RECHO started as a personal project not intended for publishing, just wanted to make my own player useable, but it accidentally sparkled a whole revolution and organically assembled a community of nice people with affection for good quality audio. Without them, the navigation buttons wouldn’t have been swapped.

Jokes aside, with community feedback and a friendly push, the QoL improvements and features I’d been postponing became a reality in this new release, and the bugs that I didn't notice surfaced and were fixed.

A couple of answers to popular questions:

• Look at the second picture in the carousel to get an answer to the most popular question and a sneak peek into a future release.
• It's a product of decades of experience, written by a human for people. It is my way of having fun creating and sharing something.
• Yes, the source will be eventually published.
• M3u is already used internally, full support will be turned on soon.
• Other popular file formats are in progress.
• High quality Bluetooth audio will not happen without hardware modifications. Even though the bluetooth chip supports High-Resolution / lossless codecs, the way it is wired on the board doesn't allow good quality sound.

What 0.10.1 brings:

• Gapless playback, same as in the previous versions but better.
• 10-band equalizer that works equally well across all supported file formats, at all resolutions and sample rates.
• ReplayGain.

(See the Changelog for more).

Download RECHO 0.10.1 here: https://recho.atzkey.workers.dev/
I saw some questions about how to get announcements for new versions, now RECHO is on Twitter and Bluesky. Or join the Discord.

This was the title of a youtube video i saw on youtube just before my Ikko ob10 arrived.

After putting Rockbox on my Classic iPod (Tempotec v1 Variations on kts way) i was quite... disappointed of the sound.

After tweaking the EQ a bit, it still wasn't what I'd expected.

Then I turned up the volume from 5-10ish to 25/30%.

Damn ! WTF !

My Bose Quietcomfort QC35 where my go to while listening.

Just put them on eBay 🤯

I was awaiting... better. But as a first IEM just getting into the hobby I am just amazed...

Really loving it, especially since I have ADHD, and music helps me focus. Rarely been that productive in such s ahort time

Preaching to the choir, but stoked I can listen to the majority of my library instead of relying on the limited storage of my phone and old iPod. It’s cool being able to play multiple formats. Fit most of my library in the 15000 song limit. Thanks for showing a 40 year old how to not rely on the phone.

I initially wanted to buy the Sony NW-A306 but waited too long - not its not available anymore. The only chance to get it would be used on ebay. The prices are higher than my ebay limit that i set myself but i could give it a try. Thats option number one.

I want to have a small device that has deticated buttons for Volume, Play/Pause and Skipping Songs to just use it in the pocket with bluetooth and wired headphones for audiobooks and music.

I find HIDIZS AP80 PRO-X / MAX interresting as well as Tempotec V1. The Fiio M21/MJ21 is somehow too big - it should be a compact device. The Max is the newer device right? And also the Volume knob seems easier to use - especially in Pocket.

The alternative would be HiBy R3 Pro II or R1 (e.g. with sonix os)

Probably the R1 would be the best device for me until sony brings the 306 follow up (sadly i think this will stay a joke) Any thoughts on this?

So, I am currently backing up music from any android device to google drive using folder sync.
I kept the folder on google drive private and won't be sharing it. It will just act as backup if my device is lost or corrupted. But since most of the music I downloaded is from unofficial sources can it cause google account ban?

I've been looking for a DAP for a while (haven't decided on which one yet) and I don't know whether or not to save money and just use my Airpods or go with some iems. I know wired is almost always better than Bluetooth but I really like the ANC and the fit of the airpods. Are there any wired iems with noise cancellation and a similar fit to the airpods pro?

With advancements in AI they said there will be era of abundance. So here we are! Started seeing various crazy firmware mods popping up frequently, some better than factory OS ! Here is my attempt of giving iPOD experience on my lovely H2. Sharing glimpse of firmware, which I plan to release soon.

I started with rockbox branch for AIGO eros. With help of AI carved minimal firmware. Added recent bluetooth support patch (need to find dev and thank him!). Then started converting UI to match as close to iPOD one. Was surprised to get almost lag free coverflow experience. Got battery life upto 20hrs so far for wired playback.

