I just got my new T8. I haven't installed yet. I am a bit concerned about the issues raised in this review. https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/eversolo-t8-a-review-that-fizzled-out-r1382/ My primary use case is using Roon for streaming so I should be fine. But, I was looking into buying NVME SSDs and it appears there may be issues. I hope a firmware update can fix them. It would be helpful if Zidoo could post a response to this review and how these things could be mitigated in the future.
Another thing that he did not mention in the review is that the T8 cannot support multichannel audio.
I wasn't expecting multi channel support. I have a roon server and can output mutli channel via HDMI.
In all honesty, most issues that are raised in the review are Eversolo generic, and not T8 specific (with exception of the SFP topic) ... The stalling of file transfers also happens on A6 and A8, and I so far mitigated those by doing bulk transfers to the SSD via USB, and limit myself to only smaller incremental updates over LAN. Not very elegant, but still workable. And yes, Eversolo needs to find a way to solve this, for all players, no just the T8. Dito for the library sort & search issues ... Eversolo generic ... yep ... The automatic library updates on the T8 however should work, The T8 has the same OS and functionality as most other Eversolo players, but similar to those, this feature is not enabled by default. This should be accessable in the library settings. The room measurement function indeed seems to be hit and miss, but again I consider that an Eversolo generic issue and not limited to the T8. I am not using that however as I only use the T8 for head-fi purposes. The reviewer does signal that most issues are software related, but maybe it would be an idea for the reviewer to make that nuance a little stronger? After all while Eversolo still suffers from some degree of rough edges in its overall software, one should really applaud Eversolo for their diligence in providing software updates to remediate them .... There are few hardware providers in this industry that listen to, involve and provide their users with regular updates as often as Eversolo does ... They even actively invite (more experienced) users to beta cycles and early-release programs ...
Just my 2c I believe Eversolo has almost nothing to do with the slow speed / stalling of the SMB file transfer... that is an Android thing. Unless, of course, they hook to some OS-callback to analyse the files as they are being transferred... weird though, just thinking about it gives me a headache...
Correct ... Don't forget that internal and external drives on every Android based device use the USB interface, period. Issues like this have to do with multitasking and take place in the way that datastreams are buffered: Known Causes of SMB Stalling on Android with Large Transfers 1. Inefficient SMB Libraries Most Android apps use Java-based SMB libraries like SMBj or jCIFS, which are significantly slower than native implementations. These libraries struggle with high-throughput or large-volume transfers due to: Lack of native threading optimizations Poor memory handling for large file queues Limited support for SMB2/SMB3 features 2. File-by-File Transfer Bottlenecks Many Android SMB clients (e.g. Total Commander with LAN plugin) transfer files individually, rather than batching them. This leads to: Excessive overhead per file Increased risk of timeout or memory exhaustion Freezing or stalling after ~100 files 3. Android System Constraints Android may throttle background network activity File system access (especially to USB storage) can be slow or blocked during heavy I/O Some devices disconnect or go “offline” mid-transfer due to system watchdogs or power-saving features This is why I always bulk transfers to an SSD by directly connecting the drive to my Windows laptop. The incremental updates are fine via SMB. I know it's tedious but it is the most reliable way.
The bits about the Java implementations of the SMB protocol gave me bumps... How can you possibly use Java for SMB?!?!?? Use a decent high-layer wrapper to the native library, give it the file-list, and hook to the progress-callback (if any, I would implement one, were I to do the things...) Android has disappointed me once more.
Thanks for the detailed write up, was wondering if the bulk copy speed could be increased but this makes sense now. While it took 48 hours to copy 1TB+ of music over, my T8 didn't fail or stop on the first try. Once fully copied, the copy rate isn't as terrible when just copying new material to toe device. I suppose it really matters if you use this as a mesic server vs a streamer...I want it for both so it meets my needs for the time being.
Check this: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/eversolo-t8-followup-r1403/ It seems like Eversolo has fixed these bugs.
And not to forget kudos to the Audiophilestyle reviewer for revisting his earlier review and provide a fair update to it ...
