[JWolf]

Just did a long audition today with my friend's AK300 (also with AKM4490 dac) vs my X5III.

Have to say, they sound quite similar in sound signature (probably due to similar DAC), but AK300 sounds nicer to me than my X5III. More energetic, and more detailed. Both warm sounding, but AK300 is more fun sounding.

This is done with balanced output from both AK300 and X5III. AK300 burned in for longer time than my X5III.

This is just comparing on sound quality alone and my own preference, though we are all aware of the double in price, and without full Android.

Have to give it to AK. A single DAC can be tuned to sound better than the dual DAC of the X5III.

Not tempted to change though, as X5III provides much more features for its price. Quite close in sound quality to AK300. Not bad at all!

You can spend the same amount of money as the AK300 and get the X5III and a rally nice st of headphones and not have spent more then just the AK300.

 

[bonbace]

Dear friend,

Here is the transfer rate according to the test by our engineer:

Transfer rate depends on the data format and the micro SD card used. Using a Sandisk Class 10 SD card, the following results were obtained using the ATTO Disk Benchmark:
Internal memory &: writes 8MB/s, reads 15MB/s (approx.)
Micro SD card: writes 12MB/s, reads 15MB/s (approx.)
Micro SD card used: Sandisk Class 10
Testing app: ATTO Disk Benchmark

We may not be able to improve the transfer rate. But maybe you can use a card reader for help instead. Sorry if bringing inconvenience to you.

Best regards

Thank you for the honest answer

 

[bonbace]

I think its time to replace my Fiio X3 2nd gen with Fiio X5ii

Same thought !

 

[Marvellous_DAP]

You can spend the same amount of money as the AK300 and get the X5III and a rally nice st of headphones and not have spent more then just the AK300.

That's a simplified advice but a good one!

However, the fact is many buyers continue to pay more (and perhaps high-end model even MORE) for improvement of sound quality, and that applies to X5III as well. To be fair, I have the X5III and ZX2 (and used to owned other players as well), and did audition for AK300. AK300 is indeed better sounding to me, which is true to my preference. Probably not as good performance ratio, but taking away price considerations, it is indeed one of the better DAP out there (better choice of AK300 vs AK320 for e.g).

I won't buy a AK300, but I keep to my opinion that for SQ alone, AK300 sounds better than my X5III (for my music preference).

For my use, the full android of my X5III is of higher value and it does sound good.

 

[psikey]

Its one of the only categories of device/equipment I know where people like to ignore price which I personally think is rather daft unless your very wealthy. I think ignoring the price vs perceived SQ helps people justify what they spend.

I like to hear good music but not with the "At any cost" mentality. I'm still going through mental torture trying to justify/convince myself of buying a Hugo 2, but my common sense keeps holding me back even though I have cash to buy one!

I had a Mojo which cost more than the Fiio X5III and did sound a bit better to my ears but I much prefer the all-in-one convenience & sensible pricing of the Fiio.

For me the greatest jump in audio is still the ear/headphones which is not always down to price. I started with Klipsch X10i then jumped to SE535's but even though I could tell the improvements across the range I still preferred the X10i. I then went to my keepers which are the Shure SE846's and not had any urge to change from those since even though I have tried decent headphones such as the Sen H800 and B&W P7.

 

[New Fiio Owner]

Just like to put in a good word for "dBpoweramp", I like that with 1 or 2 clicks I have ripped to any format and chosen my album art.

Personally, dBpoweramp is the only suite that I use these days. It rips and converts everything, it runs on multiple cores so multiple songs are processed together, I can not fault it. I RIP everything to uncompressed FLAC for storage and then should you require other formats it's batch conversion takes seconds.

It is the one stop wonder.

 

[New Fiio Owner]

Its one of the only categories of device/equipment I know where people like to ignore price which I personally think is rather daft unless your very wealthy. I think ignoring the price vs perceived SQ helps people justify what they spend.

I like to hear good music but not with the "At any cost" mentality. I'm still going through mental torture trying to justify/convince myself of buying a Hugo 2, but my common sense keeps holding me back even though I have cash to buy one!

I had a Mojo which cost more than the Fiio X5III and did sound a bit better to my ears but I much prefer the all-in-one convenience & sensible pricing of the Fiio.

For me the greatest jump in audio is still the ear/headphones which is not always down to price. I started with Klipsch X10i then jumped to SE535's but even though I could tell the improvements across the range I still preferred the X10i. I then went to my keepers which are the Shure SE846's and not had any urge to change from those since even though I have tried decent headphones such as the Sen H800 and B&W P7.

I currently have 9 different sets of headphones and earphones, and of the lot my favourite is the B&O H6. I purchased them for only £140 on a Black Friday Deal and then two more sets when they were being sold for £129.00 on Ebay.

You certainly do not not have to spend 'Several Hundreds' nor 'Thousands' to get the best sound out of the X5III.

 

[FiiO]

Hi @FiiO

I have been having issues getting anywhere near that speed on SD card 1. It usually doesn't write above 1MB/s but I have no issue getting 20MB/s+ when using an SD card reader. The second SD card slot does not have this issue. I have also noticed that it takes a significant amount of time to access files on the first SD card in FiiO Music. I have also tried a replacement device and get the same issue. The cards I use are Samsung Evo+ 256GB.

Dear friend,

Thank you for your kind feedback. What's the format and the capacity of the songs you copied to SD card 1? We will report to our engineer about that and try to have a look about that.