Next, will refine UI for whatever areas are left out, cleanup menu options, look for any further battery saving options. Then will release the firmware. Meantime, if any braveheart fellow is interested in trying out firmware, let me know.

Like in the title, I'm choosing my first DAP, I heard lots of good thing about the R1 but currently it's for sale here for around 80$ while the V1 is only $60.

edited: I meant DAP, not DAC

Hey everyone, first DAP here. I tried searching for an answer, and couldn't find anyone with the same issues. Loving this thing, the sound coming through my headphones is so much better. Next step is to start doing homework on a decent pair of IEMs. But something I've noticed, when the screen is locked, the physical buttons are completely inactive. I've scoured the android settings for a solution, and Poweramp doesn't seem to care that its on a DAP compared to a phone either way. Is anyone else dealing with this on the Pro or the Pro+? If this is how its designed to work, thats a huge glaring flaw, but hopefully it's just me not understanding how the player actually works. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Was wondering if anyone had any experience using a dap with optical or coaxial output in a car with a dsp? Is there any hidden gems that I should consider or should I just stick with usb c?

Turning the device off and on again doesn't fix it. After a minute or two it fixes itself, but if the screen turns off and is then turned back on, it breaks again. Is this a known issue or did I just get unlucky?

I just saw someone call the surfans f20 a "retro modern moment" and i almost felt my back start to hurt. so i kind of want to show the kids what we had to use "back in the days"^tm

That here is my first mp3player. so come one. ill give you the grand tour:

-storage

64mb. yes, thats no tippo. sixtyfour megabyte. the 15 in the lower end of the display? thats the maximum if you squeeze reaaaaal tight, use low bitrate and short mp3. thats it. no way to increase storage size.

-playtime

as long as you feed it AAA batteries that thing runs longer than the simpsons. thats right: there is a little back-door and we were able to just switch out the powersource. on the go. whenever, wherever we wanted!

-ui

say what? the little note-symbol tells you that it plays music, the track position is displayed and the position in the current playlist. i say playlist, but of course there isnt a playlist. just the total ammount of files. battery symbol in the upper right is working fine. 5 level of charge levels is enough,no?

-superfeature

you can press the m-buttton to loop a segment of your mp3 file

for all of the people that didnt get it yet: of course this is all in good fun and tongue in cheek. i find it amusing to snoop around here, see what people call retro and how fare we came as a hobby. lets see, where we are in another 25ish years. and i realize that thing isnt even the oldest you can get. but that thing started it all for me and was one of the first ones i could get my little paws on, without bleeding dry and selling a liver,half a lung and my little baby brother.

I’ve been super hyped for this for a long time, as the Fosi ZH3 is one of the best bits of audio kit I’ve ever bought, so this was an instant order on day one.

It arrived today so thought I’d leave a quick impression post.

I was planning on doing a more in depth review, but given the sound quality I’ll keep it short.

I mainly use my ZH3 as a desk setup, and either the Hiby R4 or Snowsky Disc as my main DAPs.

TLDR

Super nice design and size, let down by the sound quality.

DESIGN & BUILD

The build quality of device is fantastic. Full metal case, really nicely made with signature Fosi orange for the power button.

The jog wheel is a mechanical rather than capacitive, with a central click button. While it functions fine, it feels a bit gritty when rotating, so not as smooth as I was expecting.

UI & UX

The screen is pretty low resolution, but it is super bright. Navigation is basic but quick to do what you want and navigate, and with the on brand orange highlights.

So it’s basic but does the job fine.

There are a couple of REALLY annoying things though.

Browsing by artists lists them alphabetically as you would expect. But browsing by file/folder it doesn’t organise them alphabetically, so it’s a bit of a nightmare to find things, and then tracks in folders aren’t listed in track order, even if the file names start with the number.

As I mainly use my daps by folder this is really annoying.

The next one is the fact the screen times out really quickly, but to unlock it you need to rotate the dial to fill up the time on the lock screen orange. Fun little detail the first time you do it, but then it gets annoying as it takes about ten rotations finally unlock it! And there doesn’t seem to be an option in the settings to alter this.

