HIDIZS AP30 Music Boy Review - Cristian Plaza

Cristian Plaza came away positive after testing the pre-production AP30 Music Boy, highlighting its retro design, battery performance, lossless format support, and wired output. He also identified two software issues in the early firmware, making his video a useful look at both the AP30’s strengths and its pre-launch software experience.

Design and Controls

Plaza says the aluminum AP30 feels solid, dense, and slightly heavy. He finds its two-inch screen bright enough for outdoor use but notes that the retro-inspired body is thicker than expected and takes up additional space in a pocket.

He praises the tactile response of the front buttons. The directional pad controls navigation, while the A and B buttons are used to enter and return.

The side wheel controls volume, locking, and power. Plaza says its movement is softer than the front buttons, but its clicks remain clearly defined.

USB DAC, Bluetooth and EQ

Plaza tested the AP30 as a USB DAC with two Mac computers, a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and an iPhone 17 Pro. He reports that it worked correctly with each device and that he preferred its performance to the built-in headphone outputs on his Macs.

The AP30 also supports Bluetooth 5.3. Plaza notes that Bluetooth playback uses SBC rather than LDAC or aptX, so his review places greater emphasis on wired listening through the 3.5mm and 4.4mm outputs.

The player includes six EQ presets and a customizable four-band setting. Plaza finds that the preset labelled Normal emphasizes the bass. To obtain a flatter setting, he recommends selecting the custom EQ and leaving all four bands at zero.

Software Issues on the Review Unit

Plaza encountered two software issues during his test.
First, songs stored in the same folder did not follow their intended order, and selecting one track could start another track from that folder.

Second, some songs appeared multiple times in the music library even though only one copy existed on the microSD card.

Plaza identified two software issues while testing the pre-production unit and shared both findings with our team. At the time of recording, we were working to address them before final units reached Kickstarter backers.

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