[Duncan]

However it sounds, unless FiiO are about ready to commit corporate suicide, it won't sound better than the K9 Pro ESS (being NON Pro), so - I feel personally, at best - different to the K9 ESS, which I've grown over the past couple of weeks - to love, I hate to sexualise this, however - I feel it will be akin to the difference of going on a date with Scarlett Johannsen, and - the next night, Elizabeth Olsen - both are strong MCU actresses, and both have their own qualities - but, as to which one is the best??

 

[MariusAB]

However it sounds, unless FiiO are about ready to commit corporate suicide, it won't sound better than the K9 Pro ESS (being NON Pro), so - I feel personally, at best - different to the K9 ESS, which I've grown over the past couple of weeks - to love, I hate to sexualise this, however - I feel it will be akin to the difference of going on a date with Scarlett Johannsen, and - the next night, Elizabeth Olsen - both are strong MCU actresses, and both have their own qualities - but, as to which one is the best??

Good point , as always it depends what is more worth to you. Not going to Scarlet or Elizabeth i believe they really will have their strengths each. Velvety akm vs clearer brighter ess, but don't know if this works these days.
Seems you have compared pro and non pro. I heard only pro ess so from this i would like to get sound as near as possible to pro but we all know it is not possible. Still people say k9 ess are really near pro so akm could be even nearer. And with k9 Fiio looks like really shooting around their foot.

 

[kingy]

Hello, did anyone have a chance to compare Fiio K9PRO to the Sony TA-ZH1ES dac/amp? Would Sony still be better for transferring the signal to powered monitors through the pre outs? I like the idea that Fiio K9PRO has the balanced XLR line outs, which Sony doesn't. That's the only thing that the Sony dac is missing. Apart form the ESS Sabre chip

 

[EdgeDC]

Hello, did anyone have a chance to compare Fiio K9PRO to the Sony TA-ZH1ES dac/amp? Would Sony still be better for transferring the signal to powered monitors through the pre outs? I like the idea that Fiio K9PRO has the balanced XLR line outs, which Sony doesn't. That's the only thing that the Sony dac is missing. Apart form the ESS Sabre chip

This is the regular FiiO K9 (non-Pro) thread. You may want to ask this question over in the FiiO K9 Pro thread, instead.

 

[Duncan]

Random question, and sorry if this is a case of RTFM - if listening to a particularly bass heavy track at quite a high volume, I get a red ring of death (released by muting and releasing the mute) is that caused by me exceeding the max output power?

 

[Riversalt]

Random question, and sorry if this is a case of RTFM - if listening to a particularly bass heavy track at quite a high volume, I get a red ring of death (released by muting and releasing the mute) is that caused by me exceeding the max output power?

Which phone, do I use balanced or single?

 

[Duncan]

Which phone, do I use balanced or single?

Balanced, Sundara Closed (20ohm)

 

[FiiO]

Random question, and sorry if this is a case of RTFM - if listening to a particularly bass heavy track at quite a high volume, I get a red ring of death (released by muting and releasing the mute) is that caused by me exceeding the max output power?

Dear friend,

【Measures to deal with abnormal red light】
1. When the red light is always on, it means that the internal temperature of the machine is too high. In order to protect the internal circuit from being damaged, K9 will stop working at this time. It is recommended to leave it for a while before using it.
2. When the playback is abnormal, such as red flashing or breathing, it is recommended to turn off the boat switch on the back panel, restart the K9, and unplug some output interfaces before using the K9.

Best regards

 

[el-jorge]

I hope someone can help me, or offer me explanation what is happening.

I have the K9 connected to my pc through an optical cable. I installed the provided ASIO driver. Within musicbee I selected the ASIO driver. What sometimes happens is that after the pc went to sleep, or switched to other sources like youtube. I can't play music with musicbee anymore and I have to power off and on the K9 to get it working again.

 

[ahmonge]

I hope someone can help me, or offer me explanation what is happening.

I have the K9 connected to my pc through an optical cable. I installed the provided ASIO driver. Within musicbee I selected the ASIO driver. What sometimes happens is that after the pc went to sleep, or switched to other sources like youtube. I can't play music with musicbee anymore and I have to power off and on the K9 to get it working again.

Does it happen when connected thru USB + ASIO, or with the optical cable + WASAPI exclusive protocol?

 

[XTF1]

I hope someone can help me, or offer me explanation what is happening.

I have the K9 connected to my pc through an optical cable. I installed the provided ASIO driver. Within musicbee I selected the ASIO driver. What sometimes happens is that after the pc went to sleep, or switched to other sources like youtube. I can't play music with musicbee anymore and I have to power off and on the K9 to get it working again.

Looks like the old SPDIF “keep-alive” problem specific to some motherboards or sound cards. If you Google it, you should find some utility programs to keep the SPDIF link alive… but no guarantee it’ll fix your issue! That could be something else…

 

[el-jorge]

I have to correct myself, I connected the K9 through USB

 

[ahmonge]

I have to correct myself, I connected the K9 through USB

I have a similar setup, desktop PC with Windows 11 > USB > external DAC (Fiio K5 Pro) with its driver installed and using the ASIO audio protocol: The only thing we don't share is the possibility to suspend, as it is disabled in my PC. Since ASIO is an audio protocol that works outside of Windows' own protocol (WASAPI) and audio stack, conflicts can occur when switching from an application that uses ASIO to another that uses WASAPI, such as Youtube. In my case, when listening to music with Qobuz or playing local files with Foobar2000, I leave the system volume at zero to avoid interference at the DAC level. There are times (not always) that if I switch between both protocols the DAC does not respond to Youtube and I have to turn it off and on to hear the sound again. An alternative would be to use WASAPI exclusive with MusicBee, since all the sound sent to the DAC would be under the control of the Windows audio stack.

Hope this helps.