Ed Selley
Hi-Fi Editor
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- Jun 26, 2003
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.....and of course in the reviews software bugs are irrelevant, hardware is everything. This is so the wrong way around as your day to day interaction is with the software.Ive been watching these and other Chinese brands (Fiio ) for ages and they all seem to follow the same basic trend,
A stellar hardware spec , let down by truly awful software riddled with bugs.
These bugs never get sorted out.
The product gets abandoned and is rarely mentioned again on the company's , usually quite poor , website.
There are better streamers for a tenth of the price that are rock solid , stable , and supported long term.
No amount of ( "premium product") hype can save this particular company at this stage.
They have yet to make a device that isnt riddled with frustrating and annoying bugs.
@andy1249 @larkone - to be fair the activity in the Zidoo Forum, advice and knowhow from members is exceptional and the Firmware count I'd say is very high - of course they fix things and software bugs, what they are, are monitored and mainly sorted, if the SOC permits. My Z1000 Pro purchased just after release has performed exceptionally and any navigational or connectivity issues I've experienced have been quickly resolved. Yes of course I'd buy Zidoo again - my above post is just about whether buying a UHD3000 or higher model is worth it in practice.
Have you tried it with an external DAC? I use UAPP installed on the Zidoo to stream TIDAL music - the quality with my DAC is quite superb. It is almost as good as playing my saved Hi-Def stuff too, which UAPP also facilitates - can't stand the Music Player v6. Hoping MP7 comes soon and that it will be available on our players and not just on the so called HiFi models.I own a Z1000 Pro and overall quite impressed with ongoing firmware updates and operation in general.
The cost of this unit for a chinese brand is ridiculous unless you have money to waste.
Also you have to remember when new players in the future are announced this will be forgotten.
All chinese brands work on the same pattern and who knows if company will be around in the future.
Does anyone remember popcorn hour? or Xtreamer?
Does the video stage support UHD and HDR and for the latter, what formats of HDR are covered?
To say it’s ‘riddled with bugs’ is just plain incorrect
Its cheaper stablemate , the neo S currently has a bug list as long as your arm , some of em are basic , its getting positively slaughtered online ....
HDR doesnt work properly
DV doesnt work properly
no m3u support
networking issues , both upnp and DLNA
no gapless playback except in the onboard player software ,
the list goes on and on and on .....
Now if this was some cheap player , you'd probably brush it off and wait for fixes , but at 1000 quid , this is just not acceptable in any way shape or form , and dropping 2.5K on a similar player is just lunacy !
Frequency of firmware updates is nothing to brag about when there is a long list of broken features on the item from the outset.
There are better performing Raspberry pi kits out there , and most people into those are better qualified than Zidoo to fix things it would seem !
Zidoo Products probably the most frequent release firmware i know.
on average one per month.
+1. It's raining updates from Zidoo which is impressive.
Its cheaper stablemate , the neo S currently has a bug list as long as your arm , some of em are basic , its getting positively slaughtered online ....
HDR doesnt work properly
DV doesnt work properly
no m3u support
networking issues , both upnp and DLNA
no gapless playback except in the onboard player software ,
the list goes on and on and on .....
Now if this was some cheap player , you'd probably brush it off and wait for fixes , but at 1000 quid , this is just not acceptable in any way shape or form , and dropping 2.5K on a similar player is just lunacy !
Frequency of firmware updates is nothing to brag about when there is a long list of broken features on the item from the outset.
There are better performing Raspberry pi kits out there , and most people into those are better qualified than Zidoo to fix things it would seem !
Have you tried it with an external DAC? I use UAPP installed on the Zidoo to stream TIDAL music - the quality with my DAC is quite superb. It is almost as good as playing my saved Hi-Def stuff too, which UAPP also facilitates - can't stand the Music Player v6. Hoping MP7 comes soon and that it will be available on our players and not just on the so called HiFi models.
No i use a rasberry pi running picoreplayer which connects to my NAS running squeezebox then hooked up to a dac. Perfect system excellent software better then all the so called network streamers and cost next to nothing.
Never understood why people spend more then £300 or so on streaming.
While your setup is great and works for you, the vast majority wouldn’t know how to do that and prefer a one box system
I own a Z1000 Pro and overall quite impressed with ongoing firmware updates and operation in general.
The cost of this unit for a chinese brand is ridiculous unless you have money to waste.
Also you have to remember when new players in the future are announced this will be forgotten.
All chinese brands work on the same pattern and who knows if company will be around in the future.
Does anyone remember popcorn hour? or Xtreamer?