FiiO X1 Ultraportable Hi-Res DAP

Overview

The FiiO X1 was one of FiiOs least expensive DAPs (Digital Audio Players) on the market, originally costing around $150 AUD.
for such a small price, the X1 is excellent value, offering many customisable sound and play settings. It supports most file formats, including WAV, FLAC, AAC, WMA, MP3, etc. the X1 doesn't have bluetooth, but for this price and age, that's not unexpected.

Features and Functionality

The X1 is packed with customisation settings, including theme, EQ, and play settings. it also has playlists, favourites and a handy Library Search function.

EQ:
The X1 has a seven band EQ, with all the basic presets already there, which is good for on the go use, as you don’t have to walk around fiddling with the EQ faders.

Play Settings:
The X1 gives the option to shuffle, repeat, repeat once, play one song then stop, and play through folder (a feature i like, as it allows you to shuffle your whole music library.

Controls:
The X1 has four main buttons (multifunction, back, last track, next track), a multi-function mechanical scroll wheel, volume up/down, a power button, and a select button.
The thing that annoys me about the X1, is the lack of easy to understand symbols/labelling on the device, and information on the website about all the functions. The scroll wheel for example, can be used for scrolling through music and menus, and adjusting the volume (all you have to do is hold the centre (select) button, or press one of the volume buttons until the volume display pops up.). The lack of labelling could a serious problem for some, i’ve even seen other reviewers complaining that you can’t use the scroll wheel for volume, because they didn’t know that you could.

Sound Quality

The X1 sounds excellent, considering the price. The main thing that stuck me about the sound was the bass, this is where it is a huge step up from a phone or computer (this is all i have to compare with, as all my other DAPs are way out of this price range). Not in bass volume, but in bass extension and control, what you may call “punch and slam”.
The soundstage, instrument separation and “spaciousness” are OK, but the X1 does tend to sound a little bit muddled on tracks with lots of different instruments and sounds.

Summary

All in all, the X1 is a good buy for anyone wanting big sound for not much money, with heaps of features, and excellent sound quality, the FiiO X1 is a real Bang for Buck device!

VIDEO REVIEW:


INTRODUCTION

You might be wondering why you need a Digital audio player when we are living in a century where we use our phones to listen to music. Your phones are dedicated to many other functions like photos, phone calls, data, etc. This in turn limits your phone from having variety of files types & dedicated hardware/software for music! What the digital audio player like the Fiio x1 offers is a dedicated dac/amp to make your music sound much better and battery life dedicated to just music, to name a few. There are of course many more benefits and variety of features depending on the digital audio player we are talking about ! READ ON to find more features for the FIIO X 1 digital audio player.



ABOUT FIIO

Fiio is a Chinese company that produces and sells high quality products at favorable prices to those who love music and style. They strive to raise the reputation of “Made in China.” It was first established in 2007 with the background experience in researching and developing countless portable music product of different types. Fiio strictly adheres to ISO9001 standards in quality management and thus Fiio products are sold internationally with pride. They ceaselessly pursues perfection in designing the perfect product for users, producing many variety of products with improvements until this day.


DISCLAIMER

This unit was purchased by me for this review and as usual I am committed to providing reviews with no bias.

SPECS

DAC: Texas Instruments' Newest PCM5142

AMP: Intersil's newest ISL28291

lossless music formats: APE, FLAC, WAV, WMA, ALAC, at up to 192kHz / 24bits Plus mp3, aac, ogg vorbis...

Material: light durable aluminium alloys

Weight: 106 grams

Battery: 1700 milliamp hours (10-11 hours usage)

Output level: 100 mW @ 16 ohms

Recommended impedance range: 16 to 100 ohms

BUILD QUALITY / FUNCTIONS

Build quality: Fiio is known for their build quality and it is no exception for the Fiio x1, which is built in full aluminum. It is very durables and very nice to the touch. Even the buttons feel nice, although they are not the “nicest,” you cannot expect more from a 100-dollar digital audio player, for the price you pay, one thing you will have no complaints is the build quality.

EQ functionality: Fiio really stood up to bring the best in a budget package here by adding this function. With this function, you can easily EQ your music just the way you like it. It even has its own set of EQs for different genres of music such as pop, vocal, rock, etc.



Themes: adding to the style and beauty of the DAP, it features an all new UI theme rendered on a full colour display. Available in gold, silver, pink, orange, blue, and green themes.

Line output: The X1 supports both driving headphones directly and line output as well, switching between the two easily via a menu selection. Using line output, you may expand the X1 by bundling it with dedicated headphone amplifiers for more demanding power hungry headphones.

Micro SD card slot: support up to 128GB, which plenty for most individuals, even enthusiasts.

Controls Buttons: the control buttons are very easy to access in your pocket and simple. Featuring center play and pause/enter button and fast forward, next song, etc in the nicely placed X – buttons.

Factory reset function: on the side of the device, there is an extremely small hole that you can use in case your device starts malfunctioning or has a seizure, you will need it but we will get on this topic in the later sections of this review.

The scroll button: It is a rubberized mechanical wheel. feels great, I have no complaints.

PRACTIALLY

The flat surface and reasonable size allows for easy pairing with externals dac/amp, not to mention being perfectly comfortable in your pockets.

NEGATIVES / THINGS TO IMPROVE ON

RESET BUTTON: the reset button was a nice touch because it is required because errors frequently arise with different files types of just in general. It is perfectly fine after using a reset button but it would have been nice to not have to use the reset button at all.

Bluetooth: Fiio x1 (1st gen) does not have Bluetooth. Fiio did release the 2nd generation which has Bluetooth and if you really want Bluetooth, you can purchase an external Bluetooth adapter.

Does not support DSD: this is if you really care about REALLY high quality digital files on the go, I would imagine most people are fine with flac files

SOUND QUALITY

I auditioned many different IEMS/headphones across over 100s of different test tracks in lossless flac files. (some include, noble x / LZ A4 / IE80 / HD598cs / m40x / re400 / he400 / h650 ETC)

My conclusion was that this is one of if not the most classic fiio sound signature you will hear. This digital audio player will NOT give you neutrality but more a warm and smooth sound signature, which most people will enjoy. The clarity suffers a bit compared to their higher end DAPs or shanling m1 (another entry dap), especially in the highs. Also, fiio x1 is more powerful than shanling m1 but m1 beats the x1 by far in separation and imaging. But again, Fiio is more full sounding because of its more powerful amp and overall warmer sound signature.

Needs to read playlists properly. Better ways to modify playlists. Additional playback options needed (e.g. shuffle current list of songs AND loop al)