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sbradley02 said:

Also check out the Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro
 
I always recommend that people try out a device before deciding on its sonic character. It is very dependent on what you are driving. Calling the Fiio warmer than the Hifiman seems odd to me since the X3 is ruler flat and the Hifiman is 5dB down at 20KHz which is quite a bit of attenuation and should be very noticeable.
I have not listened to either though (I have an X3 on order).

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Fiios Amps are pretty dark, that being said I expect the player might be [maybe not] Still I'm trying to get as bright as neutral as I can with my DAP choice. [Bright n Neutral without using eq's] 

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mshenay said:

Fiios Amps are pretty dark, that being said I expect the player might be [maybe not] Still I'm trying to get as bright as neutral as I can with my DAP choice. [Bright n Neutral without using eq's] 

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They aren't that dark. Depending on tastes, the more bass prone feature of it with the more bassy 'weight' it gives to a song may give it a slightly darker background, but they aren't very dark

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bowei006 said:

They aren't that dark. Depending on tastes, the more bass prone feature of it with the more bassy 'weight' it gives to a song may give it a slightly darker background, but they aren't very dark

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Well the sound stage was always smaller than other amps, so that brought the bass and mids closer to the highs. Which for some cans worked well and for others not so much. They are not DARK amps, but the are just a little south of neutral imo. Not to mention the Sound stage is not increased as much with a Fiio as with other amps. 
 
But non the less, my dt 990s desperatly want an e12. the E11 was magical for the 990s with EDM... 

How to organize X3's Categories Artist section by Album and track:

 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/651769/fiio-x3-thread-full-review-http-www-head-fi-org-t-663600-impression-fiio-x3-high-fi-low-price/3375#post_9675408
 
Credit goes to Hoichi for giving me the brainstorm of this idea.
 
READ EVERYTHING before you try. So you know what will happen to your files and do a trial first before you try your entire library. I do not hold responsibility for you not doing a trial run or messing up these instructions. As these do modify your song file names. 
 
Basically, in Categories-->Artist. When you click on an artist. The X3 organizes by numbers first then Alphabet, and then Asian characters. This means that all the albums and everything will be mixed up. All the first songs in the album will be there first followed by song 11 if there is one etc etc.
 
So how do you fix this?
 
Setup foobar and move all your music into one of its 'playlists'. 
 
Then using hoichi's instructions
 
 

 You just open your whole library in a playlist, select all (Ctrl-A), right-click on any of the selected files and choose File operations->Rename to...
It opens a dialog, where you should click on an ellipsis next to the File name pattern field and choose 

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But instead of 'whatever' as he originally stated, copy and paste the following into the field of File Name pattern:
 

%album% %tracknumber%. %title%

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This makes it so that ALL your songs will now be named by Album track number and then title
 
BEWARE! As this means your ENTIRE music library will now follow this format. This is only a problem to those that are meticulous by how their files look. Keep in mind, this only changes file name. Not anything else. So your list should still look nice and neat. Do this on a sample two or three albums and decide for yourself if you want to continue. 

 
 
As you can see, id3 tags are still there(the boxes not showing letters are because those are asian letters) and its only the file name that is different.
 
KEEP IN MIND that because the X3 scrolls uber slow, you need to abbreviate your album titles. All my album titles were abbreviated and or shortened so that I can see what song is what
 
So look at the picture above, I abbreviated all my albums to JPB, Love song, my life, earth etc etc 
 
Categories-->Artists and now I'm down to Alan
 
Entering into her artist folder, you can now see my Album 'Back(I abbreviated) followed by track number and song title. 
 
Now the album 'Back' goes into a new album called 'Earth' of which is kept in order thanks to me using Album/Track number/Track title
 
Album 'Earth' ties into JPB etc etc
 
etc etc
 
 
 
If this helped you or you like me and wish to thank me. Please use and hit the 'upvote' thumbs up button in the bottom right corner of this post and leave me a message. I'm trying to get on Head-Fi thumbs up leaderboards....so yeah. Panda says so, so you may as well do it since you read this far already.

