Not necessarily double amping since the X5 has a separate line-out that bypasses the amp (which is what you would use to connect to an amp).   But personally yeah the built-in amp is already up to it for my purposes.

Thanks guys.

Hi guys Since it would take a purchase or two and several days' file transferring to check for myself... how does the X5 handle large libraries now? Would it be perfectly happy if I removed the FLACs from the cards and asked it to index 25,000 m4a files (completely uniformly tagged and...

Hi all I got a reply from FiiO support regarding the gapless issue on playback of AAC files:   "Thank you for your mail and support to FiiO. We have conducted a test, and the result shows that there is a short gap between playbacks for AAC files, which is caused by the bug in the firmware...

Hi there Any plans to fix gapless playback on AAC/m4a files? On current official firmware (2.5) there is still a small gap even with gapless playback enabled. FLAC and mp3 are gapless but AAC is not. Thanks

Thanks. Looks like gapless isn't working for AAC. A 100ms gap is still a gap. Hopefully we will get some official word on this.

Cheers. They were encoded in Foobar btw, no iTunes or weird tag BS.

Ok, maybe when I get home later. The flac of the same album, before AAC encoding, is gapless on the X5. The AAC encode is gapless on Android (gonemad) and iPod classic. There is a longer gap if you disable gapless playback on the X5, but there's a gap either way. Not really possible that the...

Absolutely sure on all counts.

Yeah, I did the library over a couple of times. I have the same albums on there in FLAC with the same art and they're fine. The only difference is the file format (encoded from same flacks for the test) and it breaks the gapless playback on these firmware versions.

Yep.

Hi, I tried some AAC (m4a) files for the first time on both 2.36b and 2.4 firmwares. Gapless playback on them didn't work in any of my tests. Does gapless playback even work on m4a files? They play gaplessly on all my other devices. Has it ever worked on X5/will it?

You should use line out unless it sounds noticeably awful because the speakers aren't expecting line level (which would be rare and immediately obvious, and you said it sounded better). Apart from anything, the line out also uses substantially less battery power of the X5 since the power amp...

Are you using old firmware? What kind of files?   The change between songs, audio-wise, is completely instant/gapless regardless of any album art. You might see a longer delay to load the artwork on older firmware, but not the song itself.

Album art doesn't use any extra battery unless you keep the screen on all the time just to look at it.   It will work the same (with the current firmware) whether embedded or cover.jpg/folder.jpg. Throwing an image into the folder is quicker, doesn't waste space by copying the data several...

The headphone out is for headphones. The line out is an unadulterated, unamplified, un-volume-controlled signal to send to amps (and mixing desks).   I don't know if you've mentioned whether your speakers are connected to an amp/have their own power source. If so, use the line out. You...

Because it supports 64,000 songs? At some regulation mp3 bitrate or other.   The database, which may or may not be increased soon, has nothing to do with it.   Admittedly you'd better have an...

To be entirely fair, to 'achieve' flat you turn the EQ off.   A small amount of anyway-hypothetical barely-possibly-sinusoidal response to banding (we have no idea how tightly those nodes are applied nor how wide or interactive the bands are) will not affect anyone's attempts to create their...

I hear this too on some cymbals but I took the slight tonal difference (no volume difference) to be a normal result of turning on a DSP that was previously entirely disabled.   edit: or maybe with 'EQ off' what you actually get is still shaped somewhat in tone by Fiio's people, and it's only...

I quoted myself to show I already agreed with you on that. The presumption was because you still appeared to disagree at that point, meaning I thought you were arguing for something else.

    ...so I presume you still want to be able to boost from the default position and have the default position as loud as 'EQ off'. That's having your cake and eating it, and is impossible without allowing clipping or unnecessarily attenuating the 'EQ off' level.   Only EQs that are preamped...

That doesn't actually make a practical or functional difference though, does it?   I mean, labeling could be improved but you know what it actually means; default position can be overriden by the user.   I don't disagree that the custom EQ should have defaulted to all sliders at the top...

Allowing boosting is an absolutely terrible idea, people. Most people will naturally just try to boost what they prefer and then complain that the EQ doesn't work when it sounds like ****.   Moreover it would have no actual advantages over attenuation-only, and indeed an enormous disadvantage...

Would serve no actual purpose other than allow the user to create digital clipping and then complain about it.   You can already set your highest slider to the top, or not, as you wish, and it is limited to being attenuative instead of boosting because (I suspect) a comfortable majority of...

That's not the reality though. You have attenuated nothing instead of attenuating 10 bands. The idea of boosting something is a myth on an EQ such as this with no additional headroom. You aren't boosting anything, you are declining to attenuate it. If it's like maths, -6+6 certainly =0. Or...