FiiO X5 3rd Gen (FiiO X5iii): Stream of Consciousness Impressions & Review

So after a Spotify sync of music, the X5iii somehow took the internal memory and broke it in 2, with a new 25gb NAND FLASH partition as a result. This partition is not accessible from Spotify, so I'm stuck having to sync to SD card, which I don't want. I use Spotify to make sure I have 20-30 albums that I want to hear before buying.
Tried to read up on Android storage issues but it seems I'm stuck with a big chunk of storage that I can't use

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

I decided to order X5 3rd gen, the only problem I can see is the firmware ver 1.1.6 and related issues with Tidal.
Can I just stay on 1.1.5 and be happy or 1.1.6 is important for some other reasons? I read the details of 1.1.6 and nothing seems to be critical, I do not care about DSD. But I really want Tidal, that's,and the sound, the main reasons of upgrading from iBasso DX80.
Has anyone tried to play Tidal on 1.1.6 with any other app than Tidal streamer? like USB Audio or BubbleUPnF?

 

As things stand, WiFi connectivity keeps dropping when streaming ... about every 20-40 minutes. This problem was introduced in firmware v1.1.5 and is NOT fixed in v1.1.6. This means that if you're streaming, regardless of which client you're using, it's going to keep dropping out on you. Manual intervention is required to continue playback when this happens.

I'm not aware of other issues with Tidal, at least for streaming, at this point - but this is a pretty big one. Big enough that it renders the entire player useless to me at this point (I have better options if I'm just going to play from local storage).

Note that this worked fine in v1.1.4 - had literally NEVER dropped out on me before. Nothing else in my configuration has changed. This occurs even with the player sitting a couple of unobstructed feet from an AC-class AP and with it doing absolutely nothing else.

 

Finally I received my Fiio X5 III. I am having problems displaying album art from DNLA server (Logitech Server). How to troubleshoot?

 

Which DLNA client are you using on the X5iii?

 

I tried the Fiio App. Any better suggestions?

 

So, even with local files on the player, displaying album art has some issues. The biggest being that, after refreshing the index, or for several minutes after turning the player on (from power-off not standby), the art often doesn't show up. A few minutes later, going back to the same album (or the list) and the previously missing art shows fine. So there's clearly some caching going on there and it takes a while to build the cache (and apparently drops it and rebuilds it during power-cycles).

Try BubbleUPnP and see if it does the same thing.

 

I'm using jRiver/JRemote to stream from my server to the x5iii and it shows album art without issues so far.

 

Thank you. I will test and check what could be the problem. I am streaming from a Daphile Music server. Its shows the album art in folder mode, but in playmode its not available.

 

BubbleUPnP has no problems to display the albumart. So far also the local fines has no problem. Well, there is coming some new firmware this week apparently ( Guess Fiio has been putting all their resource to the X7II. Here is hoping that the going forward they will all have the same support. Yeah, I like this player. Thanks to Torq review.
Which filters do people prefer around here?

 

The new firmware, v.1.1.7, is up (looks like it posted a couple of days ago).

I'm morbidly curious as to whether this fixes the WiFi drop-out issue that was introduced in 1.1.5 (principally with Tidal). Would be ironic if it did, as I just sold the player (I bought it principally for streaming, and for the last two firmwares I'd not been able to use it that way).

This will also likely mark the end of my comments here as there's not much I can add now that I no longer have the player.

 

Can anyone compare the amount of hiss on this to the DP-X1? For perspective I would consider myself fairly sensitive to these issues and will be using these units primarily with two fairly sensitive IEMs (UERM and occasionally SE535) I hear zero hiss on the DP-X1. Just to be clear I only use the onkyo player on the DP-X1.

 

BTW, how's the overall software experience now? My only hesitation with this is that i don't wanna feel like i'm carrying around really bad phone#2. Especially with all the comments i'm seeing about dropped wifi and laggy interface etc.

Did 1.1.7 (or even the beta) fix the streaming issue?

