Luxury & Precision LP6 Review

Luxury & Precision LP6

LP6 Lay-out

 

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As before, the volume dial on top is beautifully incorporated in the LP6’s body and the level of finish can easily be compared to that of Astell&Kern.

On the front of the player you’ll only find the screen and the left panel in this version isn’t even used at all. On the right side panel you can find the power/screen button as well as the play/pause and previous/next button. The direction of previous/next can be changed via the menu.

On the bottom of the player you have from left to right the digital output (S/PDIF out), the USB-C port for charging and DAC connection, and the MicroSD card slot. On top of the player you have from right to left the volume dial, 3.5mm Line Out, 4.4mm balanced out and 6.3mm single ended output.

LP6 Menus, Usability & Features

Just like with the L6, you can still slide/swipe up and down instead of tapping the page down/up button but that’s it. There is no quick scroll to a certain letter as you’re probably used to, but you can let the LP6 auto-slide all the way down your song list. The player boots up fast in only a few seconds but at the same time it does tend to regularly crash during use when pushing buttons. Even with the latest .7 firmware.

Btw, in case you can’t find the L&P firmware downloads, they’re here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3-oyi4PNu3pdElHQlcyNXpmdjQ

The LP6 has 3 main top menus: Music Play – Play Screen – Player Settings.

The first menu features:

  1. Directory (Internal or TF Card)
  2. All Music
  3. Artist
  4. Album
  5. My Playlist
  6. Update Media Library

Unfortunately there’s no search option integrated, something I always appreciate in a DAP. The second menu takes you straight to the now playing screen and the third Player Settings menu has these options:

  1. Play Mode
  2. EQ (11-band with pre-sets and several customization slots)
  3. Audio Output (Gain, Balance, Digital filter, Output phase, DoP SPDIF, SPDIF OUT)
  4. SPDIF IN
  5. Advanced (Display, Language, Auto shutdown, Sleep timer, USB connection mode, USB audio delay, Format, Default settings)
  6. System Info
Luxury & Precision LP6

Luxury & Precision LP6

 

Personally I don’t touch the EQ but I do prefer the “Low Latency / Slow Attenuation” filter most. At any time you can bring up a secret menu by swiping down from the top. This menu has a shortcut to: Play Mode, Gain, EQ, Digital filter, SPDIF, USB audio, Auto shutdown, Sleep timer, Lock screen, Screen brightness  and system settings. So basically pretty much everything.

The LP6 can’t be used to stream music from your network, Tidal or Spotify. You can play music from the internal memory or the SD Card. Bluetooth? Never heard of it. The LP6 can be used as USB DAC and the current firmware supports up to 96 kHz/ 16bit. A small downside of the DAC function is that the screen only shows “USB Audio” when it’s in use. So you can’t see the volume level or bitrate being fed to the LP6.

One thing that has been bugging me is that the LP6 doesn’t pause playback when you unplug the head- or earphone. Most of my other DAPs do that and if you change earphones as much as I do, it’s a bit annoying. Ok, ok, it’s a detail. But still.

So yeah, basically the LP6’s (and L6’s for that matter) User Interface & usability still is pretty much the same as it was before, apart from the fast sliding: Music before everything. The question is if they can still get away with it at this price point and with all these DAP options on the market. 

LP6 Positioning & Referencing

The great thing about Luxury & Precision is that you know they will nail the sound each and every time and with the LP6 they have managed to make it sound even better. I liked every single L&P DAP so far but to me this one together with the L6 are the best performing ones. IEMs will get loud fast on the LP6 but boy do they sound incredible. And then there’s the fact that it can power full-sized headphones to the max, without a sweat.

If you look at other top of the line DAPs, the four most mentioned models will probably be the Astell&Kern SP2000, the Hifiman R2R2000, the Lotoo PAW GOld Touch and the Sony NW-WM1Z. All of these players are cheaper than the LP6 and they basically offer more functionalities and features with a better user interface. And still there is a market for this LP6 and the LP6ti.

