docholliday
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2017
- Posts
- 445
- Likes
- 354
Well, I certainly did not wish to imply elitism when I decreed my little X1 II as “disposable.” I love this DAP’s touch wheel and sound, but I was more reacting to all brickbats thrown at it due to being a work in progress as far as firmware updates. I’ve read a few posts where people rail against this player as if it’s conspired to ruin their lives. I’m glad many people are enjoying it. I certainly agree that FiiO’s previous X1 and this serve as wonderful envoys for the uninitiated to move away from listening to music on iPods and phones.
If you are implying that I'm one of those people who "rail against this player", then think again...I am not. On the Fiio forum, I've been more than nice about it and have only really noted three things that need improved - slow operation with occasional lockup upon return from standby, no RG, and buffer/timebase issues. As I've said before, it's a great player, with a great price. Even with more expensive DAPs, many times, I'll take the X1-II because it's smaller. I also wouldn't feel as bad if it got destroyed when I'm out and about as it would be much easier to replace so I don't have to baby my DAP all the time.
My issue is that every comment from Fiio about the "next firmware" has been without detail, without any kind of "progress". It's always "in the next firmware, sometime this/next month". After seeing that for a while, it starts to become a hollow promise. Then, suddenly, the X5III gets released and there is suddenly even less from Fiio about the X1-II. The new shiny red-headed stepchild is getting pushed to the backburner and it seems like they have one person working one hour a day on firmware for every player they have.
The timebase/next track speed and sleep/lockup bugs are the most annoying. Imaging listening away while working on something (doesn't matter if your at a desk or crawling through a wire chase running cable) with the player in your pocket. You hit next to pull up a random track and it's playing at 1/2 (or 2x) the speed of the last. You have to pull the player out to do the work around (go play something else manually so that it'll get the 44 vs 96 timebase right). You turn on the display, hit back, and it locks up because of another bug. Now, you have to hold down buttons with both hands to shut it down, restart the player, and begin all over.
Then, back to work. Suddenly, the random play goes from a Pink Floyd track (nice and quiet), where you had bumped up the volume to hear, to (insert 90s loudness war band here) and you get your ears blown away from the 12db difference. But, you had already spent weeks tagging and ReplayGaining your tracks - the RG data is stored in the file, but it's useless here. Now, you've already had to sit there for a minute getting the player restarted. Then, you had to stop again and (quickly) grab the player to punch down the volume.
It might not be too big a' deal for those at a desk all day or when you're dedicated to listening. But, there's times where your doing something where stopping and having to rip your customs out of your head or letting go of whatever your holding (or hanging on to!) to grab the player out of a pocket. And, no, I'm not putting a $1500 DAP in my pocket so that I can have RG in these environments.