SOUND

This is where it really falls down for me. For price comparison I’ll inly compare it to the Snowsky Disc.

In short it sounds pretty rough and lifeless.

I listen to flacs, mainly a lot of electrosoul, neuronfunk, dnb, jazzy electro and glitch hop etc. So I’m a massive bass head, and mainly use 7hz Diablos as my main IEMs.

In short it’s seriously lacking in bass and low end. Seperation and detail just aren’t there either. The only way I can really explain the sound - in a completely untechnical way - is ‘crunchy’ 🤣 It all just sounds a bit of a compressed mess, and almost like you’re listening to to super low res files, to the point it’s almost a bit distorted.

Basically I was expecting a lot more from Fosi, but sounds like your bargain basement cheap £20 ali express mp3 players.

The built in EQ modes also all sound shite - and there’s no custom EQ to try and tweak it.

CONCLUSION

In short, it’s a really nicely made case and gadget, let down massively by the sound quality and a few little ux quirks.

For the money the Snowsky Disc blows it out of the water, and so does my phone even dongleless. Such a shame as I’m a huge fan of the brand, and the product design side is great.

If you’re not bothered about low end you might like it, but for me it’s sadly a miss.

Hello, sorry for what might be a silly question, but I’d like to know if it’s possible to see the time on the HiFi Walker H2 without having to rockbox

Sonix Player ported to the Tempotec Variations V1 isn't talked about enough! It absolutely rocks! I also love the continuous refinement that the dev is making, chef's kiss.

I really like this trend and I think this community should make theirs.

Use https://www.my9albums.com/ to make your own poster for free. It's a fun way to kill some time.

I recently received a Shanling Q2 and followed the instructions to load the Q2 Pod modification.

All went well and the installation appears correct as the home screen show Q2 Pod on it.

My issue is that I am unable to use the wheel to scroll.

I am at a loss as to my next step.

Should I restore my device to factory settings and retry?

Assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Heads up for anyone interested in the Surfans f20 pro+, not sure the quality of them but free pair of iems

I wanted to be able to sync my entire music library from my Jellyfin server to an offline library available locally on my DAP's SD card, in the most simple way I could think of, so I created FinSync - I did this for my own personal use case, but i'm happy if other people can use and enjoy it as well.

JellyTunes does something similar from a computer. FinSync runs on the player itself, so there's no card reader.

It copies your music library from Jellyfin to a folder on your device as normal files, with covers, lyrics and playlists. After the first sync, it keeps the folder up to date. It only removes files it added, and it reuses music that's already on the card instead of downloading it again.

It runs on Android 8.0 and up (phones and Android DAPs). Free and open source.

It's in beta and I'd like a few people to test it on different devices if possible.

Beta (Google Play or APK): https://3eye3y3.github.io/finsync-site/beta

Source: https://github.com/3EYE3Y3/finsync

So I have a FiiO M21 arriving this week. I don’t think I’ll have any issues getting my music on there and enjoying it as a music device.

Apart from listening to music, I’m an avid reader. Right now I have a Kindle Scribe that I read on at home and I use the Kindle app on my IPhone. I don’t think it would be a problem to download the kindle app on the M21 and use that instead of phone. What I’m also looking to do is find an android epub reader that I could use on the M21 to read on and then plug my headphones in and have it read the book to me like an audio book.

I’m not sure how well the offline mode in some of these android epub readers works as I would guess most people use them on their phone and have some sort or cloud ai integration to help with that. Does anyone else use their android DAP to read on. I was looking at those xteink devices but if I can do this on their M21 it’ll save me a device to carry around.

I wanted a pretty simple thing: a small player with good sound and Bluetooth that's also comfortable for audiobooks. Something to put in my pocket and listen to music or a book without pulling out my phone with all its messages and distractions. A sort of fake digital detox 😁

I couldn't find anything that fit. Android DAPs have good audiobook apps, but they feel like a second phone, and nothing stops you from installing messengers and YouTube on them. Compact players sound good but often treat a book as just a long file. For books, playing the file isn't enough: you need to handle different audiobook formats, remember the position, switch chapters, set bookmarks and a sleep timer.