 

1.1.8 Now available: http://www.fiio.net/en/story/597

 

1.1.9 has been available for around 2 weeks now: http://www.fiio.net/en/story/615, adding a balanced turbo mode (740 mW into 32 Ohms, 90mW into 300 Ohms, 13.8Vp-p peak voltage). I've ordered a 2.5mm balanced cable for my HD6XXK to give it a shot out of curiosity.

 

X5iii + HD6XX KISS on Balanced Turbo - first impressions

Firstly, a disclaimer. Although I consider myself a pretty critical listener I do occasionally doubt my impressions due to bias or a lack of experience with a wider variety of gear. My music choice is also pretty far off from what most here would listen to: lots of J-Pop and anime songs, although I have some well-recorded tracks (classical, jazz) in my rotation too. I find my impressions of gear to stay relatively consistent over time though.

Listening notes/impressions:
The Balanced Turbo mode adds more power to the balanced connection (740 mW into 32 Ohms; 13.8 Vp-p peak voltage), which previously somehow had less power than the single-ended connection. I found that Torq's notes earlier on on this thread on these driving full-size headphones on High Gain rather convincingly to hold true though: I found the X5iii to drive my HD6XX pretty well. The bass ends up sounding a bit woolly though, with a slightly hollow and crowded soundstage. Ultimately the sound lacked the clarity and refinement I find on the Magni 3: missing the better microdynamics, macrodynamics and imaging on the Magni. I did however find that the X5iii had a sort of "crispness" to the sound I enjoy and I found the Magni to have less of.

Fast-forward to today: I got my 2.5mm TRRS to 2-pin HD6x0 cable in from Venture Electronics - which I mainly chose for the relatively affordable price ($33 after shipping to Australia).

The first thing that stood out to me was the crispness of the sound, as before, but done better. Hi-hats, cymbals have an "airy" sound to them: the reverb and decay was more obvious than before. The second was that the bass was pretty tight and well-controlled, unlike my previous experience on SE. I won't make any sweeping generalisations, but the amp section on the X5iii seems to perform better under balanced mode, with what seems to be really accurate imaging to my ears.

Vocals, cymbals, hi-hats, instruments - they all seem to be located more precisely in the soundstage, whereas with the Magni 3 the localisation is more "diffuse" and the instruments each take more space in the soundstage than with the X5iii. The Magni 3 from memory seems to give vocals and instruments more weight though, perhaps being the more engaging listen on that front, with significantly more slam in the bass too.

A quick swap to the Magni 3 confirms my suspicions: the Magni 3 sounds fuller with more weight in the bass, vocals. The treble on the Magni 3 is relatively more laid back (albeit neutral). To me the X5iii seems to image better, with vocals (mainly female within my test tracks) and instruments getting a better sense of separation and less of a cramped-up soundstage. The imaging and crispiness really contributed to my overall positive experience with this combo, pairing rather well with the 6XX which still has that hint of warmth to it.

Or perhaps, using terminology I've picked up from here - the X5iii seems to have the better microdynamics while the Magni 3 seems to have the better macrodynamics, although I don't feel comfortable jumping to a conclusion just yet.

IMO being able to drive the HD6XX, some rather demanding headphones to this level makes the X5iii worth the try. For me the X5iii's sound signature (overall, also when driving IEMs) seems to be a better execution of the sound signature Fiio seemed to be going for with the Fiio A5, their portable amplifier - there's a similar sort of forwardness and crispiness in the mids and treble with the A5, but I seem to take to the X5iii's take of it better (the A5 exhibited harshness with my KISS modded 6XX which led me to the Magni 3 in the first place).

Other notes

• The overall experience wasn't as impressive with the balanced turbo mode turned off, bearing more resemblance to my initial impressions with the SE output than to the results I got with balanced turbo turned on.
• I think the "crisp" sound I keep coming back to is something inherent to the X5iii - despite some reviews pegging the X5iii as a warm DAP I find it to still have that hint of forwardness in the mids and treble. This crispness (and inherent detail) was what led me to get the X5 in the first place to pair with my ATH-IM02.

 

that turbo balanced mode is awesome.

