Hippo Biscuit? Taste good with amazing sound!

Unique Music Player 

Music player had been a big hit many years ago, with the transition between music player and smartphone in current generation, tradition MP3 player seem quietly phase out of market.

Off course we have audiophile player such as from Hifiman, Colorfly or Cowon, but they never penetrate the market due to various reasons, people tend to look for convenient combination.

Thanks to Jaben loan me a product for review purpose, the Hippo Biscuit music player, which I found out it caters to a different way and market.


Specification:
*Support Audio Format : MP3, WAV
*Suitable headphone impedance : 16 ohms - 300 ohms
*Charge time : <1.5 hours (By USB)
*Play time : Around 10 hours
*Dimensions : 62.88mm x 35.7mm x 11mm
*Weight : 30g
*Memory type : External MicroSD card

You get the feel of an old school music player without any feature in it, yes it seem back to origin on the build, aluminium housing, screen-less design, no touch screen, no WiFi, no Bluetooth, no internal memory.

Hoh man, this seem pretty awkward on the design, it has the cheapest design for everything.
However, think for a logic way, Hippo intend not to compete with “Apple, Sony, Samsung”, it is pointless to be exact, these giants able to produce advancement with cheaper price, while all of them going for “technology competition”, hippo decide to go for something simple and easy.

Build Quality 

So why are they going for this kind of design?
Light weight, aluminium housing, screen-less design able to offer durability, as dropping force able to crack the vessel and  screen easily from an average height.
With exchangeable memory slot, it helps in prolong player life, as Internal memory mechanism will limit the lifespan of the music player (You player died when the Internal Memory broken), so memory card swapping helps in long lasting as well.
To keep everything simple, Hippo Biscuit is not using any complicated mechanism internally, imagine an old 60’s car compare with a high technology car, the possibility of broke down due to error i bet will be happens in the latter.


Without screen is kind of pain in the ass for music selection, as you got no idea which song is the next. However, my solution will be get a few microSD card (They are cheap anyway), label them into different genres, and put the song that you like into the card.

The supported format is quite a dandy, Mp3 for casual usage, Wave file for audiophile liking.
4 buttons for forward, backward, volume up and volume down, nice and painless, be frank I use them for my sport due to it lightweight and durable design, pretty convenient as I don’t need bring my fragile Ipod touch around.

Taste Good... How about sound quality?

So… How’s the sound compare with Ipod or other music player out there? Previously if you familiar with hippo family, they had Gumstick music player reference in the product line, competing against Apple or high price music player in the market, pushing Class A amplifier to the maximum, driving high impedance headphone without external amplifier easily.

In Biscuit, the features are not in the comparison part with Gumstick, however the sound is still on Clean and neutral side, with great dynamic on treble and bass.

I did a few song comparison between my Ipod touch and hippo biscuit, to stretch out the performance, I will go through player > Headphone directly and using high impedance headphone such as Beyerdynamic DT770pro 80ohm, DT880 250Ohm. For driving capability, Hippo biscuit able to surpass Ipod touch in term of volume and potential unleash.
From volume side, Biscuit able to generate slightly louder sound level to push up DT770pro and 880, it won by marginal improvement.
For internal amp driving capability, Hippo Biscuit won a big step ahead. It outperform Ipod touch in term of potential unleash for DT770pro and DT880.

Although it is not a 100% performance for DT770pro and DT880, but considering pure power performance in the spectrum, Biscuit able to drive out the bass decay, impact and treble extension.
For frequency dynamic wise, my vote will go to Hippo biscuit, as Ipod touch presented much flatter and less transparent in overall music progression.

Hippo Biscuit pull out the live feeling easily due to power strength on upper and lower, with more synergy on instrument impact, it helps generate more energetic in the music itself.

Final Verdict 

As a music player, Biscuit acts so well in that section, with cheap in price, it doesn’t sacrifice the sound quality, instead it throws away all the unnecessarily features, to make it as simple as possible. With the concept of pure audiophile music player in mind, they achieved and keep on going with the same directly, cater for everyone.
If you are looking at a cheap portable, great sound quality, durable design and lightweight, look no where else but Hippo biscuit =D.