. Post deleted. Wrong thread.

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bowei006 said:

 
 
FiiO X3 DAP Review
......
 
Actual Usability thoughts now. So what do I personally think of the X3’s UI usability as of FW 1.2? It’s ok but not perfect. As long as all your ID3 tags are done correctly, the UI’s usability is actually quite good. You go into albums or artists and bam, your stuff is exactly where you want it to be.  But that’s not always going to be easy now is it? As of 1.2, ALAC/AAC have problems with their id3 tags showing up. Meaning all your .m4a songs will be stuffed into the Unknown Album and Unknown Artist folders. But this should get fixed in a release soon...
 
......

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I have just received my X3 (firmware 1.23) and I have to say I am quite bummed that my music being in ALAC format, I can't have the unit identifying and displaying NONE of the information that comes within the files (Artist, Album, Song, Cover Illustration, Genre, etc...)
Is there any hope to address this in a near future firmware version?
 
Thank you,

Last we heard, they were working on it. This is a known issue

I recieved my fiio x3 last night.
 
Im not sure its becaise Im just using soundmagic e30s (waiting on my jh16 pros) but i cant tell that much improvement in sound quality even whilst using flacs.
 
Im hoping I can as I listen to it more.

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edyeded said:

I recieved my fiio x3 last night.
 
Im not sure its becaise Im just using soundmagic e30s (waiting on my jh16 pros) but i cant tell that much improvement in sound quality even whilst using flacs.
 
Im hoping I can as I listen to it more.

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Sound quality and what you hear is very subjective. Some may never hear it, some may hear it but don't think its worth it, and others can hear it and pay uber amounts of money for the slight improvements past each price point to get to nirvana. Depends on each person.

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bowei006 said:

Sound quality and what you hear is very subjective. Some may never hear it, some may hear it but don't think its worth it, and others can hear it and pay uber amounts of money for the slight improvements past each price point to get to nirvana. Depends on each person.

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Also depends quite a bit on the equipment used in conjunction. My X3 is supposed to arrive today.

Thanks for the review! 
May i know how good does this dap process the imaging of the songs? for example:
1. is the singer in front of me, slightly above or lower than eye level (or worse, inside me).
2. how wide and how high/low is the reproduced staging. (and if it feels too spacious or too confined)
3. how clear and how good is the positioning of instruments
and of course any more detailed explanation is accepted 
 
I do know that many other factors like the type of interconnect cable used, headphones used, the recording itself, the amp used and the dac used affects the imaging, so i just want a rough general idea of how well it can present the sound.
My current portable setup is iPhone4S with ALAC -> SPC interconnect cable -> O2 amp -> Koss PortaPro headphone. I cannot take the weak and loose imaging the phone gives, so that is why i wish to look for an upgrade over my source because my source is limiting my portable audio setup.
 
Therefore, i need to know if the x3 is going to be really worth buying, in terms of imaging quality. If the x3 can do well in my 3 expectations above, i would consider the x3.
 
Hope that they can make the x3 play gapless soon too.
 
Thank you very much again!

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accelerator01 said:

Thanks for the review! 
May i know how good does this dap process the imaging of the songs? for example:
1. is the singer in front of me, slightly above or lower than eye level (or worse, inside me).
2. how wide and how high/low is the reproduced staging. (and if it feels too spacious or too confined)
3. how clear and how good is the positioning of instruments
and of course any more detailed explanation is accepted 

 
I do know that many other factors like the type of interconnect cable used, headphones used, the recording itself, the amp used and the dac used affects the imaging, so i just want a rough general idea of how well it can present the sound.
My current portable setup is iPhone4S with ALAC -> SPC interconnect cable -> O2 amp -> Koss PortaPro headphone. I cannot take the weak and loose imaging the phone gives, so that is why i wish to look for an upgrade over my source because my source is limiting my portable audio setup.
 
