[Indrajit]

This question is directed to Fiio.I would appreciate if Fiio takes the authority to answer my inquiry.

I have a Fiio X5III. I pair it with an Audio technica m50x. I have to turn up the volume upto 80-85 in high gain in single ended to reach a comfortable listening level. I have been advised on Head fi that the output powers of my X5III may be faulty. Is there a way to find out if the amp section of my X5III is faulty. Please tell

 

[Indrajit]

Dear friend,

The X5III is an Android-based,mastering quality lossless playback portable music player, so you could install most third party APP in it. But we could not promise the compatibility for all the APPs. And some APPs can also not be compatible to all the mobilephones as well. Hope you could understand.

Best regards

The question is directed to Fiio.
I have a Fiio X5III. I pair it with an Audio technica m50x. I have to turn up the volume upto 80-85 in high gain in single ended to reach a comfortable listening level. On the same volume Cayin N3 has more power at high gain. I have been advised on Head fi that the output powers of my X5III may be faulty. Is there a way to find out if the amp section of my X5III is faulty. Please tell

 

[arionomus]

Hey folks, don’t have an X5 but do have an X7

Was wondering if the X5 Fiio app also doesn’t have an option to queue songs on the go? Such as a ‘play next’ or ‘add to queue button’ you find within the tidal app or many others.

It does not. I assume this is one of the many features/fixes @FiiO developers are working on. Hiby and many other apps do allow you to cue songs.

 

[Indrajit]

I have been absent from this thread for a long time to wait for many firmware update to be released. Seems like 1.1.8 might be good enough to update. Thou I gotta say, there is way too many complain comments here. During the absent, I was kinda putting it up for sale that IF is were to sold it, I will invest in some other dap to fund this hobby. But it seems even thou I putting it half the price with warranty and like new condition, I received around 12 offers or so but all cancelled after reading this thread scared of all the issue mentioned. Ah well, might as well keep it. Since the sound is quite good for the price after exchanging the unit with faulty amp section.

Hi, Can you shed some light on the 'faulty amp section' of your Fiio X5III.
I have a Fiio X5III. I pair it with an Audio technica m50x. I have to turn up the volume upto 80-85 in high gain in single ended to reach a comfortable listening level. On the same volume Cayin N3 has more power at high gain. I have been advised on Head fi that the output powers of my X5III may be faulty. Is there a way to find out if the amp section of my X5III is faulty.

 

[seanwee]

@Indrajit

Can you make sure the M50X is fully plugged in? If it's not fully plugged in the sound will be softer.

 

[Indrajit]

@Indrajit

Can you make sure the M50X is fully plugged in? If it's not fully plugged in the sound will be softer.

Absolutely fully plugged

 

[Indrajit]

Absolutely fully plugged

To be precise, with the M50X on the same song, X5III on 70-75 on high gain is about as loud as Cayin N3 in single ended. On low gain they sound more or less similarly powered, but on high gain, X5III wheel has to be rocked more to reach N3 level. When switching from low to high on X5iii, there is no problem or weird behavior, the sound as expected becomes more powerful but it is when i compare it with my n3, that it becomes odd. Maybe its just the tuning as X5III can reach 120 and N3 can only reach 100.

 

[DavidA]

Hi, Can you shed some light on the 'faulty amp section' of your Fiio X5III.
I have a Fiio X5III. I pair it with an Audio technica m50x. I have to turn up the volume upto 80-85 in high gain in single ended to reach a comfortable listening level. On the same volume Cayin N3 has more power at high gain. I have been advised on Head fi that the output powers of my X5III may be faulty. Is there a way to find out if the amp section of my X5III is faulty.

You can't compare volume levels with the numbers on the volume control from different devices since they don't mean the same power output due to the way each potentiometer (volume control) is implemented in different devices. Also, most volume controls are not linear so for the X5iii 60/120 is probably not half the power output and this is probably the same for the N3.

 

[Indrajit]

You can't compare volume levels with the numbers on the volume control from different devices since they don't mean the same power output due to the way each potentiometer (volume control) is implemented in different devices. Also, most volume controls are not linear so for the X5iii 60/120 is probably not half the power output and this is probably the same for the N3.

Thanks. Anything that indicates my X5III has no such fault is music to my ears. I am happy to find out that such comparisons don't mean a thing!

