[Neil Newcombe]

Thought I'd post a photo of the vintage hifi gear that I use for increasing the output of my X5 G2.
 

 
This lot brings the x5 to life very nicely and very loudly at a tot output of 430W

 

[theminstrel]

Even now i have  an Oknyo DP-x1 my A17 still gets regular use as a great sounding FM radio!!

 

[kapple]

Great write up. Do you how well both models handle gapless playback for lossless and lossy files? I keep reading on various forums that the Fiio players have spotty gapless playback, and that recent firmware updates have broken that feature. I am having a hard time finding information regarding gapless playback on the Sony models (both the A17 and the A26).
 
I really wish the Sony's didn't have a proprietary USB cable, and that is steering me away from purchasing one. But I like the idea of having Bluetooth, since so many portable and mini speakers are Bluetooth enabled. 
 
You can use the Fiio X3 on old stereo equipment? How does that work? I am looking to purchase my first DAP (had an iPod Nano 6th gen until it broke, and am looking for a serious upgrade). My old stereo system is sadly sitting in my garage, since I now us my laptop and iPhone, with my Bose SoundLink Color Bluetooth speaker II as my home "stereo". I am a neophyte with the DAPs. If there is a way I can use the X5's line out with my stereo, that would be a huge plus. 
 
Any info on these 2 issues, gapless playback chief among them, would be much appreciated. 

 

[Neil Newcombe]

Well Kapple.
 
As it happens I found out that my A25 was covered by my house insurance and now have a replacement A25. So comparisions between both of these DAPS are no problem to do.
 
Regarding gapless As far as I can tell they are both OK and have not really noticed any break up or clicks on track change with gapless on. But I will check both players with MP3, FLAC, and WAV, and Hi-Res FLAC and WAV. and write back once done.
 
Partially agree on the USB connection. But the WMPORT has it's use's. I have the WMPORT USB adapter cable for USB DAC operation which i use with my SRS-HG1 portable speakers. Not only that I have the WMPORT Lineout adapter as well.
 
I use both my A25 and X5ii on my vintage audio kit A 3.5mm jack plug to twin RCA plugs, cable is all that is needed to connect to any hifi kit. I connect my A25 to the CD player input and the X5ii to the AUX input.Using two of the above cables. Or if the speaker / hifi has a 3,5mm jack socket for an aux input then a standard 3.5 jack to 3.5 jack is used instead.
 
Hope that helps for now. Will test gapless and post back soon.
 
Here's my portable audio setup:
 

 

[kapple]

  Well Kapple.
 
As it happens I found out that my A25 was covered by my house insurance and now have a replacement A25. So comparisions between both of these DAPS are no problem to do.
 
Regarding gapless As far as I can tell they are both OK and have not really noticed any break up or clicks on track change with gapless on. But I will check both players with MP3, FLAC, and WAV, and Hi-Res FLAC and WAV. and write back once done.
 
Partially agree on the USB connection. But the WMPORT has it's use's. I have the WMPORT USB adapter cable for USB DAC operation which i use with my SRS-HG1 portable speakers. Not only that I have the WMPORT Lineout adapter as well.
 
I use both my A25 and X5ii on my vintage audio kit A 3.5mm jack plug to twin RCA plugs, cable is all that is needed to connect to any hifi kit. I connect my A25 to the CD player input and the X5ii to the AUX input.Using two of the above cables. Or if the speaker / hifi has a 3,5mm jack socket for an aux input then a standard 3.5 jack to 3.5 jack is used instead.
 
Hope that helps for now. Will test gapless and post back soon.
 
Here's my portable audio setup:
 

Great info Neil, thanks.
I can't wait to hear your finding on gapless playback between the 2 models. That is very important to me, since I listen to live music mostly. 
If I stick to my old gear, I would definitely get the Fiio. If I was going to use a dedicated speaker, like the Sony, I would go with the Sony DAC. Btut if I understand you, I could get an adapter for the Sony output, and still connect that to legacy equipment? If so, do you have an opinion on which DAP handles output to legacy devices better?
 