So I got the HiBy R1. About $80 (TH), Cirrus Logic CS43131, hi-res, wired and Bluetooth. The sound is fine for me. And the main thing: there'sSonix Player, an open alternative firmware by Jepl4r, which already had audiobook basics (bookmarks, speed, embedded chapters, books as folders). The hardware was already good, the missing bits I could add myself.

I forked it and, together with Codex and Claude Code, adapted the player to how I listen:

• Chapters: title and number on Now Playing, prev/next chapter buttons, physical buttons can be remapped to chapter skip
• Speed per book (0.5–2×), remembered separately for each book
• Separate EQ preset for books; your music settings come back when you switch to music
• Whole-book progress and time left, counted at the current speed
• Rewind after a break (optional): the player goes back a bit so you remember the context, longer pause = longer rewind
• Sleep timer with quick presets and a 20-second fade-out; resume starts from where the fade began
• Undo an accidental jump: skipped to another chapter or tapped the progress bar by mistake? One tap back to where you were
• Bookmarks: tap to save, hold to open the list

All of this also works with books that are just a folder of audio files.

Had to fix some bugs on the way. The most important one: losing the position on some book switches and library rescans. For a book like The Lord of the Rings that matters more than any button. Also fixed books being marked finished before the last words, Cyrillic grouping and ID3 chapter titles.

A word on how it's built. (Maybe I will do a separate post about my ai-brain). I've spent a lot of time working out the process itself: I set the task and the acceptance criteria, a strong model does the design, subagents implement it test-first, and the changes are cross-reviewed by models from different vendors. Then I try the build on the device and either accept it or send it back. I'm in the loop at both ends: what gets built and whether it's done. The audiobook logic has its own regression tests that run in CI.

Install (HiBy R1 only)

1. Download r1.upt from the release: https://github.com/vetka925/sonix-player-audiobooks/releases/latest
2. Back up your card (including hidden folders), charge above 30%
3. Put r1.upt in the root of the microSD
4. Sonix: Settings → System → Update firmware → From SD card (on stock firmware use its SD-card update)

https://github.com/vetka925/sonix-player-audiobooks

Notes: it's unofficial firmware, flash at your own risk. Tested on my own R1; R3 Pro II isn't tested and there's no image for it. The built-in updater still points to original Sonix, so updates for this fork go via SD card. Screenshots are from the desktop simulator at the R1's 480×800 with sample books. Not affiliated with HiBy.

Big thanks to Jepl4r and the Sonix contributors: they built the base I could adapt for myself.

This is one of those projects I can now do alongside my job without giving up all my evenings and weekends. I notice something inconvenient, discuss the idea with the agents, then try the result. Sometimes I have to go back and fix it. But there's a lot less between "would be nice" and a working feature now.

If you also want a small player for music and books, maybe this will be useful. Feedback and bug reports are welcome, especially if you try it on your own audiobook library.

Hi all,

I’m in the market for a kid friendly dap for my kids (10 and 7). I‘m looking for a unit that does audiobooks well. Right now they use fire tablets and I want to remove the screen time.

I would really appreciate any insight you might have.

Any other accessories you could recommend for this?

I have been spending the past few months with my Surfans F20 and here are some of my quick takes , real world impressions on this lil' iPod-like retro DAP.

The price, $100 for a Hifi player is still a reason why its an absolute classic in the budget community. The audio output is way cleaner than it has any right to be, making my local FLAC tracks effortlessly handled.

Unexpected bonus: It can be used as an external USB DAC for my PC and laptop. Eureka! 🎧

Actually, the main reason i still daily drive my Surfans F20 is the form factor. It has this gorgeous click/wheel-button layout, giving you that retro feel. It's actually really easy to pocket and a lot smaller than my phone. Convenience of carrying it outside was superb, its just like carrying an old PSP or iPod.

Im a GenA, so the only devices with million physical buttons i can tolerate are console controllers and Joy-Cons, Haha. The F20 really strike that sweet spot between retro and modern.

The design is just so good! Happy with this one.

Any other accessory recos please?