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

Torq's impressions have me thinking of exchanging my Mojo for the Fiio, as according to him the they are about in the same ballpark SQ wise.
I would now in hindsight prefer something that is more portable than the Mojo and phone and since I plan to use these mostly with IEMS or easy to drive phones (CAL!, Nighthawk, etc). The phone I always get click and pops, so kind of defeats the whole purpose, ugh.

How well does the X5III works as an DNLA device? My home network consist of a Daphile server box that streams music to various Pi's and squeezeboxes around the house. I have been using Squeezeplayer on my Note 4 to play directly from the server, so I assume that is is possible on the Fiio too?

Is there any rugged cases ( similar to wallet cases for phones) available for this player?

 

I should probably just start a thread of that nature myself and then ask the mods to move the relevant posts over, and then I'll edit them to have proper continuity (since some are intermingled with my general X5iii babble).

 

I've not tried using it as a DLNA player, so I can't comment on it specifically except to say that I don't see why it would present any special issues. The only real variable there, provided the software itself works (which it should), is the WiFi performance. I've not tried measuring that directly with any of the Android network-speed-test apps, but it'll stream TIDAL directly without any real concerns.

No idea on cases - mine will generally run naked as I don't like adding bulk to stuff I'm carrying. At most I'd use the basic leather case that was in the box which, combined with the pre-applied glass screen protector, is probably sufficient to keep it pristine in the event of a fall (it's quite a sturdy little bastard compared to, say, the DP-X1).

 

Bloody engineers ...

I'll add the thread for the tool commentary and get the break out bits for that organized when I post the updates for the next version (unless one of the mods just wants to do that ahead of time, but I figure I can save them a bit of work there).

 

@Torq . Quick impressions question. How do you find the dynamics on the X5 compared with the DFR of Mojo?
Have any of the members with measuring gear showed and interest? Would be nice to see how this performs on the bench too.

 

The X5iii is better than both of them in terms of dynamics ... both macro and micro. At least with the transducers I've tried it with. Mojo should play louder, so you'd get at least the perception of better macro dynamics there, potentially, but in real terms it'd just be louder.

 

Anyone looking at the X5iii in a role where it will need to operate as a transport feeding another DAC or as a USB DAC from your computer very definitely needs to hold off on buying one until FiiO come up with firmware that fixes those functions properly. As of right now, it's iffy on the USB DAC front and still limited to 24/96 as a transport.

Depressingly, FiiO's updates and communication on this unit have slowed to a significant degree. No word on the next firmware update in the last week or so (apparently there's a beta, but it's not made it to RTM yet, nor is there word on which issues it fixes).

As ever, don't buy on futures ... wait until it does what you need (or be sure about your return policies and dates).

Still enjoying mine, but I'm using it in specific circumstances ... and one of those got usurped by me switching my main player to the higher-capacity WM1Z.

 

I was disappointed to discover it only has 32 GB of onboard memory, which means you pretty much have to rely on the SD cards to provide the bulk of your storage. The ZX2 has 128 GB (minus the size of the OS and apps), which is the size of the cards I currently use, so to me that's like using two ~128 GB cards. But then I also don't try to put my entire library on a DAP because even with two 256 GB cards I wouldn't be able to fit everything I have.

 

It does, and you do, but it does have two slots, so can mount more storage than the Sony units; seems reasonable enough for something that costs a third what the Sony units do. For the three grand that the WM1Z costs (not that paid anything like that) it should come with 1 TB as standard (we're not talking the same class of flash you'd find in a top-flight SSD here after all).

I don't either ... but even my paired-down travel library* still requires more space than I can fit in any current DAP excepting the Lotoo Paw Gold, Calyx M and the upcoming A&K KAAN. As it is I have my classical travel-library stuff broken out in to a separate pair of microSD cards, and I piss and moan every time I have to switch one in on and wait for the f'ing indexing to run (regardless of which player we're talking about).

--

*No one makes a full-sized spinning-rust drive that'll house my entire library without requiring at least two, maybe three, of them, and that's touch and go even today.

 

I have a few bedrock albums that never change (unless I get a superior mastering), and then the rest I swap in and out as my whims dictate. It's usually just adding an artist here and deleting a few albums to cover the space. I also don't travel too much for work so it's not vital that I have more than about 256 GB of music on my player.

 

Geek Wave is supposed to come with a mSATA slot, which would be pretty amazing capacity wise for a DAP.

 

That would be wonderful.

Let me know when they're on Amazon for same-lifetime delivery.

 

@Torq Just one question, can you please tell me how is hiss on iBasso DX200 in comparison to Sony WM1A? Thank you

 

At least using the Shure SE846 and Empire Ears Zeus R, the Sony WM1A (and Z) exhibits less hiss than the iBasso DX200.

 

Thank you, great news! I hear some slight hiss on DX200, so now I'm 100% set on WM1A

 

FiiO just released updated firmware for the X5iii, and you can find the upgrade instructions for that here. The unit will prompt you to do an OTA update after a little bit, which is entirely straightforward though typically takes between 1 and 2 million years to download due to FiiO's apparent use of a 286 as their fileserver.

The new version is, as expected, v1.1.5.

Some thoughts on that update when I've had a chance to play around with it properly.

 

Firmware v1.1.5 hasn't definitively changed/fixed any issue I was encountering ... at least that I can determine (I didn't go on a detailed bug-hunt). The unit still does weird, random, often unreproducible things. Most of these are navigational. Library scanning seems to have gotten better, at the cost of being much more sporadic in terms of scanning speed (and as a result it's a little slower now than it used to be). Use as a transport still appears to be limited to 24/96 output. I've not tested it myself, but I've heard that the 2nd card slot now shows up in the appropriate Android storage enumeration and is visible to third-party players now.

