FiiO K3 review
After enjoying FiiO E10K at my office for so many years I had very big expetations for K3. Especially after such a long wait for E10K's successor. E10K is still one of the best sub $100 DAC & AMP combos you can pair with eg. your laptop or workstation.
Package
The package reminded me a lot of current cellphone accessories. It it is relativelly small, has a modern look and in general looks nice. Besides K3 the package includes an USB cable, 4 foam stickers and two small booklets. It's nice that FiiO keeps the packages small without increasing costs with some unecessary accessories.
Performance
By the looks K3 looks very modern and feature rich. I'm really glad FiiO has decided to fillfull this little device with so many features yet to keep the price under $100.
Compared to it's older brother E10K's (left) front panel K3 has two headphone outputs balanced and unbalanced, bass and gain switches. Quite amazing achievement when we consider that both devices are having quite the same size.
The rear side has Line Out, USB input, USB 1.0 / 2.0 audio switch, Coax and Optical out ports. As we can see at the picture below there isn't much space left for any other ports.
All my listening experience was done by using my Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro & Sennheiser HD600 headphones, Tidal Hifi (with tons of MQA songs). I've spent 2-3 weeks using my K3 and constantly comparing it to my other audio gear (E10K, Burson Audio Fun, Khadas Tone Board DAC, Burson Playmate and JDS Labs Atom). The comparsion was done out of curiosity. I wasn't expecting that K3 can compete with the DAC and amps which cost at least twice as much. My goal is to share my experience as good as I possibly can.
After the setup and spending so much time listening to my Tidal Hifi songs it was the moment I had been waiting for since I wished for E10K successors. To be 100% honest with everyone here I had to admit I was a bit disappointed about K3's sound performance. It's such feature rich small little DAC & AMP combo but the sound is just 'OK'. Compared to E10K there was little to none difference. Comapred to my other gear eg. Burson Fun (Sparkos opamps) had way wider sound stage and tons of clarity and much much better bass. I tried to use K3 only as a DAC and the results were quite the same. I have tested balanced and unbalanced ports and yes balanced sounds a bit better but I think K3 is screaming for more room and power. More room and more power for the amp and also for the DAC as well. Either E10K is still just so good or K3 is just 'missed opportunity' regarding the sound. Personally I couldnt hear much difference no matter how much I tried. Considering K3's price difference to me it's hard to recommend it over E10K unless you need some other features E10K is lacking. I really do wish that FiiO creates another DAC & AMP combo designed for desktop usage with full power supply, much advanced dac and much powerful amp. Yes there is room for you too FiiO.
If I can wish, consider making a white/silver option too!
Another disappointment was K3's line out which is tied to the volume knob. I wish that there was a switch for bypassing it. K3's amp was just way too weak to drive either of my headphones. My listening level was almost at 3 o'clock which is quite a lot. On balanced I've used something around 12 but still. Personally I would prefer optical input over output. However I can easly see some using K3's optical output.
Verdict
I've really wanted to like K3 and I think I still do but with a small consideration. I'm still gonna recommend both of these little brothers with the consideration of the feature differences. Unless you need (or have) balanced headphones the balanced output is pretty much the same on both devices. Also if your budget is very tight and you are entering the DAC& world I would still recommend starting from E10K and upgrading from there.
I hope FiiO is taking notes from all these reviews in hope that we might see the pure desktop version of FiiO DAC & AMP combo. How about balanced output, swappable opamps, a couple of different colors to choose from etc...
A huge thanks to FiiO for keeping the audiophile community alive! Kudos!