The last design http://cdn.head-fi.org/a/a0/900x900px-LL-a035e4e3_900x900px-LL-36d97823_X7BACK.jpeg is aweeeeeeesome dude, looks very PRO.
 
Together with OLED miniscreen just something never existed before. For me that oled screen itself is already a deal!
 
I hope it wont change at all.
 
The volume know: let it be metal if possible (or in metal enclosure), it would be really awesome if has numbers encrafted on it (from 0-9, sth like that), if it is digital, should be very solid and made of metal for sure
 
My money already waits to be spent... James, any pre-orders list coming soon? Can I be added as first priority client?
 
The only thing i wished was the two ES9018 in there... so HM901 will just stop selling
 
Any news on LPF? 

Mython, just pick other dap... "with two slots", or carry another 128GB card with u...
 
Regarding the design, the final design is best and best of all - I know it.
 

It will be in my pocket, so I'm not that interested in design. I'm not really keen on Android OS, so I hope it's stripped all the way. I know FiiO learned a lot to have an excellent UI and SQ on the X7. Along with the interchangeable soundcards /balanced I really look forward to the final design and specs. Keep up the good work FiiO!

piotrekfronc said:

  The last design http://cdn.head-fi.org/a/a0/900x900px-LL-a035e4e3_900x900px-LL-36d97823_X7BACK.jpeg is aweeeeeeesome dude, looks very PRO.
 
Together with OLED miniscreen just something never existed before. For me that oled screen itself is already a deal!
 
I hope it wont change at all.
 
The volume know: let it be metal if possible (or in metal enclosure), it would be really awesome if has numbers encrafted on it (from 0-9, sth like that), if it is digital, should be very solid and made of metal for sure
 
My money already waits to be spent... James, any pre-orders list coming soon? Can I be added as first priority client?
 
The only thing i wished was the two ES9018 in there... so HM901 will just stop selling
 
Any news on LPF? 

Click to expand...

 
You keep repeating the word "PRO" here. What is so "PRO" about using a DAP? It is not like a DSLR camera which you can use as a tool to earn a living.
 
OLED, definitely is a waste on DAP  It is nice for watching videos and games. But what good it it for if it going to spend most of it's time in off state? You just want to put bling technolgy which do not add value to a DAP and will make it unnecessariy expensive.

dobrescu george said:

  mein friend, belive me, technology is far from getting close to the maximum potential. there are pure crystal webs into crystaline webs data storage options. it is supposed that it would be absolutley indestructible, and it would be much much smaller and cheaper than what is done by these days.
 
also, i know a lot more about other solutions for storage. let me just say that there is a lot that has not been done yet. and it will be done. not yet, but it will. a few years ago, one would laugh when you told him that there would exist ultra FHD display on phones that will look good. they are here, and cost 50$ a piece, even less.
 
sandisk is just lagging around, because they can make a lot of money off not going straight to 2TB microsd cards. around 2 tb is the place where the fun really ends, because the entire protocol is limited to 2TB. I am curious in how much time, they are going to touch 2tb, and what will happen then.
 
flash cannot get over 2tb due to fat32 format, exfat is not open, ntfs is not made for flash, writing a new arrangement code is probably what will happwn, but it is going to be fun.
 
 
until then, i really watch them and laugh while they throw a 200 gb card for 2X launch price of a 128card.
 
i remember buying a 64 gb microsd card in 2010. it costed me 150$, there was no real sign of them ever getting bigger. i got two 64 gb cards for 50$ from samsung original, this year.

Click to expand...

 
Until you can produce white papers, or something more than random rantings from some guy on the internet, I'm going to stick with people that actually work in engineering in the industry. By the way, the "Crystal web data storage" as you describe has only been demonstrated as a possible storage method in a lab. It takes years to take something like that from a lab to a production line. Development on that tech started in 1996, and there was nothing demonstrated in a lab until 2009 at Hitachi. At that point, it wasn't very dense. It took another 4 years for researchers to take it to a level where they could have higher storage densities by recording the polarity and density of the beam that creates the data spot on the glass.
 
To do it in the lab, it was done with a very expensive laser, and had to be read using a combination of an optical microscope and a polarizing filter. They predicted they would be able to develop a rather inexpensive device to read the data in the then near future, but a device to write the data to the glass wasn't so close in anything resembling an inexpensive method wasn't on the horizon last I heard about it. 
 

mython said:

  I'm confident at least 1TB microSD will already have been successfully produced, in R&D lab, but they won't take it into full production now, because they know they can milk the memory-hungry public for each capacity increment.
 
Same with Intel, nVidia etc. - they have far more advanced processor hardware already developed, but it won't exist outside the lab until 2-3 yrs later, while they milk, milk, milk each little spec improvement.
 
