FIIO’s innovative sub brand, SNOWSKY Bluetooth DAC and Headphone Amplifier RETRO NANO comes out!!

[HiFi Oasis]

My review of the Retro Nano is up for those interested,
https://www.hifioasis.com/reviews/snowsky-retro-nano-review/

 

[XTF1]

My review of the Retro Nano is up for those interested,
https://www.hifioasis.com/reviews/snowsky-retro-nano-review/

Nice review!
Are you sure about the car mode? I don’t see that option on mine…

 

[HiFi Oasis]

Nice review!
Are you sure about the car mode? I don’t see that option on mine…

Ya I forgot to remove that section after I hit publish. It's an odd omission though since it has basically every other feature the BTR13 has.

 

[abitdeef]

Got the Retro Nano 2 days ago and I'm very surprised at the performance and even the build quality for 60 bucks. Very good sound out of both outputs (especially 4 4) and great usability and a replaceable battery. Even though it's plastic the build quality and buttons feel very good.

It sounds as good as most dongles I've used and has plenty of power for most stuff, not hard to drive planars and such but still very good. Only downsides are no dsd and no filters, but most filters do next to nothing. I could easily use this as my daily driver. Plus it's super cute, I'm frankly amazed at the performance to price ratio, fiio is going to sell a lot of these. I got the white model. Oh and it does have the ten band user EQ on the fiio app, which works with ldac. I've been using it with BT and it sounds extremely close to dac mode. Sampling rate only goes to 96 but to me that's fine.

Good stuff! Easy recommend from me.

 

[inscythe]

Nice review!
Are you sure about the car mode? I don’t see that option on mine…

There is a way to emulate car mode: take out the battery, keep the power switch in ON position, then plug it to the in-car charger. It will turn on the moment the USB power kicks in.

Will I be able to use Retro Nano wired with iPhone via OTG as DAC (f.e. LT-LT2 or others?)

Yes

 

[skeeb23]

My review of the Retro Nano is up for those interested,
https://www.hifioasis.com/reviews/snowsky-retro-nano-review/

My video on the Retro Nano drops tomorrow on my YouTube. I completely forgot to mention the car mode. I know it's not an actual option when you toggle the connections, but it definitely is a thing. Found in the manual. It's strange you have to remove the battery for it..but I'm sure there is very good reasoning for it.

I absolutely love the Retro Nano! Great review by the way!

 

[HiFi Oasis]

My video on the Retro Nano drops tomorrow on my YouTube. I completely forgot to mention the car mode. I know it's not an actual option when you toggle the connections, but it definitely is a thing. Found in the manual. It's strange you have to remove the battery for it..but I'm sure there is very good reasoning for it.

I absolutely love the Retro Nano! Great review by the way!

Yup, that's exactly why I initially thought it was present in the menu for the Retro Nano. I now see FiiO has a guide in their FAQ for the Retro Nano explaining how to use it, so like you said they must have a good reason for that: https://www.fiio.com/newsinfo/998832.html

Thanks man, I appreciate the kinds words! Look forward to your video, big fan of your channel

 

[oneway23]

Apologies for the novice question, but, I don't have much experience with Bluetooth listening. My buddy just got one of these from Amazon, he's not a member here, and, I'm asking on his behalf:

Does this work with a pair of bluetooth headphones, or is it only meant to receive a BT signal from the phone and to be used only with wired headphones connected to the device?

He told me to mention that in phone mode it won't turn on Bluetooth pairing and in the BT mode it "seems to only pair an input."

I'm not currently with him and I don't have any knowledge of this stuff, but, I'd greatly appreciate any assistance which I could relay. Thank you very much!

 

[skeeb23]

Correct that it won't pair to a Bluetooth headphone. It doesn't work in that way. If his BT headphone has a line out, he could plug it in that way.

 

[oneway23]

Correct that it won't pair to a Bluetooth headphone. It doesn't work in that way. If his BT headphone has a line out, he could plug it in that way.

Oh, dear. Ok. Thank you very much, for the prompt reply, skeeb...I will let him know.

Again, when I type the question out and think about it, I now realize how silly it sounded, but, I really had no clue about this aspect of the hobby. I appreciate you being gentle LOL

 

[skeeb23]

No worries, we all start somewhere!

I posted a video on my YouTube of the Retro Nano if he wants any other info.

Glad to help!

 

[donjoe0]

Such a great idea to finally have a bluetooth receiver with a replaceable battery.
Too bad it's so small and low capacity, maybe a v2 of the device can use a 14500 cell, which is easier to find as well.

 

[XTF1]

Such a great idea to finally have a bluetooth receiver with a replaceable battery.
Too bad it's so small and low capacity, maybe a v2 of the device can use an 18650 cell, which is easier to find as well.

But is it true it gives no low-battery warning through either audio or LED? Do we risk draining our batteries so far they might get locked into protection mode?

18650? Yes for the capacity, but a big no for the size—at least for me!

The 10440 battery used on the nano doesn’t have integrated protection as far as I can tell (don’t even know if it exists in that battery size). So the protection is on the battery management chip side. Worse case, removing/reinserting the battery would reset the protection.

 

[SNOWSKY]

@SNOWSKY
I received my Retro Nano: like it very much. I love the PEQ, and the replaceable battery. I can get unlimited autonomy by just buying extra batteries, and I also like that it can work with no battery at all, powered from any USB source.
Oh and I really dig the retro look !!!

Two questions:

Is there any plan to add Retro Nano to the FiiO Control Web App? It makes PEQ settings easier to manage IMO.

What are these THD compensation in the iOS FiiO Control app?


They don’t show up in the Android app, and they don’t seem to do anything—stuck at 0.

Dear friend,

Hi, web control EQ function has already been added for RETRO NANO. You could have a try.
As for the iOS APP problem, the engineer are checking first. The RETRO NANO does not have this feature in the picture.

Best regards

 

[donjoe0]

May I ask what digital filters the Snowsky/FiiO RETRO NANO features?

Probably the same as every other CS43131 DAC, as those are implemented in the DAC chip itself. The real question is if there are plans to expose them in FiiO Control so we can select the one we want (I'm not seeing this option in any video review so far), or at least to specify which one comes pre-selected. I would bet it's a fast rolloff one, judging by the published frequency response graphs.