Thanks,

 

[Neil Newcombe]

Done a quick check on the gapless on these two. Both show no gapless playback issues on FLAC, WAV, in both 16 and 24 bit.
With MP3. Gapless playback on the X5 is OK but occasionally it misses, but surprisingly the A25 gapless pl\yback is not as good as the X5.
But personally this not an issue for me as i mostly use uncompressed audio these days anyway. As in my earlier write up. Each of these DAPs have their good points and bad points. And at the end of that write up I said I would be happy with ethier. Well I have both so get the best of worlds with them.
 
Hope this helps.

 

[Neil Newcombe]

  Great info Neil, thanks.
I can't wait to hear your finding on gapless playback between the 2 models. That is very important to me, since I listen to live music mostly. 
If I stick to my old gear, I would definitely get the Fiio. If I was going to use a dedicated speaker, like the Sony, I would go with the Sony DAC. Btut if I understand you, I could get an adapter for the Sony output, and still connect that to legacy equipment? If so, do you have an opinion on which DAP handles output to legacy devices better?
 
Thanks,

If you look at the picture you can see the USB DAC adapter. The small cable next to it is a lineout cable and the little adapter next to that is a Lineout adapter. All available on ebay/amazon. The USB DAC cable I had to get from Japan.
And from a quailty point of view when using the Fiio or A25 on my hifi kit on the lineout signal connection is as I described in the original write up.

 

[kapple]

  Done a quick check on the gapless on these two. Both show no gapless playback issues on FLAC, WAV, in both 16 and 24 bit.
With MP3. Gapless playback on the X5 is OK but occasionally it misses, but surprisingly the A25 gapless pl\yback is not as good as the X5.
But personally this not an issue for me as i mostly use uncompressed audio these days anyway. As in my earlier write up. Each of these DAPs have their good points and bad points. And at the end of that write up I said I would be happy with ethier. Well I have both so get the best of worlds with them.
 
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info Neil. I think what I should do is download the concerts I currently have, which are in MP3 format, but get the FLAC/24 versions. 
I also see that the Sony A35 is being released in the States next week. Trying not to be too impatient, and want to see what people have to say about that product as well.

 

[Neil Newcombe]

  Thanks for the info Neil. I think what I should do is download the concerts I currently have, which are in MP3 format, but get the FLAC/24 versions. 
I also see that the Sony A35 is being released in the States next week. Trying not to be too impatient, and want to see what people have to say about that product as well.

 
A35 is available in UK . Persionally i hate touch screen media players (Yes it has some buttons). Also I think it is andriod based. Another turn off for me. And yet it is cheaper than the A25 so what have they removed to cut the price? I would think it's performance is going to similar to that to that of the A15/17/25. The biggest problem with all of the Sony's is their lacking of power to drive headphones decenlty. Not a problem with the Fiio. The A25 definately needs the backup of my E12 headphone amp. The X5 comfortably drives my headphones without using the E12 amp.
 
If I could get my hands on one my ideal DAP It would have to be on of the Colorfly players. Probably the C4 which is about three times the price the Sony/Fiio. Afriend has one and It sounds way better than both of my DAPs
 
Hope the info helps.

 

[kapple]

   
A35 is available in UK . Persionally i hate touch screen media players (Yes it has some buttons). Also I think it is andriod based. Another turn off for me. And yet it is cheaper than the A25 so what have they removed to cut the price? I would think it's performance is going to similar to that to that of the A15/17/25. The biggest problem with all of the Sony's is their lacking of power to drive headphones decenlty. Not a problem with the Fiio. The A25 definately needs the backup of my E12 headphone amp. The X5 comfortably drives my headphones without using the E12 amp.
 
If I could get my hands on one my ideal DAP It would have to be on of the Colorfly players. Probably the C4 which is about three times the price the Sony/Fiio. Afriend has one and It sounds way better than both of my DAPs
 
Hope the info helps.

It helps. I assume that the lack of power power to drive your headphones would not have such an issue with my old receiver, because that has it's own dedicated power source, and your headphones don't, correct? That said, I am leaning heavily towards X5 2nd gen. I would also like the wireless that the Sony has, to work with my current small Bose speaker. The line-in is not as powerful as the Bluetooth with my iPhone through that speaker. But the thought of getting to use my stereo again, even if the speakers are kind of big, is outweighing the Bose. I can always get a better travel speaker some other time.

