âŠAnd when Papa Carlo got bored and lonely, he carved himself a player out of wood. Iâll call you, Colorfly C4 Pro! The protagonist of our review is not a newcomer in the world of portable audio. It saw the light of day back in 2011. With its design a la steampunk and sound quality it has quickly earned the sympathy of music lovers all over the world. Generally speaking, at that time the choice on the market for a quality Hi Fi portable was not as great as it is today. However, of all the âtopsâ of the time, the C4pro is the only one that has survived the years without undergoing any changes.
Package and Appearance
It comes in a cardboard box. Inside are two more black boxes. In the first one we placed a charger, and in the second one, which is much nicer, we placed the player itself, cables, warranty documents, instruction and a leather case to store our beautiful musician.
The C4 Pro looks very cool. Of course, no arguments about taste but personally I liked the look of it very much, a solid contraption.
The device is quite large and weighty, made of a solid walnut bar, with a carved Colorfly logo on the back. The player has a front panel made of brass. At the top of the front panel is a 320Ă240 TFT screen. The control keys and volume slider are under the screen. Controls seem to be simple, but with its own nuances.
Central button is responsible for turning on/off the player and the track. On both sides of the central button are square, intersecting âjoystick-keysâ. They switch tracks forward/backward and return to the main menu.
The volume control has a very smooth stroke, which is good and bad at the same time, depending on where the unit is. In your jacket pocket you can accidentally snag this light-hearted slider and play it âour wayâ to deafen yourselfâŠ
On the left side of the controls is a small toggle switch, switches the EQ modes and sampling rates of digital audio. On the bottom face of the player there are two headphone outputs 6.3 and 3.5 mm, a slot for micro SD memory cards, mini-USB jack, to synchronize with PC and charging the device, and two RCA jacks, the first â digital input, the second â digital output coaxial .
The menu is pretty ascetic and simple: select playback mode, sample rate, switch between digital filter modes Fast Attenuation Slow Attenuation , brightness and turn off time display, information about the system, language selection incidentally, the menu is russified and on off S PDIF. Switching the digital filter works similarly to the QLS QA360 fast and slow . In Fast Attenuation mode, the sound is a little bit sharper, and in Slow Attenuation mode, a little softer.
To be honest, the control did not seem very convenient to me. No problems at home, but things are different while travelling⊠Imagine you put your hand in your pocket to switch the track. And there are all sorts of buttons there â you canât feel a thing, you just caught the volume slider and got in your ears..
Sound
For listening these headphones were used: Etymotic ER-4p, Westone UM3X, Ortofon e-q7, MyST Nail2, Audio-Technica ATH-SX1a.
The unit has two headphone jacks, the first 6.3 mm, the second 3.5 mm. During the listening it turned out that they are different in sound. Either because of the different output impedance as in the case of the ihifi 770 , or for some other reason, but it is. The sound from the 6.3 mm output sounded more interesting to me, so I used it for the main listening.
C4pro sound is close to neutral. The pitch is clear, melodic, âlightâ, so to speak. The virtual stage is pretty wide. Very good detail and elaboration of the instruments. The low-frequency range is a little lightweight, so in some songs it can lack bass. The middle part is clear enough. Each instrument is clearly delineated in space.
The pitch of the player is very musical. But this is also not without flaws. The upper middle part is not free of sibilants. There is a strong whistling-squeaking sound on some tracks. The treble is clean, but a little crumbly. Some grittiness roughness in his sound. However, these small problems can be solved by the selection of headphones. Iâd recommend a set with darker sound, with slightly rising bass.
In general, I liked the C4pro. This is one cool piece of equipment!
Conclusions
In terms of sound, despite some shortcomings, the device was very musical. For fans of pure, analytical sound, it is definitely a godsend. The appearance, from my point of view, very stylish. The price for today, because of the furious ruble, of course, is great. But letâs hope that things will settle down and the price will be more humane.
Sound, appearance, build quality, support for many modern formats, the ability to work as a DAC.
Dimensions, not everyone will be to the taste âlightweightâ presentation of sound, price.
Thank you online store Mycroft.su for the equipment provided
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Technical characteristics of the device
The set is based on the DAC chip CS4398 from Cirrus Logic, supporting up to 24 bits/192 kHz.
Playable Frequency Range: 20-20000 Hz
Harmonic Distortion: 0.001%
Dynamic range: 110dB
Output power: 1500 mW
Supported Audio Format: MP3, WMA, FLAC, APE, WAV up to 192kHz/24bit
Internal memory: 32 GB
Supports memory cards: microSD
Screen: Amoled
Materials: Wood, metal brass
Battery: Li-ion
Battery charging: miniUSB
Running time: 5 hours.
Outputs: 6.3mm, 3.5mm headphone, coaxial
Input: coaxial
Size: 72x124x20mm
Weight: 259 gr
How does the Colousaly C4 Pro audio player enhance the audio quality to the point where even a walnut tree would sound amazing?