BTW i have 2 questions about that:

1. how/why would SE end up being MORE powerful than Balanced in all respects? Pre/without turbo mode this is what the specs sheet say. I did read a fiio rep on another forum saying smthg about them not wanting a situation where SE and Balanced are so disparate that it makes one of them useless compared to the other (either balanced is TOO powerful or SE is too weak). not sure about this, def. a starting point for a "why would you?" explanation if needed but i'm still curious as to the "how" of this.
   
2. how exactly do you increase power via a software update? (does the fact that they did this lend credibility to the theory that the power on balanced output is being held back by firmware rather than maxed out as the hardware would allow?)

Didn't know that could be a thing (esp. given the above assertion that Balanced onturbo is weaker than SE), but if this is true (in my case A/Bing SE and balanced rtakes long enough between them that i can't remember enough to tell the difference) then that'd be awesome - mostly cuz i'd hate for the Balanced cable i bought to have been for nought. It's interesting that you say that cuz what i hear a lot of others say is that balanced makes no difference when u volume match, and that it actually isn't as powerful even with turbo on (the latter of which does NOT match what i'm hearing, i'm def. hearing balanced being able to drive things better with turboon than SE).

 

@TjH

1. On this I am none the wiser - I read the same forum post from their rep and am really puzzled at why that is the case. After the update with Balanced Turbo the X5iii actually has more power on tap in balanced mode than SE. As far as I know their other designs (Q1 Mark II, Q5, X7 Mark II, X3 Mark III) all seem to have higher output power in Balanced mode compared to SE, and if I didn't miss any of their products, the X5iii on Balanced Turbo seems to have the highest Balanced output power amongst their offerings.
2. My theory (and Occam's razor) would be that they probably limited the power of their balanced output at first, either for battery life or other design concern and considerations. They've seemed to have taken a similar route with their Q5, with some feature (IIRC it was Bluetooth 5.0 or something) missing at launch but coming via a software update.

As for the Balanced vs. SE argument, I didn't come in with any expectation that balanced would sound better just because of the balanced connection, but instead as a way of getting that extra power into the HD650 (which seems to love sources with good voltage swing). I still find the sound subtly better with Balanced Turbo on, with just that little bit more clarity and separation, which was a pleasant surprise which led me to pen this post.

Which brings me to a UI pain point I just noticed - changing the Gain via the Settings -> Audio settings screen from High to Low seems to turn Balanced Turbo off, but changing it via the Quick Settings panel doesn't.

 

Huh, that's curious. I assumed that switching to low gain would make the balanced turbo mode setting irrelevanent (i.e. that mode works only in high gain). Although, come to think of, there's no reason it should, I suppose.

 

Just going to add some more (mostly non-portable) subjective data points. Compared to iPhone 6 (w/ and w/o DFR), Bifrost Multibit + Magni2U, Gungnir Multibit + Freya + Cavalli LC, all running into MDPlus for now (single ended):

• iPhone 6 straight out is a bit rolled off at either end of the FR compared to X5iii (more so in bass than treble)
• iPhone 6 plus DFR over emphasizes leading edge of transients compared to X5iii (fake macrodynamics/detail)
• Bifrost Multibit + Magni2U is a little less rolled off in the treble, plus better bass heft and definition, compared to X5iii
• Gungnir Multibit + Freya (both tubed and JFET) + Cavalli LC runs circles around X5iii with regards to neutral tone, image specificity, and frequency extension and definition, at both ends of the frequency range, as well as weight/heft slam and body. Similar dark but detailed sound as the AKM DAC in the X5iii.

All that being said, I'm a relative DAP newb, and will spend some time with Andro and Noble K10u in the coming weeks, plus adding X5iii balanced to the mix).

Edit: Ok, with tuba boost/balanced: I think this has solved my existential "bass dilemma" with andro. And, surprisingly enough, with K10u, too. On andros there's plenty of oomph and extension to keep me happy. And on K10u, the x5iii does a good job keeping the slightly wooly lower midbass/upper bass from being a little too prominent. The x5iii really brings both the andro and k10u within spitting distance of each other. I'm pretty close to pulling the pin and selling off everything portable but andro and x5iii. Goal: true reference portable rig for under a kilobuck, done. B-stock andro balanced, plus used x5iii is my mic drop.