There are several kinds of DAP fans. There are those who want their DAP to be as cheap as possible, others want the best possible value for money and a third group only wants the best and are willing to pay for it big time.  (See the above models). Finally there’s a group of people with a big budget who only care about sound and sound alone. And that’s exactly where the LP6 (and LP6ti) fits in. Getting the best possible sound at home and on the go from a portable device.

Luxury & Precision LP6

Luxury & Precision LP6

I sound-wise called the L&P L6 the love baby of the WM1Z and the SP1000 and that DAP inherited the best of both DAPs. Now there’s the LP6, which is even better and which can handle big headphones.

LP6 – Sound General

Before going into more detail I want to say that the difference between the 4.4mm balanced and 6.3mm single ended headphone output is huge. The LP6 in balanced mode simply sounds so much more natural, fuller and effortless. During my test period I always came back to the balanced output, with both IEMs as well as full-sized headphones. The main difference are in width, depth, spaciousness, air, naturalness and ease of delivery/control. Some of you might prefer the more direct, straight-forward delivery of the single ended output however.

The first thing you’ll notice when you listen to a Luxury & Precision DAP is how natural, easy and at the same time musical they sound. With the LP6 that’s no different and you get a very realistic and musical rendering. The LP6 manages to bring out the highest level of precision, transparency, naturalness, smoothness and extension. The R2R DAC shines when it comes to detail rendering and technicalities and the amp section adds a triple layer of musical richness to it.

The LP6 shows you everything there is in the music without it ever being too much and at the same time lets you dream away because of its spot-on airiness and musicality. Dare I again say this is the ultimate DAP for music lovers that don’t want to miss out on anything? Yes, I do.

The tuning is something I would call: Musically smooth neutralness. It’s balanced, detailed and musical all-in-one.

The L&P LP6 article continues on the third page, just CLICK HERE.

4.3/5 - (73 votes)
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Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

7 Comments

  • Reply February 18, 2020

    Varun

    Its quite expensive.

    • Reply February 18, 2020

      Lieven

      It is but there’s always a market for high end products

  • Reply March 8, 2020

    Jim

    When you say free of charge, do you mean that they gift you this piece of HiFi equipment
    in exchange for reviewing it? Or do you have to return it when the review is over?

    Spent last night reading through this great Website.

    Thanks for your contribution to this wonderful hobby!

    Jim

    • Reply March 9, 2020

      Linus

      Hi Jim,
      I hope it’s okay if I chime in here.
      Your question is good, and actually raised many times in the past. I think there is some confusion about it going around.

      We do get most of the gear for free from the manufacturers for our reviews, BUT everything they send still remains their sole property. You can think of us as an external storage space for multiple manufacturers. They leave the gear with us so we can feature it in other future reviews which might be relevant. Let’s say a DAP manufacturer sends their latest product to get a full review and they don’t ask for it back just right after the review. We then use this DAP in other DAP reviews for comparisons, so the readers can get a better understanding of how product A compares to product B. The brands of course also want to know how their products fare up against the competition, so they can work on future products to make them better.

      Btw, every manufacturer can come at any time and request the samples back. No questions asked.

      Also, thanks for your nice comment. It’s always great to see people enjoy our work. 🙂

  • Reply June 17, 2020

    nicopas

    Hi, thanks for all your reviews, it’s always a pleasure to read them.

    For those very high end DAP, I am wondering how to they compare to what seems as the reference of transportable: Chord’s Hugo 2?

    Regards

  • Reply June 19, 2020

    Suraj

    Hey Lieven, Thanks for the entire review of Precision LP 6. As it is so expensive, hope one I will acquired it.

  • Reply September 10, 2020

    Harold in Italy

    Thank you for your review, but it seems incomplete. You identify several DAP’s that you state were designed for IEMs and not headphones, yet you compare the LP6 to these DAP’s with headphones only. You state that the LP6 is good with IEM’s but give no comparison. It’s like you compared apples to an orange.

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