[WayTooCrazy]

@FiiO I know it wasn't advertised to be used in this fashion, but is there any reason (like maybe I would damage the DAP or something), that I couldn't build a balanced "out" cable to send a signal to my Schiit Jotunheim amp? I chose to buy all the parts to make the cable and purchased the amp with hopes to have my X5iii be my DAC.

 

[TheoS53]

  @FiiO I know it wasn't advertised to be used in this fashion, but is there any reason (like maybe I would damage the DAP or something), that I couldn't build a balanced "out" cable to send a signal to my Schiit Jotunheim amp? I chose to buy all the parts to make the cable and purchased the amp with hopes to have my X5iii be my DAC.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the balanced out still be running through the internal amp?

 

[spanner43]

  @FiiO I know it wasn't advertised to be used in this fashion, but is there any reason (like maybe I would damage the DAP or something), that I couldn't build a balanced "out" cable to send a signal to my Schiit Jotunheim amp? I chose to buy all the parts to make the cable and purchased the amp with hopes to have my X5iii be my DAC.

I use line-out to my schiit asguard 2 and it works great. I believe the headphone and balanced out both use onboard dac and amp

 

[TheoS53]

  I use line-out to my schiit asguard 2 and it works great. I believe the headphone and balanced out both use onboard dac and amp

Lineout would also be using the DAC, but not amp

 

[WayTooCrazy]

  Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the balanced out still be running through the internal amp?

Yes it would. 
 

  I use line-out to my schiit asguard 2 and it works great. I believe the headphone and balanced out both use onboard dac and amp

I've also done Line-Out to my Deckard and it works fine as well, I'd just like to see if there is a difference with Balanced out from the X5 to balanced in of the Jot...then run Balanced headphones vs, SE to Jot and letting Jot Balance the signal.
 

  Lineout would also be using the DAC, but not amp

Correct.

 

[Thx1326]

  This is for Fiio Tech Support:  I think I have pretty much confirmed that the X5 III does not like Windows VBR WMA (using the Windows 10 codecs) files with embedded album art.  I randomly sees some and not others.  I went through and put a nice sampling of cuts and albums which I reconverted and re-embedded the art.  dbPowerAmp sees it, Media Monkey sees it, Sonos sees it, Squeezebox Touch sees it, as does VLC and Windows Media Player on my laptop.  
 
Just tried the same thing with APE files - same result.
 
FLAC files work fine and show all art.
 
Just converted the FLAC files to MP3's (Yuck) - they all show album art fine.
 
All conversions in all above tests were done using dbPoweramp version 16 (latest version) using their codecs from their website.  
 
Going to try the same procedure tonight with different conversion utility.

Another follow-up for Fiio Tech Support:  Just to make sure it was not the conversion software I was using, tried all of the same procedures with a completely different utility.  Exact same results.
 
The only files which correctly display album art are FLAC and MP3's.  Ape, WMA 9.2, WMA 10, CBR, VBR - none show album art consistantly.  Some files do, some don't - even though they were all created with the same utility in the very same way with the exact same jpg files for album art.
 
When I try to use the loaded SD cards which came out of my X5 1st Generation - inconsistant album art.  They all showed the correct album art on my X5i - not on the Gen III.
 
I find this very disappointing.  Hopefully someone at Fiio can find a solution. 

 

[aangen]

 

  Dear HyperDuel,
 
The same TF card works well in the SD card slot 1, right? Would you mind formating the card to other format to see whether it helps? Sorry for bringing incovnenience to you.
 
Best regards

 
@FiiO no dice.  I first format the card to NTFS and put it in Second SD Card slot.  The music doesn't play after I paused it for a minute.  Instead, it will play the song from the beginning, or sometimes it will crash the FiiO Music app.  I moved the SD Card into slot one, and I moved my other SD Card into slot two.  Whatever plays from SD Card slot one works just fine, whatever plays in the Second SD Card slot will have those glitches.  Even trying out different music apps in Android mode will have the same issues from playing songs from the Second SD Card slot.  
 
Honestly I think this is a software issue and not hardware.  

It sounds like a hardware problem to me. It sounds like the second SD card slot is failing you.

 

[Uri Cohen]

  It sounds like a hardware problem to me. It sounds like the second SD card slot is failing you.

 
Not really because it works when playing music.  It is just when pausing/unpausing after two minutes, either the App will play the song from the beginning (which happens the majority of the time) or the App will crash and reboot itself.  I really think it is a software issue because the second slot reads all files and play them just fine. 

 

[aangen]

 

  This is for Fiio Tech Support:  I think I have pretty much confirmed that the X5 III does not like Windows VBR WMA (using the Windows 10 codecs) files with embedded album art.  I randomly sees some and not others.  I went through and put a nice sampling of cuts and albums which I reconverted and re-embedded the art.  dbPowerAmp sees it, Media Monkey sees it, Sonos sees it, Squeezebox Touch sees it, as does VLC and Windows Media Player on my laptop.  
 
Just tried the same thing with APE files - same result.
 
FLAC files work fine and show all art.
 
Just converted the FLAC files to MP3's (Yuck) - they all show album art fine.
 
All conversions in all above tests were done using dbPoweramp version 16 (latest version) using their codecs from their website.  
 
Going to try the same procedure tonight with different conversion utility.

Another follow-up for Fiio Tech Support:  Just to make sure it was not the conversion software I was using, tried all of the same procedures with a completely different utility.  Exact same results.
 
