Shozy Alien HiFi Portable Music Player: Where Hi-Fi meets simplicity
When In Manila, there are a ton of new Hi-Fi portable music players that have been churning out from different audiophile companies this year and the past year. All of these new portable Hi-Fi players aiming at giving their best Hi-Fi audiophile quality sound for different audiences. From those looking for a budget friendly Hi-Fi quality sounding player, to those who don’t care about budget at all. Even to those who seek to be able to play DSD files that are truly High Fidelity quality music files in a portable Hi-Fi music player. The seek for Hi-Fi audiophile quality sound in a portable music player goes on and on and on. The era of the iPod has now gone defunct, and one of their iconic products was the iPod Shuffle. It was no Hi-Fi player, it was pretty much just a standard player playing standard quality, but it was still pretty good sounding compared to the other Apple music products. It was iconic for its aimed use and capability in reproducing music, something that a lot of Hi-Fi audiophile players have gone far against and have not been catered to by these audiophile companies. Recently though, Shozy, a Hong Kong based audiophile company that builds portable amplifiers, has created a wonderful beast of a player in such a thin and small footprint! The Shozy Alien.
The Shozy Alien, well, let me mention how the name sits fittingly well. The design is very futuristic and yeah, “Alien”-like. Not a bad thing though since it gives somehow of a cool look compared to some Chinese audiophile brands’ audiophile players that looks pretty much bland and feels cheap even with their sky-rocketing prices. Let’s get on with the review itself:
Build/Packaging: Packaging is similar to an Apple iPod Touch, plastic enclosure with some subtle accessories under. The Shozy Alien comes with a USB cable for charging and that’s pretty much it. Even with the packaging being just average, you’d know you’re paying premium for the Shozy Alien itself. The player stands out from the packaging and immediately feels sturdy and premium. The Shozy Alien though, feels like you could peel an apple with some effort due to the slightly edged metal sides. Great build quality though, very sturdy feeling metal body and the metal body doesn’t feel like it could dent quickly. My only gripe with the build is the function buttons. The middle button that is used to turn the player on and off with one press, can easily be accidentally pressed when searching for your music. It would have been better with it slightly sunk down or if it were to function with a longer press. The search and volume button is leveled with the Shozy Alien‘s face, makes it a little difficult to press as well and it being embossed a little would greatly help. These things I have mentioned are being addressed though as we speak. Lightning fast reaction of Shozy to what people say about their products!
Functionality/Sound Quality: The Shozy Alien functions similar to an iPod Shuffle were you just seek your music through forward and back buttons, with only folder searching by longer presses being the difference. So here we go with the sound quality; The AK100 and AK120 by Astell & Kern were such big impacts into portable audiophile set-ups. When the Astell & Kern Ak100 came out with that intuitive touch screen design and OS, other audiophile manufacturers were hard on work to create something that could rival the AK100 and the upcoming AK series that it came out with. iBasso successfully brought out the DX50 and DX90 line and easily caught-up with the AK line. Now, the consumer aspect of audiophiles surely has a niche for those on-the-go going extremely portable. This is where I see the Shozy Alien hitting at with its screenless hifi player. It may seem like a shuffle type player, and one may not expect a big deal out of it. But me and some other audiophile friends swear by how it paces the AK120 in the sound quality department. Yes, THE AK120. Now you would easily question how for sure, I did too. The Shozy Alien has no read and write with its Micro SD slot and circuitry, also, it has no screen. These were all intended to create a very clean circuitry throughout the internal board of the Shozy Alien, putting sound quality and sound quality alone as the highlight. The Shozy Alien fits audiophiles on-the-go and also for those who are hardcore for sound quality alone, setting aside functionality. The sound quality of the Shozy Alien if summarized; details are very accurate, spacious and airy, punchy, very smooth. Comparing it to the AK120 Titan though, the AK120 Titan has slightly more micro details, but overall, the Shozy Alien wins in the sound quality department. It is very clean, fun, and engaging. Treble roll-off is noticeable around the 6k mark. Nonetheless, the Shozy Alien is amazingly good hands-down! Beating the AK120 Titan which is way more much expensive on sound quality really is mind blowing! I ran the Shozy Alien with the triple driver hybrid in-earย A83 from Fidue, and also using my personal AAW W300AR triple driver hybrid custom in-ear monitors, I can conclude that the Shozy Alien is perfect for custom in-ear monitors as it has the resolution, punch, body and smoothness to bring out the best in CIEMs. To be honest, I had to match at least a FiiO E11K amp with my iBasso DX50 for it to be as enjoyable as the Shozy Alien. The Shozy Alien easily trumps my iBasso DX50 ampless. Soundstage is much much wider with good depth and better 3D imaging, while having a well rounded body in the lower mids. Personally though, I still choose my iBasso DX50 and just ad an amp to it to satisfy my audio cravings over the eargasmic unamped Shozy Alien due to my personal need of a screen.
Overall: With the Shozy Alien besting the AK120 Titan on sound quality alone and having a very durable metal body, the Shozy Alien is perfect and very highly recommended for those who look for hifi grade music on-the-go, and also for hardcore audiophiles who don’t care much about having a screen and functionality. Having a sound quality that bests other audiophile DAPs with prices much much much higher than its own, the Shozy Alien is really is something. Match this with amazing audience reception feedback, other audiophile companies should be warned of what Shozy could bring into the audiophile/hifi grade market. The Shozy Alien retails for around Php8,000-Php9,000 and can be bought locally through Polaris Audio Design. Check their Facebook page on how to purchase locally, or through the Shozy Hong Kong main website below.
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Shozy Alien HiFi Portable Music Player: Where Hi-Fi meets simplicity