u/BluePeriod_

Basically, the title. We got a lot of regulars. Most of them are overly familiar or just plain odd. People who blow up the bathroom, sit on the floor, get overly familiar with the staff. Things like that. I feel like I’m going crazy. I wanted to know if this was common.

I’m thinking a lot about a couple of things that happened during the show because I just finished it. Something that strikes me is the layers behind the sexual assault Ruben facilitates on Niall.

Knowing what we know at the end of the show. The whole thing is just so jarring and thinking back, I think Ruben really wanted to help Niall by hiking him up with a woman BUT you can tell his notions about sex are disrupted by his own father’s sexual assaults on him.

The way he guides Niall and forces it all to work and keeps calling Niall “son” and, through his discomfort tells him and his own assault victims “Don’t worry, this will be over soon” feels a lot like what he must have experienced with his father.

It’s probably obvious, but I wanted to share this glaring nightmare.

This is a phenomenal show. I think it really highlights how fractured a person can be and how deep trauma goes. It was honest, hard to look at, and flat out genuinely scary most of the time.

Alright so I've had the Echo Nano for about a week now and I wanted to give some basic impressions of my experience so far.

Background:

※ Based in the US, ordered one before the International Version was released on AliExpress.

※ Music files are a healthy mix of FLAC, MP3 320, AAC 256 (iTunes files)

※ Headphones used Sony XM4 and basic 3.5mm Apple EarPods, car stereo via AUX. - I'm not SUPER into IEMs or anything like that but I've used them before. So while I am aware of those, these impressions will be in a vacuum limited to exactly what I've used.

※ EQ - None

※ Gain Mode: Low (High Gain mode was not necessary in my case)

※ DAC mode - Used with iPhone and iPad

※ 32GB MicroSD - formatted for use on-device.

Sound Quality

Let's start with what's most important. Even on my limited, run of the mill hardware, the sound quality is phenomenal from track to track. Extremely low noise floor. No hissing or clipping in my experience. Just even, full-bodied sound. Interestingly enough, FLACs had a slight edge when compared side by side with lesser bitrate tracks, but not so huge a difference that it's worth the space (or even potential battery) in my experience.

Volume operates on a wide scale of 0-120 with extremely precise, incremental levels. It was, at first, a little tedious scrolling up and down but I came to appreciate that it can be as quiet or as loud as you let it.

Software

UI: The software is pretty nostalgic and simple to use. You either use the scroll wheel to, well, scroll between options and menus or you can use the left and right clicker. You select option and menus using the pause button.

It's also worth noting that you have options for the scroll wheel. You can either set it for universal navigation through the menus and act as a volume wheel when music is playing OR you can turn off navigation and have it act as a volume-only option.

It's also worth noting that the software lets you lock the wheel by double tapping it so that the volume doesn't change in your pocket while moving around.

One little annoyance is that you're not able to turn Shuffle off or on while music is playing. You have to leave the now-playing menu and go into the music settings. I'd like to see that incorporated somehow. It would make for a more on-the-go experience.

Shuffle: Speaking of shuffle. It's... bad. Like most music players, it just kicks around most of the same music over and over and that's incredibly tedious and annoying. Which wouldn't be so bad if you could have proper playlists but that brings me to my next point.

Playlists: Once again a player with NO playlist support. On a device this tiny, that is really, really lacking. You'll have to do the folder trick or the genre/album trick once again. Personally, I went the folder option because I'd prefer not to jack up the metadata of my music even if it is a copy, but to each their own. Just note that even with shuffle on in that one playlist folder, the shuffle algorithm will still favor certain songs over others.

EQ: There are a few pre-set EQ settings in the menu but I wasn't exactly dazzled by any of them. Even the one I made myself felt customized but still dampened. In my preference, having the EQ off is better but I like the option to customize your own EQ.

DAC MODE: Love it. Used it on my iPhone to listen to music at my desk and the sound quality was delightfully enhanced. Having more granular control over the volume was great too. I also used it on my iPad for a movie and dialogue was much clearer. All that said, I don't imagine myself using this beyond novelty.

HARDWARE

BATTERY LIFE: I feel the need to remind that these impressions are in a vacuum and not all that scientific. Since I have a lot of music, I was excited to just throw what I have on there without further conversion. All my files worked so that was good enough for me.

Battery life has been at about 6-7 hours. Not super long, but not that disappointing for the size and quality of sound either. That said, I'm actually sort of impressed. Considering the usability and my specific use case, I'm not going to use this player beyond gym sessions and working out outdoors or cleaning around the house while disconnecting from my phone so it suits me. I think I can squeeze out more when I just convert these files to MP3 or AAC which I will do ASAP.

EDIT TO ADD: Almost forgot to mention. There is a power-saving mode on by default. If nothing is playing for something like 5 minutes, the device turns itself off.

Build Quality: No Echo Mini plastic-y switch up here. Hardware is premium and solid. I suspect it can take a beating when dropped and it look SO sleek I was worried about the scroll wheel giving out but it feels tightened in a way where I don't think that'll be a problem. But I think they took this into account too considering you can lock the wheel.

Display: Excellent display. Previous music players like this had a very dim display. This one can get really, really bright. In the Florida sun, that's a necessity.

Conclusion:

What you see and suspect is more or less what you get. It's a fairly priced DAP that, once again, punches well above its weight all things considered. Some software limitations do get in the way of a perfect experience but hey, it beats hunting down overpriced nostalgia market MP3 players from the past in most cases. I would NOT use this as a primary music player. It's strictly on the go, and I will likely take care to only put the absolute cream of the crop, listen anytime music on it. Oh and the elephant in the room. I personally don't care (but don't approve) of it missing a Bluetooth functionality. I suspect there will be a Pro model at some point. But honestly? Just... give us playlists.

Hey everyone! I use MusicBrainz Picard to fetch metadata for my music library and it works well with every music player. Even on Snowsky’s devices, when playing, the tracks look normal. But when scrolling through the song list, it lists all this information before the track name.

I was able to tolerate this on the echo mini but with the nano, the screen makes this impractical to ignore. Anyone know how I can have the songs menu just list the names of the songs without all this extra info? Thank you!

Something I’ve been thinking about lately. There are all these elaborate modifications that can be done to a system, but I have to wonder if it’s at all possible to have a Bluetooth radio built into a flashcart. To someone who has a lot more technical than I am I’m sure this sounds like a very stupid question but go easy on me. It’s just a thought that I had.