 

[Neil Newcombe]

  It helps. I assume that the lack of power power to drive your headphones would not have such an issue with my old receiver, because that has it's own dedicated power source, and your headphones don't, correct? That said, I am leaning heavily towards X5 2nd gen. I would also like the wireless that the Sony has, to work with my current small Bose speaker. The line-in is not as powerful as the Bluetooth with my iPhone through that speaker. But the thought of getting to use my stereo again, even if the speakers are kind of big, is outweighing the Bose. I can always get a better travel speaker some other time.

Well you can see in the photo what both of my DAPs drive off headphones. It's the output level from the Sony which i think is a 102mW tot that is its problem with headphones. The E12  amp lifts that to just over 800mw. I'm not sure on the actual o/p power from the X5 but to give you an idea it is probably getting close to twice the o/p level of the A25.
 
You could use a bluetooth reciever something like the Samsung HS3000 (Which works perfectly with the A25).
 
BTW the DAP's are fantastic when running with my stereo. If you look at my hifi in the photo you will see that it is amplification only. No tuner. No tape deck. No CD player and no record player. It is now set up specifically to work with my DAP,s giving them a total output of over 200W per channel.

 

[kapple]

 
Well you can see in the photo what both of my DAPs drive off headphones. It's the output level from the Sony which i think is a 102mW tot that is its problem with headphones. The E12  amp lifts that to just over 800mw. I'm not sure on the actual o/p power from the X5 but to give you an idea it is probably getting close to twice the o/p level of the A25.
 
You could use a bluetooth reciever something like the Samsung HS3000 (Which works perfectly with the A25).
 
BTW the DAP's are fantastic when running with my stereo. If you look at my hifi in the photo you will see that it is amplification only. No tuner. No tape deck. No CD player and no record player. It is now set up specifically to work with my DAP,s giving them a total output of over 200W per channel.

Thanks Neil, 
I just bought the X5 and a 125GB card for it
Time to start digging out lots of CDs and ripping them, downloading shows in FLAC 24, and building a library!

 

[Neil Newcombe]

  Thanks Neil, 
I just bought the X5 and a 125GB card for it
Time to start digging out lots of CDs and ripping them, downloading shows in FLAC 24, and building a library!

Hiya Kapple
 
I didn't think you were going to chose that quick. Anyway read the content of the following post i placed on the Fiio Forum after thinking I had an issue with the media library update process that looks like the player crashing during the library update.
 
 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I posted this on the Fiio Forum. This will help if you come across this issue. Which actually is not an issue, it is normal operation.
 
Hope this helps people who come across this issue. Got a sandisk 128GB in slot 1 and a Memorex 64GB in slot 2. Both class 10. Wavs/flac on 128 card and mp3 on 64GB card. Kept seeing the same thing. it would always "hang" on 6224 songs.
Did all mentioned in earlier posts. And still got the same. So tried one card at a time the 128GB appear to freeze after hitting 1022 songs but noticed that after about 30 second the update successful message appeared. I then put the 64GB card in and did another update. It stopped at the 6224 songs point again so I just left it alone and after about 5 mins the update successful appeared.
What made it looked like a hang was the fact the battery charging indicators stops after the file count stops and all buttons become unresponsive.
I worked out that I did not need to do the id tag changes, and the only thing needed was to remove any non music related file from the cards.
So when the update track count stops. Just leave the X5 alone. After a large track count it needs time to write the media library database, which can take several minutes.
Personally I don't use ID tags and play by folder or playlist. So it wouldn't have bothered me too much. But after the first hang I thought I'd try to find out what is happening. 6224 songs is a lot of info to extract from the files and write to the database. So you could considering the count as the data extraction period and the "hang" as the write period. Which will vary depending how many music files there are and the size of their tags.
Having done this a couple times now, this does seem to be the case. I deleted several folders to reduce the song count slightly. On update the count stopped earlier (6112 songs in this case) and it did exactly the same thing again, The write period was about the same length of time before update successful appeared.
I would guess that if you have 2 off 256GB card installed and both full of songs. The library update process could take up to an hour maybe more,
 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 
I would recommend you setup ALL your music folders on the sd card and put the music on it before putting in the X5. On the X5 setup menu, set library update to manual and run it. Setting to auto will mean it will update the whole media library again automatically if you add more music. If you're not worried about the media libray like me. Just browse by folder. This is the X5's only big drawback that i have found since owning it.
 
