[JukeBoxJimmy]

Turning off gapless playback fixed a lot of my problems. I do prefer they fix the gapless play back. I found gapless to play okay with AIFF but has problems with FLAC and MP3 and causes an assortment of crashes...............Jim

 

[umdesch4]

I picked up The Cars Studio Album Collection in 24-bit, 192 kHz FLAC from here:
http://www.hdtracks.com/the-cars-studio-album-collection-1978-2483
 
It is the best test of crashing the X3 with the 2.1 firmware I've seen yet. It freezes up and has to be powered down by holding down the power button at the end of every single track. Occasionally, something weird happens, and it somehow manages to make it to the next track properly (I believe twice out of 60 tracks). Then another couple of tracks, I managed to get it to go to the next track by hitting skip to get to the next one.
 
But yeah, I'd say 56 out of 60 tracks from it that I've listened to in one runthrough have all failed. This is copied directly from the files downloaded onto my PC via HDtracks' downloader utility, that check out just fine on there, and actually sound really great on the X3 as well (right up to the freeze at the end of every song). I've dumped them to a reliable micro SD card which, prior to this, had 16-bit 44.1 kHz FLAC files on there that played no problem on the X3, so I don't suspect the media either.
 
I haven't tried turning off gapless playback yet, but I'm going to do that for my next attempt at a listen-through, and report back.

 

[Bunders]

BRCMRGN - "The X3 software is so flakey that I am going to drop it in the trash when the X5 arrives."
 
Don't do that! Send it to a Rockbox developer!

 

[umdesch4]

Quick follow up...of course all those Cars tracks play fine without gapless playback on. It's kind of bad though. The gap is not consistent, and sometimes ends up being around 5 seconds (noticeable because a couple of the Cars albums have crossfading from one track to the next). Often, the next track glitches out when it starts playing...the first half second or so are just mangled.
 
So yeah, at least it doesn't freeze, but it's a far from optimal solution.

 

[SirViva]

The X3 software is so flakey that I am going to drop it in the trash when the X5 arrives. I would be too embarrassed to sell the X3 to anyone. Granted, the DX50 software isn't much better, so it will probably end up in the same trash can. Fortunately, HIFIMAN, Astell & Kern, Google, Sansa and even Apple can all write software the can read and understand tags, play all bits in a track without freezing and not crash hourly. I just hope that the X5 code was stolen from one of the other companies and not written by the X3 programmers.

I really would be willing to give you something for it rather than your dropping it in the trash. Let me know if you are interested.

 

[BRCMRGN]

 
I really would be willing to give you something for it rather than your dropping it in the trash. Let me know if you are interested.

I am going to keep it for now and hope that they fix the firmware someday.

 

[reihead]

  I am going to keep it for now and hope that they fix the firmware someday.

 
They just released FW 3.0
Maybe today might be someday?

 

[bms44974]

   
They just released FW 3.0
Maybe today might be someday?

Thanks for the update! Firmware upgrade went smoothly. I did note that the FiiO link for the USB DAC software did not work. The prior USB DAC software appears to function fine.
 
Cheers... Brian

 

[marty63]

I would like to share several objections to the new firmware.
1) Lack of the Custom Volume option – upon start-up the player remembers the last volume setting. This can be a real issue, since there are records (especially albums with old mastering or most LP rips) that have an overall lower volume than contemporary records. It is clear what happens when you’re playing a “silent” record with the volume cranked up high and then turn the player off – next day you decide to play a contemporary “loud” album and the volume blows your head off.
I think this is very inconvenient, the possible solution being to go back to the Custom and Memory options from the 2.1 version.
2) It would be nice to make the treble/bass settings part of the Quick Menu.
3) The Play Now screen. If there is no album cover or lyrics, this screen should be displayed without the standard background image. Or a theme should be added which has a blank Play Now screen, without a picture.
Why do song and artist data disappear from the screen after some time? Why is the song name displayed twice, while the album name is not displayed at all?
I would logically expect the Artist, Album and Song Title items to be permanently displayed on the Play Now screen. This is a complete nonsense and should be fixed.

