[fish1050]

@fish1050 keep your Sony, then check back in 6 months... though more realistically speaking I think you are just looking for a Sony branded FiiO hardware with a Sony firmware priced at FiiO level, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. But one can always dream...

Wow your family must love you!!  Don't presume to know what I want or don't want.  With age comes patience, wisdom and self-control.  There is nothing you can buy now that you can't buy in 6 months after firmware updates and fixes.  Why be a beta-tester if you don't have to be, it will cost you the same either way.

 

[fish1050]

S-master is neither unique to Sony nor is it special in anyway. It is just a marketing term for Sony to describe what the rest of the audio world is referring as PWM (Pulse-width modulation) or class-D for the last few decades (most smartphome audio solution is PWM based). The only really special thing is that Sony is large enough a company that they can afford to make their own integrated PWM chip.

Class D-amplifiers are not unique but Sony's S-Master design is unique.  I read the actual technical paper on the S-Master amp design and Sony was the first to design anything like it.  If it is not unique then how come there aren't more DAP makers using it?  The answer is it is much more difficult to design a Class D amplifier especially one that sounds good than it is a traditional Class A/B amp which most other DAP makers use.
 
Class D amplifiers are used in smartphones and tablets but the designs have not be optimized for sound quality like the S-Master which is what makes the design unique.  

 

[Niyologist]

You either get long battery life with low performance or short battery life with high performance, can't have both for now unless someone can defy physics or completely reinvent the battery industry with some revolutionary technology.

MIT is still working on that.

 

[ClieOS]

Class D-amplifiers are not unique but Sony's S-Master design is unique.  I read the actual technical paper on the S-Master amp design and Sony was the first to design anything like it.  If it is not unique then how come there aren't more DAP makers using it?  The answer is it is much more difficult to design a Class D amplifier especially one that sounds good than it is a traditional Class A/B amp which most other DAP makers use.

Class D amplifiers are used in smartphones and tablets but the designs have not be optimized for sound quality like the S-Master which is what makes the design unique.  

Pretty sure I read the white paper on S-master as well, and those are as seriously a marketing material can pretend as white paper as they ever could.

 

[ClieOS]

MIT is still working on that.

Plenty of promising announcement over the years, but unfortunately none ever turns into real product.

 

[Venture Guy]

You actually can buy a Class D portable DAC/Amp: http://www.qables.com/shop/iqube/iqube-v5-portable-amplifier
 
Supposedly, it has amazing sonics. It was designed by Bruno Putzeys, one of the gods of Class D amplifiers, who also designed the Hypex Class D family of OEM amps...

 

[x RELIC x]

X5iii is not a class D product, can we move on.... :wink_face:

 

[andra555]

sorry if this has been answered before, but do we have information on output impendance of both SE and BAL ? and do the SE and BAL have a same architecture (dual dac) unlike onkyo where the SE only utilize one DAC? thank you

 

[nmatheis]

^^^ Good question

 

[audio123]

sorry if this has been answered before, but do we have information on output impendance of both SE and BAL ? and do the SE and BAL have a same architecture (dual dac) unlike onkyo where the SE only utilize one DAC? thank you

check fiio facebook page. There is information.

 

[Cherubian]

I wonder if this is gonna be the same firmware disaster as X7. After my experience with X7 I told myself I will never buy anything from Fiio anymore. However X5iii looks really good on paper. What about gappless play?

 

[andra555]

check fiio facebook page. There is information.

well, the thing is i read all the information in fiio facebook firsthand before i come to this thread, it only says they use AKM4490 dual dac and support balanced trrs, but no confirmation on same architecture for both output. judging from the paragraph it seems both of it utilize the dual dac but i just need confirmation from fiio's  side. I also cannot find any info about the output impedance for both output anywhere, unless i miss something.

 

[x RELIC x]

well, the thing is i read all the information in fiio facebook firsthand before i come to this thread, it only says they use AKM4490 dual dac and support balanced trrs, but no confirmation on same architecture for both output. judging from the paragraph it seems both of it utilize the dual dac but i just need confirmation from fiio's  side. I also cannot find any info about the output impedance for both output anywhere, unless i miss something.

There's no info about the DAC/amp configuration yet with SE vs BAL. My money is on SE=single DAC, BAL=dual DAC - confirmed to use dual DAC with SE output.

They list the output impedance in one of the pics as <1 Ohm @ 32 Ohm load, but don't define if that's for both SE and BAL (I would think it is).

 

[Holypal]

There's no info about the DAC/amp configuration yet with SE vs BAL. My money is on SE=single DAC, BAL=dual DAC.

They list the output impedance in one of the pics as <1 Ohm @ 32 Ohm load, but don't define if that's for both SE and BAL (I would think it is).

I don't want to offense you, but I want to call you noob here.

If you have balanced output, which requires four amplification circuits, it's very easy to use it into a single-end. It's much easier than implementing another single dac + 2 amp circuits output.

 

[x RELIC x]

I don't want to offense you, but I want to call you noob here.

If you have balanced output, which requires four amplification circuits, it's very easy to use it into a single-end. It's much easier than implementing another single dac + 2 amp circuits output.

I never said anything was easy or difficult. I just shared my thoughts on what I think might be the way FiiO implements the SE and BAL output. You're free to share yours. I'd be happy if I were wrong.

Call me a noob for my opinion. Ok, interesting.

I'd think I'm far from a noob here.