Pioneer Portable High Resolution Digital Audio Player (Silver)
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Product Specifications
- Aluminum build for extended durability strength with removable bumpers
- 4.7 inch (1280 x 720) touch screen for easily navigating music files
- 32GB Internal storage
- Two SD card slots for extended file storage (Max 256GB/128 x2, Micro SDXC type)
Built-In Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n or 802.11ac)
Product Description
Style:XDP-100R-S The new Pioneer Digital Audio Player allows you to store and stream your favorite hi-res music, right from the palm of your hand.
Product Reviews
Unexpectedly well executed and worth the price charged.
Edit: I swapped the first one out due to the wifi problems after it started dropping connections. The second unit has excellent wifi but when I went to remove a 128 GB SD card for a 200gb card, slot one, despite attempting to reseat the card several times, refused to smoothly release the installed card. After completely removing the card and installing the new 200gb MicroSD, the clot refused to latch to the new card. I attempted to install the preceding 128GB and the mechanism still refused to latch. Now on going on unit 3. Barring any problems with that one I will put this back at 5 stars but for now its been bumped down.TO start things off I want to unequivocally recommend the Pioneer XDP-100r to anyone considering it at its price point of $699. It has flaws but overall it is an extremely well executed product and the performance, especially in where the sound quality is concerned is top rate.A handy tip, the glass screen protector for my HTC One M9 is a near perfect fit (see pictures red circles placed to show where this screen protector does not cover) leaving no gap side to side and about a 1⁄12 of an inch top and bottom of the screen face side uncovered. The brand of glass screen protectors I use (and keep spares of) are from Skinomi. Amazon has these for around $10 and I highly recommend the brand and that you install one to minimize screen damage.I am an audiophile in enthusiasm for accurate reproduction of the music to which I listen. For reference I want to put out a short equipment list of devices I will be comparing the XDP-100R to and it goes as follows:Denon DA-300USB DAC/Headphone ampYamaha C-80 Control Amp (used for listening to vinyl records, excellent reputation for its headphone output and its phono amp)Emmeline/ Ray Samuels HR-2 Headphone AmpHTC One M9Shure SE535, SE846, and SRH-1840 HeadphonesThe things I can note in this review without getting too wordy are that the Pioneer XDP-100r exhibits the following traits.Dead silent internal amplifier at any gain setting, any output level within them with all of the headphones listed above. The Shure SE846 IEMs are notorious for picking up faint hiss/noise in quality amps because of their sensitivity and their very low impedance. In fact, they are so low in impedance that they are actually not compliant with Pioneers advertised compatibility range. No matter, they and the XDP-100r were MADE for each other. These two together are a beautiful sonic experience. It is as quiet in silent passages at reference listening level as the HR-2 and my recently recapped C-80. Much quieter than the DA-300USB’s internal amp and the HTC One M9 is a joke in this regard.Three gain settings and not using the right range relative to your headphones yields interesting artifacts in sound. Using the high gain setting and IEMs have you turning the volume level to sub 60 out of 160 before blasting out your hearing and nuance is lost pretty evenly across the spectrum. Also, in fade outs, this results in some neat but obviously incorrect rendition of the last quarter of a second in a given track where it ends up going louder instead of fading to silence and sounds like Neo being sucked out of the Matrix after he takes the pill. This also occurs occasionally when driving full size cans on the low gain setting cranked to max. This I consider a flaw because most people would scratch their heads but if you use the right setting, its output is flawless at any level. Know your gear, configure accordingly. It should drive more power hungry headphones than my own stable to satisfactory levels. With what I own, it is full capable of cleanly damaging one’s hearingWonderfully silky smooth reproduction of sound. Makes great use of the instrument separation reputation of the SE846. Brushes on cymbals are right, violins and pianos are as if I am listening to one of my exes playing the real thing, sound stage, cohesion, etc etc are all above what I expected. It truly outperforms the DA-300usb by a mile here. When they are both connected to the Ray Samuels/Emmeline HR-2, I give the overall edge to the XDP-100R for its accuracy. The DA-300usb is a noticeably more