Best regards

 

[superuser1]

Tame Impala FTW

 

[enragedlemon]

Dear friend,

Thank you for your kind feedback. What's the format and the capacity of the songs you copied to SD card 1? We will report to our engineer about that and try to have a look about that.

Best regards

@FiiO thanks for your response! I actually decided to format and re-copy all of my songs (around 14000 total, 7000 per card). The read/write rate is now vastly improved (see below benchmarks). This is interesting as I originally formatted and copied them in the same way and they had worked fine until recently. I wonder if they are becoming corrupted by constant mounting and dismounting?

Anyway, these are my real-world benchmarks which corroborate what FiiO's engineers have found.

ATTO Disk Benchmark Results (Transfer Size: 8MB, Total Length: 256MB)
device: read(MB/s)/write(MB/s)
internal: 26/11
external1: 12/7
external2: 25/12

Non-scientific file copy (Eagles Discog, ~2GB, 16/44 FLAC)
device: read(MB/s)/write(MB/s)
internal: 22/11
external1: 12/6
external2: 24/11

 

[aangen]

I am an admitted Fiio Fanboy, and I am sad. With firmware 1.16 I can't use my Mojo via coax as it now injects a massive amount of spurious noise when I do. It's not consistent but it's often and annoying. And today it took me quite a few tries (while driving) to get the player to mount SD2 which is a perfectly fine card. And like every Fiio player before it, the random mode playing is weak. It works well for two dozen songs and then it starts repeating earlier songs. Many times it starts favoring two artists until I set the player to not play randomly and then random again. I am close to grabbing my first gen X5 and setting this 3rd gen on the shelf. Bah.

 

[FiiO]

Next firmware request...

1. In folder view, is it possible to sort albums by "modified" date or created date?
2. Also in folder view, it would be nice if that once you choose a folder-then select a file, and then back back out into the main folder list... that the main folder structure remembers the last album you accessed, instead of going all the way back to the top of the folder list.
3. I now understand the always disappearing 2nd as card , as function of the processor limitation but is there a way to speed up the ability for the card scan/re-appear? It's slows down the device quite a bit imo.
4. Can we please have the option to change the stock launcher, or at bare minimum tweak the stock launcher app to a) allow icon packs, and b) add multiple home screens, such that I can have one screen with the fiio music app widget, a screen with a tidal widget, a screen with my podcast widget etc.
5.Also give the option to decrease the font size in the fiio app, for long folder names OR allow scrolling folder/album titles instead of the truncated label method used now.
6) and PLEASE speed up the blue power button, half the time I have to push it twice just to get the screen on, it's annoying.

Dear friend,

I have reported your feedback to our engineer.

In folder view, is it possible to sort albums by "modified" date or created date
---It may take us some times to assess this. We will consider about this in later firmware

The second one you mentioned may not be available to achieve.

add multiple home screens, such that I can have one screen with the fiio music app widget, a screen with a tidal widget, a screen with my podcast widget etc.

---You can add multiple home screens in current launcher as well. You can press the blank interface in the current screen to add different new screens and widgets you mentioned

Also give the option to decrease the font size in the fiio app, for long folder names OR allow scrolling folder/album titles instead of the truncated label method used now.

--Currently, it may not be available to decrease the font size or the whole theme will change as well.


Thank you for the kind support.

Best regards

 

[FiiO]

I know it has been touched on before, but i have been playing around with why the hardware buttons only work sometimes with third party apps. My normal usage is the fiio music app in pure music mode, but i also listen to both Pandora and Napster both online and off. I have found that the hardware buttons all work with Pandora and Napster perfectly, unless i have first listened to the fiio app in either pure music mode or android. After listening to the fiio app, only volume control works(hardware button) for pandora and napster. After a reboot all works again perfectly until i play a song in the fiio app. I wonder if there is a possible fix for this it seems the fiio app takes over the hardware buttons and does not release them until a reboot. Not a huge deal but it would be nice if there was a solution. I know this might not be on FIIO, but it seems strange that it only happens after using The Fiio app

Dear friend,

I have reported your feedback to our engineer. Have you exited the FiiO Music before returning to the other APPs you mentioned?

Best regards

 

[FiiO]

@FiiO thanks for your response! I actually decided to format and re-copy all of my songs (around 14000 total, 7000 per card). The read/write rate is now vastly improved (see below benchmarks). This is interesting as I originally formatted and copied them in the same way and they had worked fine until recently. I wonder if they are becoming corrupted by constant mounting and dismounting?

Anyway, these are my real-world benchmarks which corroborate what FiiO's engineers have found.

ATTO Disk Benchmark Results (Transfer Size: 8MB, Total Length: 256MB)
device: read(MB/s)/write(MB/s)
internal: 26/11
external1: 12/7
external2: 25/12

Non-scientific file copy (Eagles Discog, ~2GB, 16/44 FLAC)
device: read(MB/s)/write(MB/s)
internal: 22/11
external1: 12/6
external2: 24/11

Dear friend,

Thank you for the kind feedback. We have report to our engineer about that. We are assessing improving the speed of TF card1 in later firmware. Thanks again about that.

Best regards

 

[spanner43]

Dear friend,

I have reported your feedback to our engineer. Have you exited the FiiO Music before returning to the other APPs you mentioned?

Best regards

thank you for taking a look at this. Yes I exit the fiio app in each of my tests.