Audiophile brand Moondrop teases its first smartphone, the MIAD 01 - GSMArena.com news

sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al to Android@lemdro.id – 77 points –
Audiophile brand Moondrop teases its first smartphone, the MIAD 01
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I'm loving the look of this thing, but "audiophile brand" just screams "overpriced as fuck" to me. Time will tell I suppose.

Moondrop generally is great value and fairly affordable as well as having some of the more famous audiophile IEMs.

Just ordered a pair of wired in-ear headphone from their website for like 15 USD with free worldwide shipping and they sound amazing.

While they have products in the thousands, most their headphones cost under 100 AFAIK

Of course regardless the phone will be 100% overpriced.

I bought their $20 tws recently and it's not bad for the price. They're more like budget audiophile brands.

I mean it's 350 usd so it's a mid-range phone but the specs are decent enough imo.

Sadly, it'll be over priced.

How do you figure? Moondrop IEMs are generally great value.

They're gonna want to recoup all their investment as fast as possible. And, with the typical pricing of "audiophile" players being fairly steep, having one that's also a phone in function, the only way to do that is to price higher than they can their other products.

I could be wrong in that prediction, of course. But I don't see them trying to step into the phone market at the budget range.

Fair enough, very valid points, especially since this is unlikely to be (completely) a rebranded generic aliexpress phone. And to be fair some digital audio players cost an insane buck (see FiiO M series), so if this is kind of a middle ground, the price could be steep.

And to be fair they did put out an astronomically proced keyboard with a dac inside that had PCB drift issues.

Mmm I'll keep my DAP and phone separate thanks. Edit: Just to add to my point I think it could be the worst of both. Noisy DAC because of 'GSM modem', poor phone due to older version of Android, lack of updates, average camera etc. I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

This is exactly the kind of phone I want, I don't understand why there isn't higher demand for audio phones like there is for camera phones. I also want to see the introduction of DACs to more smartphones and/or earbuds as that technology continues to scale down. But idk, checking the website (and understanding that it's the non primary language site) doesn't fill me with hope.

Because the vast majority of people don't care or just can't hear the difference. Camera's are much more tangible.

Yeah and this is where I'm willing to admit I'm a weirdo. But like I don't need pictures of myself, or my food, or the fireworks. If I can see the detail in question for a funny thing I stumbled upon, then the camera is good enough for me. I certainly don't need 8 different kinds of camera in my phone.

I thought LG were going to corner the market on audio phones and then they just withdrew. I hope Moondrop can step up.

I don't understand why there isn't higher demand for audio phones like there is for camera phones.

I agree that there should be demand for a large enough niche audience, but it won't be even near the same demand as for good cameras.

For most people smartphone are their primary and usually only camera. And there are plenty of situations where you want to take a nice picture or video.

With audio the trend nowadays is wireless for the vast majority of people. And for that a build in DAC doesn't really help at all.

Yeah not a massive fan of the wireless trend, but I do get it's convenience. Which is why I think DACs should be making their way to earbuds near you.

A phone with a Moondrop DAC/AMP inside? Now I’m interested in this.

I feel like I'm out of the loop, are Moondrop famous?

They make some of the best portable DAC/AMPS out there, they also have some really good IEM's.

Oh shit, so this could actually be a real international thing then?

Yeah, I've actually wanted what they are doing for the last 3 years. Although if the phone last is shit, I will not go suffer to have a Dac in my phone (Also I want PEQ in it like if a moon drop employee would pass on here to read that lol)

Could be the kick I need to switch teams to android again.

This could be interesting, wonder if it will be china market only

Moondrop has a lot of sellers. I bought one of their entry IEMs with free shipping, came pretty fast despite being a very hot new release. That said i can't tell you from which retailer anymore (maybe even moondrop themselves?)(actually, i dont think you can buy from them, think i bought from shenzhenaudio), they are collecting dust somewhere (I just can't get on board with the form factor, over-ear/on-ear all day, everyday).