[Mr Trev]

   
Just completed this task, and the results were the same. I've selected a different HDtracks album that was shown to "stutter" when the problem was first identified, and it does it as well, after a complete reset as you described above.

 
Just curious, have you tried converting to a different format (alac, wav) to see if the stuttering still happens. I had some alac files that wouldn't play on my x3. When I converted to flac, problem solved.

 

[Cannikin]

   
Just curious, have you tried converting to a different format (alac, wav) to see if the stuttering still happens. I had some alac files that wouldn't play on my x3. When I converted to flac, problem solved.

 
When I bought the X5 I was very aware of the semi-compatible file format issue, so I too great care to acquire/rip or convert all my files to FLAC (the ones I already had were AIFF, which all got converted to FLAC). I thought this had circumvented the potential problems, but it seems I was being overly hopeful.
 
Please know that I am appreciative of the various tips and suggestions folks have offered. I'm sure you understand my frustration, though. Two weeks ago I would have recommended this DAP to everyone -- today, not so much

 

[blackwolf1006]

 
Did that as well -- same outcome.

 
What SD cards are you using

 

[Cannikin]

   
What SD cards are you using

Sandisk 64gb
From Amazon's headline: SanDisk Ultra 64GB MicroSDXC Class 10 UHS Memory Card Speed Up To 30MB/s

 

[Mr Trev]

   
When I bought the X5 I was very aware of the semi-compatible file format issue, so I too great care to acquire/rip or convert all my files to FLAC (the ones I already had were AIFF, which all got converted to FLAC). I thought this had circumvented the potential problems, but it seems I was being overly hopeful.
 
Please know that I am appreciative of the various tips and suggestions folks have offered. I'm sure you understand my frustration, though. Two weeks ago I would have recommended this DAP to everyone -- today, not so much

I was just wondering if your prob might be due to bad headers, corrupted downloads/transfers

 

[reihead]

With all the issues we have been reading here related to micro-SD cards, something that would help a lot to diagnose problems with the X5 would be internal memory.
 
Copy the suspect files on the internal memory, hit play, see what happens...
 
Of course this is not an option, but something to keep in mind for future products Fiio.

 

[Cannikin]

  I was just wondering if your prob might be due to bad headers, corrupted downloads/transfers

A question worth pondering, to be sure. But this is new behavior that has shown up in the past week, playing purchased high res albums that played fine ten days ago! In that time I have added precisely one new album, ripped from CD myself, and that album plays flawlessly (Ripped as AIFF and converted to FLAC) In the process of resetting the X5 to factory default, reformatting the 64gb tf card (twice), removing all cards and rebuilding the library without a card in, flashing it with a fresh fw2.0 and deleting the one new addition to my library (aforementioned home-ripped CD), the problem albums remained unplayable without the horrible stutter effect. I even moved the specific problem albums to a freshly formatted (in the X5 itself) 2gb tf card, and the album was still unplayable. Disc Utility reported no problems with either of the two tf cards used in the tests, and CleanMyDrive was used to "clean upon eject" to remove superfluous Mac OS files. 
 
So for now, I am just going to pretend the problem albums don't exist and listen to files that it can play. I'm done being frustrated for one day. Again, thank you all.

 

[JoshuaA]

I also use "Eject for Windows".

Oddly, I formatted my microSD to FAT32 with my PC using Easus and it couldn't be recognized. It became fine when I reformatted on my Mac using disk utility.

 

[dulty]

I admit it's a long shot at best, but try the same files after removing all tags and album art. There have been many cases reported where the device just doesn't like some tag or another...

 

[Cannikin]

  I admit it's a long shot at best, but try the same files after removing all tags and album art. There have been many cases reported where the device just doesn't like some tag or another...

I don't have any utility that allows me to remove tags or album art. I'm on Mac OS X, by the way.

 

[dulty]

Try this:
http://kid3.sourceforge.net/

 

[Flomet]

I don't have any utility that allows me to remove tags or album art. I'm on Mac OS X, by the way.

I second Kid3, I've been using it for a long time and it's very easy to use.

 

[Cannikin]

I second Kid3, I've been using it for a long time and it's very easy to use.

Thank you both. I will investigate that.

 

[JoshuaA]

Didn't realize they could cause a problem.
These are embedded in the files?

 

[Boh113]

  A question worth pondering, to be sure. But this is new behavior that has shown up in the past week, playing purchased high res albums that played fine ten days ago! In that time I have added precisely one new album, ripped from CD myself, and that album plays flawlessly (Ripped as AIFF and converted to FLAC) In the process of resetting the X5 to factory default, reformatting the 64gb tf card (twice), removing all cards and rebuilding the library without a card in, flashing it with a fresh fw2.0 and deleting the one new addition to my library (aforementioned home-ripped CD), the problem albums remained unplayable without the horrible stutter effect. I even moved the specific problem albums to a freshly formatted (in the X5 itself) 2gb tf card, and the album was still unplayable. Disc Utility reported no problems with either of the two tf cards used in the tests, and CleanMyDrive was used to "clean upon eject" to remove superfluous Mac OS files. 
 
So for now, I am just going to pretend the problem albums don't exist and listen to files that it can play. I'm done being frustrated for one day. Again, thank you all.

 
disclaimer: I don't have an x5, but would to purchase one in the near future and I have been folllowing this thread for awhile.
 
Ok I think it would be safe to assume that if you have done all of this and still having stuttering problems then the cards probably aren't at fault.
 
just to be clear: 
 
-not all your files are stuttering
 
-stuttering is the only problem your having??
 
So that leaves 2 possibilities: 1. your X5 is damaged and/or faulty and needs to be repaired/replaced
                                               2. the files themselves are at fault.
 
When you were moving files on and off of your card were you adding the original source files to the card or moving the file off and then back on? (I hope that made sense).