 

[Mr Trev]

  I would like to share several objections to the new firmware.
1) Lack of the Custom Volume option – upon start-up the player remembers the last volume setting. This can be a real issue, since there are records (especially albums with old mastering or most LP rips) that have an overall lower volume than contemporary records. It is clear what happens when you’re playing a “silent” record with the volume cranked up high and then turn the player off – next day you decide to play a contemporary “loud” album and the volume blows your head off.
I think this is very inconvenient, the possible solution being to go back to the Custom and Memory options from the 2.1 version.
2) It would be nice to make the treble/bass settings part of the Quick Menu.
3) The Play Now screen. If there is no album cover or lyrics, this screen should be displayed without the standard background image. Or a theme should be added which has a blank Play Now screen, without a picture.
Why do song and artist data disappear from the screen after some time? Why is the song name displayed twice, while the album name is not displayed at all?
I would logically expect the Artist, Album and Song Title items to be permanently displayed on the Play Now screen. This is a complete nonsense and should be fixed.

re #1...if you set your default volume to anything other than memory (eg. 30) it will always turn on at that volume. exactly the same as previous custom setting
 
re#3...its pretty easy to crack into the firmware and change the playing screen to anything you want - see the ui mod thread

 

[marty63]

OK, thanx for reply. But cracking is not my cup of tea.

 

[marty63]

  OK, thanx for reply. But cracking is not my cup of tea.

I'm idiot. Trouble with loudness don't pay attention.
But time for setting some values too be short.

 

[nmatheis]

  I'm idiot. Trouble with loudness don't pay attention.
But time for setting some values too be short.

 
Say what, Willis???
 
Seriously, though - check out the X3 mods thread.  We'll be making some nice themes available.  I'm particularly interested in list-based themes and will work towards optimizing one for myself.  Then, I'll make it available for the community and see what, if anything, they do with it to improve it.  The only bummer is that you have to keep the graphics files on-hand to add back into the firmware with every update. If you're organized, this shouldn't be too much of a hardship, though.

 

[beachpea]

I've updated my X3 to the latest firmware 3.0 and have been using it for a week. During that time, I have experienced frequent (several per listening session ~1 hour each) screen freezes or shut-downs with screen dark, always between songs, as the player advances from one song to the next. I have had to use the reset button to restart the player each time to listen again.
 
Looking through my settings, I've been using gapless playback for the purpose of listening to live albums uninterrupted. Having read here on Head-Fi that gapless playback has been a problem in the past for some owners, I decided to switch gapless playback off to see if it made a difference with the spontaneous freezes/shut-downs. So far, so good. However, I lose that feature by doing so. Can you offer a solution to this problem? With this same X3 player, I had never experienced this problem before having used every prior version of the firmware to date. Will this require yet another firmware update to resolve?
 
I like the FiiO X3 for its sound quality, but I must say it has been quite the journey getting it to function properly and reliably! Thanks to FiiO for sticking with it so faithfully, but much too bad that it has been so necessary to iron out all the nagging problems that have come with it.
 
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer, or anyone else who is reading this.

 

[nmatheis]

I've updated my X3 to the latest firmware 3.0 and have been using it for a week. During that time, I have experienced frequent (several per listening session ~1 hour each) screen freezes or shut-downs with screen dark, always between songs, as the player advances from one song to the next. I have had to use the reset button to restart the player each time to listen again.


 


Looking through my settings, I've been using gapless playback for the purpose of listening to live albums uninterrupted. Having read here on Head-Fi that gapless playback has been a problem in the past for some owners, I decided to switch gapless playback off to see if it made a difference with the spontaneous freezes/shut-downs. So far, so good. However, I lose that feature by doing so. Can you offer a solution to this problem? With this same X3 player, I had never experienced this problem before having used every prior version of the firmware to date. Will this require yet another firmware update to resolve?


 


I like the FiiO X3 for its sound quality, but I must say it has been quite the journey getting it to function properly and reliably! Thanks to FiiO for sticking with it so faithfully, but much too bad that it has been so necessary to iron out all the nagging problems that have come with it.


 


Thanks in advance for any help you can offer, or anyone else who is reading this.

Haven't had this problem with 3.0. Maybe try a factory reset and/or clearing and rebuilding the DB.