forgiving to lower quality Mp3s and sloppy recordings. The XDP-100R is still very, very listenable.This is important. My biggest problem with the XDP-100R is that it has a serious Wi-Fi problem SW version 0.1.20_20151110.034105. I had Amazon send me a replacement unit because I thought the wifi chip must have been bad but both the original and the replacement behave the same so I am forced to conclude that it’s a software problem. When using 5ghz WiFi via either a Netgear R7000 router or an Asus RT-ac68w router the throughput wildly varies (never more than 1.5Mbps on a 110Mbps cable connection and typically sub 512Kbps), the connection randomly drops out, and excruciating lag/ping times. When connected to 2.4 GHz it will routinely pull & hold 54Mbps with excellent ping/responsiveness. This is something that needs to be addressed and I am pretty convinced it’s the XDP-100R and not my router (the R7000) or the one I borrowed from a friend for testing.All in all, the screen is reasonable, the chassis is finely crafted and I personally LOVE the bumpers. The make pocketing the XDP-100R without snagging or straining the headphone cord or jack fool-proof.I am overall very impressed with this unit and am getting 6-10 hours of playback depending on headphones and source of music. If I were to have only one device for music playback, this would be it and most likely will be. The XDP-100R transfers pretty consistently at about 24MB/second to internal storage and to the micro SD card it is right around the cards limit minus maybe a MB/second for device overhead versus a USB card reader. IN the case of my 128GB Sandisk, about 12MB/s.
Good for high-res music lovers, and Android fans, but some issues.
update 5/5/17I’ve taken away 1 star because this device has deleted all my playlists for no apparent reason four times now. it has deleted all of them, regardless of whether I made them on the device, or on my computer, or what app I use to play them. Extremely annoying.end update*The Pioneer XDP-100 is an Android mp3 player that is basically a smart phone without the phone. It is fairly large and thick, has a nice sized screen, and a small built in speaker sufficient for listening in the car or sharing a video with a friend. It had a bumper on the top when it came, but I removed it because it prevented me from plugging in a large aux cable. It is Wi-Fi compatible and Bluetooth compatible. It was released in December 2015, so when I first booted it up it needed quite a few software updates.The appeal to the Pioneer is it is able to hold a significant amount of memory, and it plays extremely high-resolution tracks. It is excellent for someone who has so much music they have to choose wisely what they want to sync. The Pioneer has 2 Micro-SD slots, and you can organize your music by SD card, and then put in whatever cards you want depending on what you want to listen to. It can hold up to 2 200gb micro sds, meaning a total of 425 gigs is possible at any given time. Now, the Amazon and Best Buy pages both say the internal storage is 32, but when I’m looking at the device on My Computer, it only shows 25. That’s why I say 25 in this review.I have about 300 gigs of piano concertos and 400 gigs of audio-books. So I’m still going to have to shuffle SD cards around, but that’s still a lot of memory.The controls of the Pioneer are very much the same as any Android device, with a few exceptions within the actual music software itself. It took a little practice to get control of it. The touch screen is highly sensitive and takes some getting used to, and careful manipulation otherwise you could end up deleting your favorite album instead of adding it to your playlist.The playlist controls are not perfect, but they are acceptable. You can edit, add, and re-arrange songs within your playlist directly on the device (see more about that below).The equalizer is phenomenal. You can chose between presets, but also make your own custom mixes. It is not a typical bar click and drag equalizer; it’s an X and Y axis design. Really took me by surprise and I had to screw around with it to find what I liked, but if you know what you want and being able to customize your sound is highly important to you, you will love the options it provides.There are a few issues I’ve found.-The bluetooth connectivity isn’t great. It’s fine as long as you’re near the speaker/device you’re connected to, or there is nothing in your way (i.e. fine in the dance studio… it’s a big open room) but if I walk around a corner, forget it, it’s toast. If my Pioneer is in my pocket and I’m using my bluetooth earbuds, it’s choppy and struggles to play well. If it’s in my purse, I might as well turn it off.-When playing a track or listening to a song within a playlist, I wish I could “Go to artist” or “go to album.” From what I can tell, I have to go back to my folders or album/artist menu and search it manually.