 
I do appreciate that there may be a higher wafer failure rate as the capacity density increases. I acknowledge that. But that shouldn't be used as an excuse to charge nearly 4x more for 200gb than 128gb. That's just B$. Do the job properly and do it at a fair price.
 
Please don't anyone make excuses for the memory industry profiteering - that's being naive (and I assure you, I don't mean that disrespectfully).
 
The memory industry have us over a barrel and they know it. They are more than capable of producing 256gb or 512gb, but they don't want to decrease their profit margins (higher wafer failure rate) or reduce their opportunity to play the increment game.
 
As someone with a substantial collection of Redbook flac, and a currently-small, but ever-increasing, Hi-Res collection, I'm sorry, but I cannot allow myself to be extorted by the memory industry just because my DAP-maker doesn't consider it important enough to support more than one card, under the assertion that bigger capacity will be here sooner, or that it's easy to incessantly swap cards during the life of the DAP.
 
Maybe 2ndGen X5 might be a worthy contender, but I have to protect my finances by avoiding single-card DAPs (unless they have an additional 128gb or more soldered onboard), and by avoiding moronic $400 microSD card-pricing. I'm sure I'm not alone

Click to expand...

 
Price is determined by supply and demand. They will leave prices high as long as people are willing to pay for it at that price. It's pretty logical. They aren't bending anyone over a barrel. If you are willing to pay that price to have it now, go ahead. Otherwise just wait for the prices to fall. 

reginalb said:

   
Until you can produce white papers, or something more than random rantings from some guy on the internet, I'm going to stick with people that actually work in engineering in the industry. By the way, the "Crystal web data storage" as you describe has only been demonstrated as a possible storage method in a lab. It takes years to take something like that from a lab to a production line. Development on that tech started in 1996, and there was nothing demonstrated in a lab until 2009 at Hitachi. At that point, it wasn't very dense. It took another 4 years for researchers to take it to a level where they could have higher storage densities by recording the polarity and density of the beam that creates the data spot on the glass.
 
To do it in the lab, it was done with a very expensive laser, and had to be read using a combination of an optical microscope and a polarizing filter. They predicted they would be able to develop a rather inexpensive device to read the data in the then near future, but a device to write the data to the glass wasn't so close in anything resembling an inexpensive method wasn't on the horizon last I heard about it. 
 
 
Price is determined by supply and demand. They will leave prices high as long as people are willing to pay for it at that price. It's pretty logical. They aren't bending anyone over a barrel. If you are willing to pay that price to have it now, go ahead. Otherwise just wait for the prices to fall. 

Click to expand...

i totally agree. i know how it has been developed. the thing is that i was just saying that tech is far from getting to the last point of discovery. as far as i know, data can be encrypted, in the last stages of advancement into DNA. total encryption and decode of DNA is possible in a hybrid envoirment through very very difficult to produce technology. It has been done a few times in a few laboratories around the world. not user or mass friendly, but i remember something about one or two cells being equal to hundreds of TB. 
 
 
Just saying, there are a lot to be discovered. Crystaline webs are easy to put on paper, and data can be stored at two or three atoms layering with more than we were used to. one downside, is that it is hard to write and to read. another is that it is write only-once. no technology that is on the horizont seems that it will be able to make it re-writable. but oh, well, it is a beggining. i know that it has yet to get out of labs, but i read about it and it looks awesome!

 
 
Quote:

jamesfiio said:

  About the volume knob in X7,
 
 
2, We don't want to be regard as the copycat of AK's DAPs 

Click to expand...

 
Well, I'm glad you're not using a silly (and potentially-dangerous) volume-slider, like the one on the Calyx-M, and a crappy old generic Lloytron cassette walkman I owned in the mid 1980s.
 

 
 
 
Although I don't consider A&K to have been particularly original in their volume knob design on the AK100/120/240 (Sony & others have been doing it for years, and Questyle, for example, apparently aren't concerned, and I don't think they need be), I can understand why you feel you need to be very careful to avoid people criticising you for supposedly 'copying' the volume knob. My guess is that it is the diagonally-graduated fairing/shroud, either side of the knob, which most concerns you in this regard? The general position of the knob can hardly be considered to be copying anyone.
 

 

 

 

 
(fake April Fools A&K DAP)
 
 
(Echobox Explorer X1)
 
 
 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/720512/obscure-chinese-daps/480#post_11306981:
 

 
 
This one looks familiar :
 

 
 
 
 

---

 
However, it raises a point which I've often thought of (and this isn't aimed at any other manufacturer in particular, not even Fiio), but, because of iRiver's shameless money-grabbing, I'd personally love to see a Chinese DAP company make an exact copy of the AK DAPs and sell them for 40% of the price, just to prove how enormous the profit margins are, for iRiver and their dealers, on the AK products.
 