Appart from that it is a great player. A i recommed you get a case for it. I have tuu luv case for my A25 andone that takes both X5 G2 and my E12 amp.
Enjoy.
 
N
 
BTW it is well worth regisitering on the Fiio forum as well. Fiio actually monitor it and resond to user issues. Sometimes even with new firmware updates. And their customer service is the best I've come across in years.

 

[kapple]

 
Hiya Kapple
 
I didn't think you were going to chose that quick. Anyway read the content of the following post i placed on the Fiio Forum after thinking I had an issue with the media library update process that looks like the player crashing during the library update.
 
 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I posted this on the Fiio Forum. This will help if you come across this issue. Which actually is not an issue, it is normal operation.
 
Hope this helps people who come across this issue. Got a sandisk 128GB in slot 1 and a Memorex 64GB in slot 2. Both class 10. Wavs/flac on 128 card and mp3 on 64GB card. Kept seeing the same thing. it would always "hang" on 6224 songs.
Did all mentioned in earlier posts. And still got the same. So tried one card at a time the 128GB appear to freeze after hitting 1022 songs but noticed that after about 30 second the update successful message appeared. I then put the 64GB card in and did another update. It stopped at the 6224 songs point again so I just left it alone and after about 5 mins the update successful appeared.
What made it looked like a hang was the fact the battery charging indicators stops after the file count stops and all buttons become unresponsive.
I worked out that I did not need to do the id tag changes, and the only thing needed was to remove any non music related file from the cards.
So when the update track count stops. Just leave the X5 alone. After a large track count it needs time to write the media library database, which can take several minutes.
Personally I don't use ID tags and play by folder or playlist. So it wouldn't have bothered me too much. But after the first hang I thought I'd try to find out what is happening. 6224 songs is a lot of info to extract from the files and write to the database. So you could considering the count as the data extraction period and the "hang" as the write period. Which will vary depending how many music files there are and the size of their tags.
Having done this a couple times now, this does seem to be the case. I deleted several folders to reduce the song count slightly. On update the count stopped earlier (6112 songs in this case) and it did exactly the same thing again, The write period was about the same length of time before update successful appeared.
I would guess that if you have 2 off 256GB card installed and both full of songs. The library update process could take up to an hour maybe more,
 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 
I would recommend you setup ALL your music folders on the sd card and put the music on it before putting in the X5. On the X5 setup menu, set library update to manual and run it. Setting to auto will mean it will update the whole media library again automatically if you add more music. If you're not worried about the media libray like me. Just browse by folder. This is the X5's only big drawback that i have found since owning it.
 
Appart from that it is a great player. A i recommed you get a case for it. I have tuu luv case for my A25 andone that takes both X5 G2 and my E12 amp.
Enjoy.
 
N
 
BTW it is well worth regisitering on the Fiio forum as well. Fiio actually monitor it and resond to user issues. Sometimes even with new firmware updates. And their customer service is the best I've come across in years.

Neil,
 
Thanks for the new information!
 
I didn't think I was going to buy it that fast either, LOL. But fast is relative. I have been researching these for a few weeks before I joined this forum, and was itching to just make up my mind. 
I did see posts about the SLOW pace and/or locking up of device when updating the media library every time you changed the content of the SD card, especially if you have an extensive library.  I am thoroughly spoiled with just checking off which iTunes playlists to sync to my defunct iPod, but I realized that this was not going to be a convenience if I bought a Fiio DAP. I will be planning out a fairly flat directory structure, and just browse by folder.
 
Of course, now that I pulled the trigger, I am thinking about functionality I would have gotten with the Sony, but am very comfortable with getting the Fiio. I think I made the right choice. As I write this, I just got the tracking number of my player and microSD card .
 
You have, and are continuing to be a big help to me here, and I appreciate it. I hope that as I learn more about this device, I can contribute to these forums as well. 

 

[kapple]

Neil,
 
In order to get stereo sound out of my Technics amp/receiver, I assume i will need a RCA Video Audio Splitter Adapter (RCA Female to 2 RCA Female), then 2 cables to my amp, one for right, one for left, correct?