen one or two other people on a forum have the same complaint. Pioneer UK support have not replied to my 2 requests for help. I think that's poor.When playing it sounds reasonably good - nicely detailed but a bit unrefined in the treble. The volume wheel feels loose and cheap and the plastic back to the player is very incongruous compared to the front.Maybe I've just had a bad one but do you really want to take the chance that most of your cards aren't going to work too?

Absolutely horrific.Sound is great when you're actually able to access what you're looking for on Tidal. But the user interface feels almost prehistoric and laboured. Endless error messages stating, "Song Can't Be Played" appear even when I'm not attempting to play any tracks.Software was updated over my network at the earliest opportunity. Sadly the firmware appears buggyThe Pioneer Duo app paired with my phone fairly quickly but still repeatefly lost contact.There is no means to browse Tidal content but through the Pioneers laboured lists and headings that simply don't take you to your desired content.I can't stress how user unfriendly this device is. What's the point of bigging up the Tidal MQA service when the albums are a painful chore to locate. I'll be honest Tidal's interface is disappointing on my Honor 9 phone but on the Pioneer XPD 30 R I felt almost abused by the constant struggle to locate artists and albums that I was looking forward to listening to.The sound is impressive through my Fiio F9 Pros when connected to the 2.5mm balanced output.I had hoped to connect this to my Oppo HA1 amp/pre/headphone amp through fixed line out but didn't even bother trying so poor were my initial impressions of this device.Sadly because the software is so poorly implemented there's no joy to be found here for me.In truth I should have known better. A few years ago I purchased the first incarnation of the Pioneer N-50 Network player and that suffered terribly with the awful control app and lack of updates from Pioneer. I swore then to never purchase another Pioneer product again and I wish I'd stuck to that.Obviously others like this component based on their reviews, so maybe it's just me. Perhaps the product is simply ill suited to my needs or my expectations were too high but either way I'm bitterly disappointed with it. I had high but realistic hopes and expectations after reading all the available online reviews.Build quality to me felt cheap and lightweight. Yes I know you get what you pay for but this feels plasticyvand as if it won't last the course. I'd have little faith in travelling with it.If it was more user friendly and less headache inducing I may have stuck with it but this is going straight back for a refund. I'd rather save up and get a product worthy of ownership.Personally I'd avoid this like the plague.

Great sound!

I have had this for a couple of months and it has been great. It plays every format I have. It has good battery life and the small form factor works well for my needs. I have not used the balanced output, but unbalanced works well for me. Looking forward to the future update to provide Tidal with MQA masters.

To start with it I was fairly impressed with this product. I thought it was good value for money for a hires music player but now connection to wifi is a complete lottery and most of the time I can't connect so that rules out listening to Deezer. WHen I can connect it often drops out then I can't reconnect. It's OK to sue with cards but it then you are limited to the music you have and can't experiment with new music. I now use my phone which I bought as it has the best DAC on a phone but basically wasted my money on this.

The reason for one star is that for the past year I’ve had SD card & storage issues. Culminating in Slot 2 now not being able to format disks, or ‘seeing’ 2/3rd of the data on any disks & even not recognising disks. This apparently is common. Having researched this it seems like it's a real problem with this and it's Onkyo sibling.Also the wifi connection keeps dropping out!Amazon have been totally brilliant and are refunding despite it only just being out of Warranty.Pioneer are totally silent on the issue.So A&K it is!

Bought this last year and have been waiting to review after prolonged use.Having owned Fiio players in the past I have to say the sound quality of this player is fantastic not 10/10 but around an 8 ...paired with different headphones obviously creates different listener experiences but the base line quality never drops.I have found using pioneer iems one of the best pairings with this player.Have had no problems (touch wood) with SanDisk sd cards with this unit ,Tidal sounds awesome I just wish some other streaming services were available as well (Spotify) Bluetooth with my AKG headphones is brilliant .For the money it is a great sounding player ,UI is a bit low grade but this I presume is down to a number of things ,cost for one and also some android builds create noise and hiss which in a player so sensitive to sound variation isn’t acceptable.All in all a great little hi res FLAC player with no quirks.