@FiiO Will the per-feature of the BTR 7 come to the Q7? with that feature, the Q7 would be the perfect all in one Solution.
FiiO Q7 Portable Desktop-Class DAC and Headphone Amplifier Discussion & Impressions Thread
- Thread starter FiiO
- Start date
Sry, a typo. The Parametric Equalizer Feature.
Dear friend,
We will report to the engineer for assessing first.
Thanks for the kind feedback.
Best regards
duyu
100+ Head-Fier
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- Dec 2, 2011
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Didn't visit Head-fi for some time. Just ordered a Q7 from Amazon. Really look forward to listening to this new monster.
Please send my regard to James.
- duyu
Please send my regard to James.
- duyu
KaiFi
500+ Head-Fier
Finally got mine today! Here are some of my random thoughts:
-This is the most expensive headphone amp I've ever owned. Theoretically, it should then be the best-sounding and that does seem to be true. It beats out the iFi Gryphon in my opinion.
-Although I was worried this would be "semi-portable", it is not quite as big and ungainly as I was imagining. It's heavy for a portable, but it is portable, and as a laptop user, I think this is perfect for laptop listening.
-I wish the color on the volume knob indicated volume level rather than bitrate. The lights on the side already indicate bitrate. We don't really need two bitrate indicators. One thing I liked about the Gryphon was the use of color to indicate volume level, so it's instantly obvious which volume range you're in. Here the only way to tell is to wake up the screen with the power button. So having to wake up the screen to adjust the volume between genres (because some genres need to be listened to at different volumes) is kind of annoying.
-Which brings me to my next gripe: the screen. I wish there were a way to rotate its orientation. It's clear that this amp is meant to be used in one orientation. But with my setup, it makes much more sense to use it lying flat on the desk or couch or whatever with the headphone-out and knob toward me and the USB connection away from me (and this is indeed how I used the Gryphon and the Fiio Q5). But doing this with the Q7 means the screen is upside-down. For something portable it should be more accommodating to different uses rather than the one orientation.
-As with all devices that have these filters, I really don't understand them or how they affect the sound.
Other than that, I'm really liking it so far and I can't wait to test it with more headphones.
-This is the most expensive headphone amp I've ever owned. Theoretically, it should then be the best-sounding and that does seem to be true. It beats out the iFi Gryphon in my opinion.
-Although I was worried this would be "semi-portable", it is not quite as big and ungainly as I was imagining. It's heavy for a portable, but it is portable, and as a laptop user, I think this is perfect for laptop listening.
-I wish the color on the volume knob indicated volume level rather than bitrate. The lights on the side already indicate bitrate. We don't really need two bitrate indicators. One thing I liked about the Gryphon was the use of color to indicate volume level, so it's instantly obvious which volume range you're in. Here the only way to tell is to wake up the screen with the power button. So having to wake up the screen to adjust the volume between genres (because some genres need to be listened to at different volumes) is kind of annoying.
-Which brings me to my next gripe: the screen. I wish there were a way to rotate its orientation. It's clear that this amp is meant to be used in one orientation. But with my setup, it makes much more sense to use it lying flat on the desk or couch or whatever with the headphone-out and knob toward me and the USB connection away from me (and this is indeed how I used the Gryphon and the Fiio Q5). But doing this with the Q7 means the screen is upside-down. For something portable it should be more accommodating to different uses rather than the one orientation.
-As with all devices that have these filters, I really don't understand them or how they affect the sound.
Other than that, I'm really liking it so far and I can't wait to test it with more headphones.
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Kukii
New Head-Fier
I am considering buying Q7, but wondering how the sounds compare to K9 Pro? (Just in terms of sound quality, forget about the portability)
gto88
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2014
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agree with color for volume, hugo 2 has that.Finally got mine today! Here are some of my random thoughts:
-This is the most expensive headphone amp I've ever owned. Theoretically, it should then be the best-sounding and that does seem to be true. It beats out the iFi Gryphon in my opinion.
-Although I was worried this would be "semi-portable", it is not quite as big and ungainly as I was imagining. It's heavy for a portable, but it is portable, and as a laptop user, I think this is perfect for laptop listening.
-I wish the color on the volume knob indicated volume level rather than bitrate. The lights on the side already indicate bitrate. We don't really need two bitrate indicators. One thing I liked about the Gryphon was the use of color to indicate volume level, so it's instantly obvious which volume range you're in. Here the only way to tell is to wake up the screen with the power button. So having to wake up the screen to adjust the volume between genres (because some genres need to be listened to at different volumes) is kind of annoying.
-Which brings me to my next gripe: the screen. I wish there were a way to rotate its orientation. It's clear that this amp is meant to be used in one orientation. But with my setup, it makes much more sense to use it lying flat on the desk or couch or whatever with the headphone-out and knob toward me and the USB connection away from me (and this is indeed how I used the Gryphon and the Fiio Q5). But doing this with the Q7 means the screen is upside-down. For something portable it should be more accommodating to different uses rather than the one orientation.
-As with all devices that have these filters, I really don't understand them or how they affect the sound.
Other than that, I'm really liking it so far and I can't wait to test it with more headphones.
duyu
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2011
- Posts
- 458
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- 181
I need some help! Are there Apple Music subscribers here who are as well android users? I tested both iPhone and iPad, and also on an Android phone. The music is clearly downsampled and with a lot of distortion as compared connecting via a Macbook Pro (with proper Midi setup). Is there a way I can make Q7 the native dac using the android phone? I bet there is no hope for iPhone and iPad...
There is still hope for iPhone and iPad.
The settings for High-res is the Settingsmenu under the Music-App Settings, Audioquality (Bitdepth and samplingrate are automatically adjusted). But you have to select high-red for all 3 cases (Stream, Wi-Fi, download).
Android and bit-perfect can be a pita. But there are my only experiences with fiios m11+.
duyu
100+ Head-Fier
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It doesn't work for both iPhone and Android. It is clearly downsampled even if the high-res is selected. For Android phones, even if it shows 192k sample rate on Q7, it is clearly downsampled. I saw there is some discussion about making the external dac as the native one, bypassing the internal dac in the phone.
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rlw6534
Headphoneus Supremus
There must be something specific about your setup that has went wrong. I have both iPhone and iPad and both play at the correct sample rate as indicated by the Apple Music app and the external DAC (USB connection, of course). Also, I have an Android tablet and multiple Android DAPs that do the same. Why do you think it's downsampling? It seems unlikely that Apple or FiiO are falsely reporting sample rate.
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KaiFi
500+ Head-Fier
Okay, one thing I’m not liking about the Q7 after testing it more today is that if you pause/stop music, after about a minute or so, the Q7 partially shuts off, dropping the connection, and when you restart the music, it takes a little while for the device to start back up again (including a pop in the audio signal). I don’t know if this is a battery-saving feature or something, but it’s kind of annoying since other portable amps I’ve used don’t do this.
It doesn’t take long to turn the device on and off, so I’d rather do it myself or there could be an auto-shut off after 15 minutes or something. I don’t like the way it currently handles this though.
It doesn’t take long to turn the device on and off, so I’d rather do it myself or there could be an auto-shut off after 15 minutes or something. I don’t like the way it currently handles this though.
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The iPhone and iPad should output bit-perfect without down-sampling, if you're using a newer phone with a newer iOS, and you're using the Camera Connection Kit or similarly compatible cable with it.
Android would usually down-sample -- I don't remember if the latest Android versions fixed this.
More information about what iOS and Android version you're using would be helpful here.
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