Therefore, i need to know if the x3 is going to be really worth buying, in terms of imaging quality. If the x3 can do well in my 3 expectations above, i would consider the x3.
 
Hope that they can make the x3 play gapless soon too.

 
Thank you very much again!

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On average, more forward.
 
It's more confined than average.
 
Positioning is average. Mid instruments are also a bit forward, but do have some loss of speed and harshness.
 
Your interconnect cable will have little change to sound unless you have well developed ears AND with a very expensive cable.
 
Change your headphones in the first place.
 
Rule #1 of sub $500 audio. Something doesn't sound right? Change your headphones. If your car's engine starts to have engine problems with what seems to be a loose piston. Are you going to go to carmaniacs.com and read about how awesome X brand uber expneisve motor oil is and how X brand uber expensive air filter, and X brand uber expensive steering wheel is for your car and how much better it will perform and then buy those things to help fix your car? That's what most people seem to be doing on HF. Amps, cables, sources etc will help once you have found the headphone with the sound that you absolutely adore or can slightly make up for some problems with other cans that are already leaning on the side of good. 
 
Imaging and soundstage is on the side of average to slightly below average in terms of comparing to an 'audiophile' standard. It will be wider than most consumer devices.

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bowei006 said:

 
Imaging and soundstage is on the side of average to slightly below average in terms of comparing to an 'audiophile' standard. It will be wider than most consumer devices.

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I found it had better imaging and soundstage compared to my other DAP, the Colorfly C4. Width is about the same but the X3 has better vertical placement of sources.

bowei006 said:

   
It's more confined than average.
 
Positioning is average. Mid instruments are also a bit forward, but do have some loss of speed and harshness.

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Alright thanks for the info! Well, i think the x3 should work out for me and what i need now is to find one x3 around in the market for me to try it out.
 

bowei006 said:

   
Your interconnect cable will have little change to sound unless you have well developed ears AND with a very expensive cable.
 
 
Amps, cables, sources etc will help once you have found the headphone with the sound that you absolutely adore or can slightly make up for some problems with other cans that are already leaning on the side of good. 

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I can hear the sonical and imaging differences of different cables and my current cable dont come in cheap (SGD180).
 
IMO, the source, cable and amplifier is more important than the headphones. Audio devices work similar to something as input -> process -> output. Following this concept, if the input is already bad, the process and output can not make the sound any better. You cannot add what is not properly converted due to a bad dac in the first place. As for the process, less process would be better as you hear the true sound of what you should hear in the recording. The most is it processes the imaging to make it even better. All the arrows would eventually lead to output, so it means that the input and process actually affects the sound quality of the output too (in this case is the headphones). Also, since the output only leads to the ears of the listener, the output would then be chosen subjective to the user's preference of sound signature and sound stage. Not everyone sticks to only 1 headphone/ iem too. However, you are right that i need a better headphone  (should i go for their ESP950?) but that i would leave it alone until after the input and process section is built firm. The only reason I am using those headphones is they have a fairly wide sound stage and does not go above my eye level, plus it sounds very neutral so it is pretty good for equipment testing. 
 
(I am new to head-fi but i am not new to audio, and i dont mean to get anyone angry, so my apologies if i do offend anyone.)
 
Are there any other portable daps with line out that is comparable with the x3 in terms of price? I've heard of the dx50 and is also anticipating reviews on it after its release 2 days later and then finally make my final decision.
 
Thanks again bowei! You gave me a lot of info for my decision!
 

sbradley02 said:

  I found it had better imaging and soundstage compared to my other DAP, the Colorfly C4. Width is about the same but the X3 has better vertical placement of sources.

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Alright noted! thanks for the info too!

Sandisk, old Apple, HiSound(?), old Cowon's are going to be your best bet for DAP's at that price with line outs