-When adding a track to a playlist, it does not notify me if the song is already on my playlist.-I wish I could rate the songs in some way… thumbs up, heart, star rating, etc. the device itself won’t let me do that. It does seem to recognize the songs I play most often, and pick them first when on shuffle.-Every once in a while, I get an error that says “Unfortunately, Music has stopped.” my playlist will stop, and resume the last time I hit play (for instance, if I hit play on song 2, and then go back to my list and hit play for song 4, then let 5 more songs auto-play, then music “stops,” it’ll go back to song 4).-You can sync the music with a software, or you can click-and-drag from a file folder. Just know that if you drag it to the wrong place, you can’t move it. -You can delete it and then put it on again in the right place, but you can’t drag it from one folder to another.-The battery life isn’t amazing. Now it isn’t horrible either… it plays for a good 16-20 hours if you leave the screen off. But I use the thing for 8 hours at the office, and then go to the dance studio and teach for 3-4 hours and use it there too, so I have to charge it nightly.I wish the computer software that was designed for the device was more all encompassing.It allows for putting music on and off (and you can organize the music by choosing where you want it stored: either SD card, or the internal storage, which is nice). It does not allow for making/editing playlists.The device is also compatible with Media Monkey, and Windows Media Player. I do not have a preference between these two softwares, they seem to be about the same. WMP allows for me to make playlists on the software and then sync them to the device. Once added to the device, I can either play the playlist, or add all songs on that playlist to another playlist. I cannot add songs to the WMP playlist once the playlist is on the device. Neither software allows me to edit the song information once it’s on the device.All in all I’m satisfied with the product, and I use it all the time. I’d recommend the Pioneer to people who play high-quality music and love Android. Also great if you use Google Play music, Amazon music, Spotify, Audible, etc. because it will run all those apps as well.This review was posted on Best Buy (where I bought the item) and my personal blog as well.
The sound is awesome. I find the unit does not color the …
I originally bought the Fiio x5 iii. I returned it because it would not play Audible audio books, which was a deal breaker. This unit plays anything, including Audible. The sound is awesome. I find the unit does not color the music in any way. That being said if your music service stinks, so will the sound. I found Google play to be very thin and digital sounding. Even on the best quality. Amazon music was much better sounding. I started trial of Deezer, a lossless streaming service. Holy crap this is awesome.I am not sure about battery life, it appears to be ok.The unit is very snappy. I was waiting on the Fiio unit to just play. It was painfully slow to today’s standards. This unit is as fast as my phone.The only thing I wish this included a case like the Fiio. I did purchase one though. After the case purchase the price is the same.
Four Stars
not bad products, plastic parts are weak and easily broken
Pioneer XDP-100R-S
The sound is very clean and “atmospheric.“The battery life is also very good. Just turn off the wi-fi when you don’t need it.
Excellent Hi Res Player1
It’s my first Hi Res device, I must say it’s excellent! Great!
Great entry level audiophile DAP, save 100 bux cause its silver!
Finally, after losing my clip zip a few weeks back, I endeavored to find a new DAP. I have some semi difficult IEM’s and this thing drives them very well.
Pioneer player
Best HD portable player for the money !!
I dont like how the mp3 player heats up extremely hot and …
I dont like how the mp3 player heats up extremely hot and quick, also using the sd cards to hold music does not work because any playlist you create erases after turning off the…
Very versatile Hi Res player.
Hi new to hi res audio so I don’t know all the ins and outs. I got this initially for its features and storage capacity.
Parts missing
The product arrive without instructions, warranty and the hang thing on the top is missing. The unit itself is cover with fingerprints and drit.
Incredible sound wired or via bluetooth!
I owned this HR DAC for a month+ and will offer my thoughts. I will not go into the extensive audiophile reviews and comparisons as there are many available.
I like it.
comments powered by DisqusIt is a HI-RES player with some faults amd some good qualities. Streaming distance is very short. Hard to PU Bluetooth signals. There is no restart button, just off.