The only files which correctly display album art are FLAC and MP3's.  Ape, WMA 9.2, WMA 10, CBR, VBR - none show album art consistantly.  Some files do, some don't - even though they were all created with the same utility in the very same way with the exact same jpg files for album art.
 
When I try to use the loaded SD cards which came out of my X5 1st Generation - inconsistant album art.  They all showed the correct album art on my X5i - not on the Gen III.
 
I find this very disappointing.  Hopefully someone at Fiio can find a solution. 

Someone from Fiio once explained in this forum that in China, most people use a single file, named either cover.jpg or folder,jpg in each folder INSTEAD of embedded art. They went on to explain that outside of China people tend to use embedded art. Earlier versions of the X5iii software had issues with embedded.  If you have all your albums broken down into individual folders then a single image can do the trick. Just for fun I removed all the embedded art from all of my files. I then created a folder.jpg for each "album", and re-compressed all of my FLAC files. (I largely automated the procedure as I have 300GB worth). This solved my problems with album art for me. I wonder if you might try placing a single cover.jpg or folder.jpg in the directories you have non-FLAC or non-MP3 files in and see if that solves this issue for you.
 
(I saved a little over 1 GB on my 200 GB card by removing all the embedded art BTW)

 

[enragedlemon]

Someone from Fiio once explained in this forum that in China, most people use a single file, named either cover.jpg or folder,jpg in each folder INSTEAD of embedded art. They went on to explain that outside of China people tend to use embedded art. Earlier versions of the X5iii software had issues with embedded.  If you have all your albums broken down into individual folders then a single image can do the trick. Just for fun I removed all the embedded art from all of my files. I then created a folder.jpg for each "album", and re-compressed all of my FLAC files. (I largely automated the procedure as I have 300GB worth). This solved my problems with album art for me. I wonder if you might try placing a single cover.jpg or folder.jpg in the directories you have non-FLAC or non-MP3 files in and see if that solves this issue for you.

(I saved a little over 1 GB on my 200 GB card by removing all the embedded art BTW)

Using MP3Tag to move the embedded art to the folder, then recompressing and optimising the FLAC files with foobar saved me around 10GB out of 300GB.

 

[aangen]

And that space is good for like 20,000 128k mp3's.
(kidding)

 

[newtophones07]

@FiiO no dice.  I first format the card to NTFS and put it in Second SD Card slot.  The music doesn't play after I paused it for a minute.  Instead, it will play the song from the beginning, or sometimes it will crash the FiiO Music app.  I moved the SD Card into slot one, and I moved my other SD Card into slot two.  Whatever plays from SD Card slot one works just fine, whatever plays in the Second SD Card slot will have those glitches.  Even trying out different music apps in Android mode will have the same issues from playing songs from the Second SD Card slot.  

Honestly I think this is a software issue and not hardware.  

I too think there may be an issue with the software that is controlling Slot/Drive 2. My lexar 200Gb Class 10 sd card is now locked (forcing me to RMA the card, after literally trying EVERYTHING down to formatting my machine back to windows 7 from win10). My 256GB Samsung was also exhibiting this issue AFTER I moved it to the 2nd slot, in my feeble attempts to self trouble shoot. I was luckily able to save the samsung drive (formatted back to exfat-default in my pc, and placed ONLY in slot 1 for now), but the lexar drive is dead and I have to send it back and wait for replacement. Which is really not that awful since I will NOT place another expensive in the 2nd slot, till the next firmware comes out.

Thank goodness I was able to READ from the lexar, as I had a ton of paid hi res files, which are not cheap.

I do hope some of the engineers are looking into this.

I will say the firmware updater from fiio has been a godsend. So awesome work on that tool!!!

 

[enragedlemon]

And that space is good for like 20,000 128k mp3's.
(kidding)

Bro, why bother with 128k? Can barely tell an improvement over 64k. 64k MP3 Master race.

 

[FiiO]

  I'm getting low speeds (10-15MB/sec) when copying files to the SD cards.
I expected these speeds when connecting the X5 to the computer with USB, since that's USB 2.0
But I'm also getting these speeds when I use the cards in a memory card reader (Kingston FCR-HS4, USB3)
that's supposed to go upto 100MB/sec.
I'm using Sandisk Ultra 200MB SD's. Formatted in the X5, so I guess they are formatted as FAT32.
 
Any thoughts?

Dear Inof,
Here's the speeds we tested. Yes, it may not as fast as using a card reader.
 
Transfer rate depends on the data format and the micro SD card used. Using a Sandisk Class 10 SD card, the following results were obtained using the ATTO Disk Benchmark:
Internal memory: writes 8MB/s, reads 15MB/s (approx.)
Micro SD card: writes 12MB/s, reads 15MB/s (approx.)
Micro SD card used: Sandisk Class 10
Testing app: ATTO Disk Benchmark
 
Best regards

 

[FiiO]

  Received my x5 3rd gen earlier this week, and enjoying the experience. Nice update to my other Fiio players. 
Not sure if this is me or a player problem when using pure music. When adding tracks to a play list the tracks do not seem to list or play in the order added. They either list alphabetically or by track number in meta data. 
Am I missing something, or Fiio can you please fix this? 
Thanks
Graeme

Dear Graeme,
 
If you mean sorting the songs from internal playlist by added time, we will add this function for FiiO Music in next firmware update.
 
Best regards