Review: Lotoo PAW Gold Touch – The Professional

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

Package:

When you order a PAW Gold Touch, you will be presented with a beautiful golden box. On the right side of the box you’ll find the barcode sticker which also tells you what version of the PGT you have. The international version has the appendix ‘(EN)’, to let you know what language is installed.

On the inside you’ll find the DAP, a User Manual (multi-language), a warranty card (Chinese) and a cleaning cloth. You will also get a leather case, two 9H tempered glass screen protectors and a braided USB C data/charging cable.

I’m glad Lotoo included these screen protectors. It’s something I wish every manufacturer would do in this price segment. Unfortunately brands like Astell&Kern don’t do that…

The case fits tight at the beginning, especially if you have one of the screen protectors applied. After some time, the leather begins to become softer and it’s easier to get the Touch out of the case.

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

Build Quality:

The body of the PAW Gold Touch is CNC’d out of a solid block of aircraft grade aluminum, and with 311g of weight, it is on the heavier side. This weight gives it a feeling of being built like a tank, which the overall design also sports.

The design of the PGT is simple and elegant. Sure, it’s not as luxurious as some of Astell&Kern’s, but the simplicity of the Touch speaks more to me than the angles and corners of the AK’s. The Touch has two small gold accents on top. Both headphone outputs (3.5mm/4.4mm) are surrounded by golden circles and the Apollo themed volume wheel to their right. These two golden flavors add a touch of excitement to the design.

On the right-hand side of the unit you will find four hardware buttons. The top is on/off and then you get the playback buttons below them. The play/pause button has an extruded dot to make it easier to recognize when you are walking around with the unit in your pocket.

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

Personally, I find it rather easy to use the Touch when I’m out. The buttons are big enough to reach easily and once you know what each button does, it’s a piece of cake.

On the bottom of the unit you have the USB C input for data transfer and charging, next to it is the SD card slot, which is covered by the only piece of plastic I could spot on the Touch.

The size of the unit is quite good, however it is thicker than your average DAP. That’s something the original PAW Gold also was known for, and the name ‘PAW’ definitely fits.

Control:

As mentioned before, the software of the PAW Gold Touch is built from the ground up and not based on Android or Linux. Lotoo uses a multi-processor architecture design, that’s split into three sub-systems – the audio, the wireless and the digital subsystem. All are handled by different processors and have their individual power supplies. This is a common technique used in HiFi for a while.

Hardware wise you have volume control on top. In the Settings menu you can chose in what direction you want to increase the volume. On the right side you have the before mentioned hardware buttons for playback control.

Let’s take a quick look at the software. At the time of writing I am using firmware version 1.1.1.0, you can download the latest software either by accessing Online-Update from the settings menu, or by downloading the file here:
http://www.lotoo.cn/en/about/support/download/

First of all, the boot-up time of the PAW Gold Touch is ridiculously fast. Within two seconds the player has finished its boot sequence, after another two to three seconds it’s ready to play. This is the fastest boot I have yet seen. What’s also very good is, that the Touch has zero lag. It doesn’t matter how big the file is you want to play, it plays instantly.

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

Lotoo PAW Gold Touch

At the very top you will find an always visible information bar. Here you can see what you currently have enabled, what output is being in use, the gain for this output as well as information about the remaining percent of battery. Depending on the settings enabled, you see more or less icons in that notification bar.

When you’re swiping down from the top corner you have quick access to a few settings, like brightness, XRC, Bluetooth, playback options (shuffle, repeat) and the gain settings of each headphone output. It’s great to see that both outputs can be set individually. However, they both use the same volume level. If you set the 3.5 output to 40, it will be valid for the 4.4 as well.

A swipe from the bottom up brings you back to the main screen, no matter where you’re starting. You can also set the Touch to activate the screen by double-tapping on it.

It continues on page three!

4.4/5 - (45 votes)
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A daytime code monkey with a passion for audio and his kids, Linus tends to look at gear with a technical approach, trying to understand why certain things sound the way they do. When there is no music around, Linus goes the extra mile and annoys the hell out of his colleagues with low level beatboxing.

11 Comments

  • Reply February 28, 2019

    Berkhan

    Great one!!

  • Reply March 10, 2019

    Steve

    Hi Linus,

    This is looking good. Any comparison between SP1000M and Plenue L?

    I currently own the former but I am also interested in PGT and the latter. I do mainly listen to pop songs and would like vocals to be a bit closer.
    It looks like PGT has a more reference sound while PL is great in smoothness and warmth. PGT should also drive my 64 N8 better than SPKM, although SPKM is doing well in transparency and emotional expression.

    Great review, thanks!

    • Reply March 10, 2019

      Linus

      Hi Steve,
      many thanks for your comment.

      The Plenue L performs really well on the balanced output, which is more neutral than the single ended. Compared to the SP1000M it’s a bit fuller and less bright up top. I find the M to be a bit too active in its treble, which can sometimes be a bit too much with brighter IEMs like the Fourté in example. With gear that could use a treble push it’s excellent, something like the EE Phantom for example.

      The N8 I find best on the PAW Gold Touch. You’re right about emotions on the M, that it does really well. The Lotoo might miss that in comparison, but it lets you build your own signature with the PEQ. 🙂

      Cheers

      • Reply March 12, 2019

        Steve

        Interesting to learn. I’ll definitely try to listen to the PGT and PL when possible.

        Thanks for the comment.

  • Reply March 10, 2019

    Lacas

    Great review.
    Please review also the Enigma Acoustics / Lotoo Dharma D200 IEM ;
    Thanks
    Lacas

    • Reply March 10, 2019

      Linus

      Hi Lacas,
      thanks a lot, much appreciated.
      Currently there are no plans for the D200 IEM. If that changes, I’ll let you know.
      Cheers

      • Reply June 16, 2019

        mark

        hi.. thought you should mention that LPGT cannot read 400gb or more microsd (with adapter) normally.
        i have 12k songs but lpgt only read 6k songs.

        Lotoo have already know this issue months ago, release 2 or 3 firmware update but didn’t kill this issue

        • Reply June 20, 2019

          Linus

          Hi Mark,
          thanks for your comment.
          Sorry for the late reply.
          That’s interesting, I haven’t tried the PGT with a 400 gig card. I’m using a 256GB card and it’s good. Too bad Lotoo hasn’t fixed that issue yet.
          I’m also still waiting for fixes I’ve told them about, but I’m confident they’ll fix them. Maybe it takes a little longer. Coding isn’t always as straight forward as one might think…
          cheers

  • Reply March 19, 2019

    Nic Chan

    Hated Chinese manufacture… just can’t stand their design and UI.

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