 

[DavidA]

Thanks. Anything that indicates my X5III has no such fault is music to my ears. I am happy to find out that such comparisons don't mean a thing!

no problem, hope you enjoy your X5iii

 

[Brooko]

The question is directed to Fiio.
I have a Fiio X5III. I pair it with an Audio technica m50x. I have to turn up the volume upto 80-85 in high gain in single ended to reach a comfortable listening level. On the same volume Cayin N3 has more power at high gain. I have been advised on Head fi that the output powers of my X5III may be faulty. Is there a way to find out if the amp section of my X5III is faulty. Please tell

You can do some of this yourself

Calculator = http://www.digizoid.com/headphones-power.html

X5iii parameters = http://www.fiio.net/en/products/65/parameters

Ath M50X parameters = https://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/99aff89488ddd6b1/
(unfortunately they don't state the sensitivity measurement type)

If we assume the 99dB is /mW - then:

X5iii will put 250 mW into 32 ohms (28 mW into 300 ohm) - so lets be very pragmatic and say into 38 ohm you'll get at least 150 mW. Loud enough to be painful. Voltage output (peak) on the X5iii is 8Vp-p or 2.8 VRMS, so no issues there. Max current output on the X5iii is up to 250 mA. So all 3 boxes ticked to get SPL beyond 120 dB.

Next test is to see how loud you are actually listening .......

 

[GiacomoHoldini]

I ended up loading an APK file of the previous version of the Sirus app (4.2). Functionality is back, so that's a workaround. It's still glitchy, and that I do attribute to the X5. I'm running the same app on a four-year-old Kindle Fire, which is using an OS based on Android 4 (the X5 uses Android 5). The Fire runs the app better than the FIIO, even thought the app is optimized to run on Android 5.

My Samsung tablet is using Android 7, and it can run the new app just fine, so that would seem to be the issue: the new app doesn't run well on older Android versions. At face value, that means the Sirius app is the cause, rather than the X5. However, considering the X5iii just came out last year, one has to wonder why it was using an OS that had already been superseded by two generations (and now three). That would seem to a recipe for early obsolescence.

 

[seanwee]

I ended up loading an APK file of the previous version of the Sirus app (4.2). Functionality is back, so that's a workaround. It's still glitchy, and that I do attribute to the X5. I'm running the same app on a four-year-old Kindle Fire, which is using an OS based on Android 4 (the X5 uses Android 5). The Fire runs the app better than the FIIO, even thought the app is optimized to run on Android 5.

My Samsung tablet is using Android 7, and it can run the new app just fine, so that would seem to be the issue: the new app doesn't run well on older Android versions. At face value, that means the Sirius app is the cause, rather than the X5. However, considering the X5iii just came out last year, one has to wonder why it was using an OS that had already been superseded by two generations (and now three). That would seem to a recipe for early obsolescence.

There's quite a simple reason actually, the rockchip processor used in the X5iii (also X7ii and N5ii) doesn't support android versions higher than 5.1

So unless rockchip decides to somehow make the processor compatible with later versions of android, there's little FiiO can do.

 

[GiacomoHoldini]

So unless rockchip decides to somehow make the processor compatible with later versions of android, there's little FiiO can do.

Couldn't they switch processors? The Hiby R6 uses a Snapdragon processor that supports Android 6, although admittedly, that player isn't available yet on the retail market. (And even Android 6 is an outdated OS.)

Is there a reason why the DAP market is so far behind the curve compared to phones and tablets? The Samsung Galaxy S9 ships with Android 8. As mentioned, my Samsung Galaxy Tab A (which cost considerably less than the X5) came with Android 7. Conversely, a Headphonia review of the R6 says Android 6 "is one of the most advanced versions we’ve seen in Android DAP market yet." Android 6 came out in 2015, and was superseded by Android 7 in 2016. Android 5 isn't even supported for security updates anymore, but FIIO is using it as the OS in their flagship DAP because of their choice of processor? What am I missing?

 

[seanwee]

Couldn't they switch processors? The Hiby R6 uses a Snapdragon processor that supports Android 6, although admittedly, that player isn't available yet on the retail market. (And even Android 6 is an outdated OS.)

Is there a reason why the DAP market is so far behind the curve compared to phones and tablets? The Samsung Galaxy S9 ships with Android 8. As mentioned, my Samsung Galaxy Tab A (which cost considerably less than the X5) came with Android 7. Conversely, a Headphonia review of the R6 says Android 6 "is one of the most advanced versions we’ve seen in Android DAP market yet." Android 6 came out in 2015, and was superseded by Android 7 in 2016. Android 5 isn't even supported for security updates anymore, but FIIO is using it as the OS in their flagship DAP because of their choice of processor? What am I missing?

Snapdragon processors cost quite a bit of money which doesn't make sense for DAPs which focus on AUDIO.

You must also remember that the DAP market is still very small compared to the smartphone market. It's also likely that DAP makers can't fulfill the minimum order quantity needed for the processors.

Samsung owns their own processor fabrication plants so you can't really compare it like that.