Explanation on the Delay of the Q5 Market Release
We are sorry to tell you that we have to postpone the market release date of the FiiO flagship Bluetooth DSD DAC & Amp Q5 until January 18th (if everything goes smoothly).
The delay is mainly caused by the Bluetooth compatibility. Please kindly check the detailed explanation / statement as follows:
1. Designed as the flagship model in our DAC & Amp product line, the Q5 is expected to have high sound quality with all input methods, including Bluetooth.
2. The Bluetooth IC also has an embedded DAC. In order to reduce its impact to the sound and achieve better sound quality, the Q5 is designed to bypass the Bluetooth embedded DAC while transmit the digital signal to XMOS platform directly and then to the professional DAC AK 4490. In this way, it's able to keep the data more complete and get better frequency response, THD+N, noise floor, crosstalk, etc, than other traditional Bluetooth audio devices.
What's more, the analog processing of the Bluetooth input is basically the same as that of the USB/Coaxial/Optical input, which further ensures consistent sound performance of different digital audio inputs.
However, owing to the difference of the underlying architecture and executive capability between the Bluetooth IC and XMOS, there might be problem during the data transit from the Bluetooth IC to the XMOS, which can result in no sound output when connecting to some new models of Smartphones.
3. Good news is that we've finally solved the issue through joint efforts of FiiO and the responsible persons from CSR and XMOS, but the delay is inevitable.
BTW, the Q5's firmware can be upgraded on the user's side. It can be upgraded after connecting the Q5 to the PC via the USB port at the bottom of the Q5. So if there should any unknown bugs, they can fixed by firmware upgrade in the future. Also, the Bluetooth function can be upgraded independently when connected to PC via the side USB port of the Q5. And the Bluetooth version can be upgraded from Bluetooth 4.1 to 5.0 or above in the future.
Thank you for your kind understanding. Let's expect the good news to come!
Best Regards,
Demond