I don't generally like to see any company have their products unfairly copied, but iRiver lost my respect and (IMO) their moral right to not be copied, when they decided to charge such enormously unfair profit margins. This is only my opinion.
 
I realise lots of A&K fans may be angered by that remark, but it's not aimed at A&K fans. It's not even aimed at A&K hardware, as such (I actually like the compactness and the generally-decent engineering quality). It's just aimed at the disproportionately-large profit margins.
 

---

 
 
 
Anyway, that aside, I hope the X7 product development is running relatively smoothly, and on-target for a July release, James.
 
.

mython said:

   
Well, I'm glad you're not using a silly (and potentially-dangerous) volume-slider, like the one on the Calyx-M, and a crappy old generic Lloytron cassette walkman I owned in the mid 1980s.
 
Although I don't consider A&K to have been particularly original in their volume knob design on the AK100/120/240 (Sony & others have been doing it for years, and Questyle, for example, apparently aren't concerned, and I don't think they need be), I can understand why you feel you need to be very careful to avoid people criticising you for supposedly 'copying' the volume knob. My guess is that it is the diagonally-graduated fairing/shroud, either side of the knob, which most concerns you in this regard? The general position of the knob can hardly be considered to be copying anyone.
 

 

 

 
(fake April Fools A&K DAP)
 
 
(Echobox Explorer X1)
 
 
 
This one looks familiar

:
 

 
 
 
 

---

 
However, it raises a point which I've often thought of (and this isn't aimed at any other manufacturer in particular, not even Fiio), but, because of iRiver's shameless money-grabbing, I'd personally love to see a Chinese DAP company make an exact copy of the AK DAPs and sell them for 40% of the price, just to prove how enormous the profit margins are, for iRiver and their dealers, on the AK products.
 
I don't generally like to see any company have their products unfairly copied, but iRiver lost my respect and (IMO) their moral right to not be copied, when they decided to charge such enormously unfair profit margins. This is only my opinion.
 
I realise lots of A&K fans may be angered by that remark, but it's not aimed at A&K fans. It's not even aimed at A&K hardware, as such (I actually like the compactness and the generally-decent engineering quality). It's just aimed at the disproportionately-large profit margins.
 

---

 
 
 
Anyway, that aside, I hope the X7 product development is running relatively smoothly, and on-target for a July release, James.
 
.

Click to expand...

 
 
lol,  interested thing that there are not any fake AK or copycat of AK. 

jamesfiio said:

   
 
lol,  interested thing that there are not any fake AK or copycat of AK. 

Click to expand...

 
 
I think we both know it's probably only a matter of time.
 
 
 
 
 
 
On a totally unrelated note, is there any projected release period for the 2nd gen X5?
 
Q4 2015, perhaps?

I really like this X7 version, maybe with the bottom a little shorter it would look amazing. The last rendition kind a look ok but not as much attractive than this version.

mython said:

Well, I'm glad you're not using a silly (and potentially-dangerous) volume-slider, like the one on the Calyx-M, and a crappy old generic Lloytron cassette walkman I owned in the mid 1980s.




Although I don't consider A&K to have been particularly original in their volume knob design on the AK100/120/240 (Sony & others have been doing it for years, and Questyle, for example, apparently aren't concerned, and I don't think they need be), I can understand why you feel you need to be very careful to avoid people criticising you for supposedly 'copying' the volume knob. My guess is that it is the diagonally-graduated fairing/shroud, either side of the knob, which most concerns you in this regard? The general position of the knob can hardly be considered to be copying anyone.

Anyway, that aside, I hope the X7 product development is running relatively smoothly, and on-target for a July release, James.

.

Click to expand...

mython said:

   
 
I think we both know it's probably only a matter of time.
 
 
 
 
 
 
On a totally unrelated note, is there any projected release period for the 2nd gen X5?
 
Q4 2015, perhaps?

Click to expand...

this was answered in x5 thread, it is about the same date as x7. two times the yay!

dobrescu george said:

  this was answered in x5 thread, it is about the same date as x7. two times the yay!

Click to expand...

 
 
I don't subscribe to the X5 thread, so thanks for that

headwhacker said:

   
You keep repeating the word "PRO" here. What is so "PRO" about using a DAP? It is not like a DSLR camera which you can use as a tool to earn a living.
 
OLED, definitely is a waste on DAP  It is nice for watching videos and games. But what good it it for if it going to spend most of it's time in off state? You just want to put bling technolgy which do not add value to a DAP and will make it unnecessariy expensive.

Click to expand...

OLED is not a waste, it adds 50% pleasure of using the dap. Tell your wife that ring on her finger is a waste... see what she says.
 
PRO means, everything is perfect and no compromises attitude - top quality that will satisfy professional audiophile like me , in one word PRO.

PRO means also that doesnt look LAME...

Thanks for that. I'll need to rush out and get these pro headphones right away.