So, software-wise it's serviceable ... which I'd have said at launch too ... but it often still feels like it's in beta when you compared it to something like the WM1A/Z. Outright crashes have become less frequent from their, already, not-very-frequent occurrences.

Still think it's rather good in terms of sound and capability as a DAP for the price, but if it was my primary player I might run into more issues or find bigger points of frustration with it.

 

FiiO X5iii w/ Campfire Audio Andromeda - Quick Initial Impressions:

Thanks to @aufmerksam, who was kind enough to send me his CA Andromeda to listen to, I've managed to get a few hours in today listening to those via the X5iii. This was something that seemed to be of interest to quite a few people (@aufmerksam and @gixxerwimp at a minimum). While I will be posting much more thorough overall impressions of the Andromeda vs. some of the other IEMs I have on hand at the moment (tia Fourté, U18, W900, Zeus R, Andromeda, SE846), that'll probably go in the main Andromeda thread.

For now, I'm going to post my initial thoughts on the Andromeda/X5iii pairing here, and I'll expand on those as I get more time with them:

I've been experimenting with several configurations here, SE 3.5mm direct to the Andromeda, BAL 2.5mm direct to the Andromeda, and then both configurations using a production iEMatch unit (with the necessary adapter for balanced use, since it's a 3.5mm-only device).

Let's talk about hiss, first.

This is my first experience with the Andromeda and I was expecting them to be very hiss-prone based on the reading I'd done. They're not much different in that respect to the SE846, but they're not any better. Directly out of the X5iii's SE output, hiss is immediately noticeable. It's not intrusive, but you'll hear it in silent passages, between tracks and in longer, very soft, sections of music. It won't intrude over any tape hiss or other recording noise in this case, but it's not an absolute void.

Switch to using the BAL output directly and hiss might become intrusive for you. I'm quite sensitive to it (not in the sense that it bothers me, but I hear it at very low levels which tends to emphasized how "much" of it I hear), and in this case I'd be wavering on whether it was too much. With all-electronics stuff, or where there is no recording noise, it is hard to miss in quiet passages, and is audible over the natural noise floor of the piece in some cases. I'm not sure I'd want to run the Andromeda in this mode with quite a few genres that I enjoy. We'll see how that plays out over the weekend (for reasons that I'll come back to).

If we add the iEMatch, then hiss is completely gone, even on the "High" sensitivity setting (no need for "Ultra") when coming off the SE output. It's barely audible in BAL mode ... and if you engage the "Ultra" sensitivity setting then they become completely silent there too.

Now ... on general sound ...

Detailed impressions will require more listening, so this is going to be very high level. And there are a couple of things to bear in mind ... one of which is that I've spent most of the week listening to the tia Fourté out of a WM1Z which could skew perceptions a bit, the other is that, so far, I have I found getting a proper, reliable, seal with the Andromedas to be a little challenging. I don't usually have issues here. And I'll talk more about that in an overall write-up on their sound.

Directly out of the SE output on the X5iii there's an audible bass-tilt to the Andromeda. This is, no doubt, partly down to the definitively "Velvet Sound" tuning of the X5iii's DAC which results in some additional warmth and bloom down-low, but that combined with the lowest OI here seems to lift the bass up a bit more than I really like here. I'm not really a bass head - I like well-done bass, with excellent articulation and texture, solid slam and with a nice, tight, controlled delivery. It's not obnoxious by any means, and it hasn't gotten fatiguing, but it does muddy up the bottom end some and with bass-heavy tracks becomes boomier and bloomier than I find appealing (or accurate).

Switching to the direct BAL output things improve markedly. There's still a small, but discernible, level of extra heft to the bottom end, though now it isn't intruding on anything and doesn't have the same muddying effect as in direct-SE output. Some of this is still just down to the X5iii's tuning (or, more specifically, the AKM4490's tuning). Two of the more bass-prominent tracks I use here (Trentmøller, "Chameleon" and Beyonce, "Partition") still edge into being a little "over enthusiastic" in the bottom registers but whether that's going to be too much will be a personal thing.

At this point, and it's too early to be making any definitive statements, I'd say that the tonality in BAL mode is probably the closest to neutral and would be my preference. If it were not for the added hiss you get running this way it would be fairly easy to call it and say that BAL output was the best way to run the X5iii/Andromeda.

Throwing iEMatch back into the mix, in either SE or BAL modes, well ... it fixes the hiss, as mentioned, but it also results in an obviously leaner presentation and while that suits bass-heavy stuff quite well, it's less successful with "normal" recordings. In other words, it swings things a bit too far the other way and winds up robbing the music of some of it's body.

I expect the final solution to this for me, and for those that prefer a signature closer to neutral, will be to run on direct-SE output and apply a small level of bass de-emphasis via the built-in EQ. You could, I suppose, also go with the iEMatch unit and ADD some bass emphasis the same way. But for me, at least so far, I think I'd rather use EQ to address the bass in SE mode than put up with the extra hiss from BAL mode, as the corrections required are going to be much smaller than those needed with iEMatch in place.

Lots more listening to do, and more specifics to get into ... including seeing how successfully I can level out the bottom-end bloom via EQ.

 

Thanks Torq, I'm using the Andromeda as well and noticing the hiss especially when I use the 2.5mm balanced port.

I was wondering how you got the iematch to work with a cable that has a 2.5mm plug. I thought the iematch only worked for 3.5mm to 3.5mm