[sjb57]

And are you stutter free using the FIIO player in both android and pure modes? I've just become accustomed to the player needing a good 10 minutes to warm up (so to speak) and regular rescans in order to play with occasional hiccups. I've got one 256 and another 128 gig card, neither which are filled to capacity, FAT32 as per being formatted in the device. Would NTFS smooth things out?

And just generally, I love my X5III just as I loved the two the came before it but I'm admittedly in the market for a device that just works.

Only stuttering I experienced was limited to Media Monkey playing FLAC in Android mode. Otherwise, no player problems at all with 2 x 200Gb cards (one 95% full), both NTFS format in my laptop. I just know it works for me.

 

[Paradoxus]

Just got the X5 iii, which I bought solely for listening to tidal offline. Am glad that tidal offline works flawlessly so far, but I didn't realise that I couldn't apply EQ to tidal offline.

Did a thorough search and realised that the problem was raised more than a year ago. Has there been any progress on this front? Am pretty bumped as I wanted a dap that would allow me to eq tidal offline.

 

[max079]

Dear experts,

Im using my x5 III in every day and like a lot, but when im in the gym and the player is in my pocket it happen very often that the buttons pushed accidently which makes me crazy.
So, here comes the question: can the buttons be disabled somehow, maybe from the menu?
Would save some of my grey hairs if yes.

Thanks, Peter

 

[Sinarca]

Dear experts,

Im using my x5 III in every day and like a lot, but when im in the gym and the player is in my pocket it happen very often that the buttons pushed accidently which makes me crazy.
So, here comes the question: can the buttons be disabled somehow, maybe from the menu?
Would save some of my grey hairs if yes.

Thanks, Peter

You can disable buttons (menu/settings), but only with screen off

 

[max079]

You can disable buttons (menu/settings), but only with screen off

Thanks will try.

 

[K1030]

Just got the X5 iii, which I bought solely for listening to tidal offline. Am glad that tidal offline works flawlessly so far, but I didn't realise that I couldn't apply EQ to tidal offline.

Did a thorough search and realised that the problem was raised more than a year ago. Has there been any progress on this front? Am pretty bumped as I wanted a dap that would allow me to eq tidal offline.

Not offline unfortunately. At best you could use a third party app like captune or usb audio layer pro and stream it and EQ it. If you have an unlimited data plan you could use your phone as a mobile hotspot or use wifi at home and tweak all you want; but all the while streaming instead of accessing offline content.

 

[Paradoxus]

Not offline unfortunately. At best you could use a third party app like captune or usb audio layer pro and stream it and EQ it. If you have an unlimited data plan you could use your phone as a mobile hotspot or use wifi at home and tweak all you want; but all the while streaming instead of accessing offline content.

Thanks for the confirmation. It's unfortunate that so long later, Fiio has not found a way to integrate system-wide EQ.

 

[ctruth]

Frustrated at having been an un-compensated beta tester for your X5III?


Fall back to your Fiio X3II - hook it up to a Fiio E12 amp.

After brain compensation in an hour or two, you may be pleasantly surprised.


…and oh yeah, if you transfer your Micro SD card, the Media Library update is almost instantaneous.

 

[fjhuerta]

Just got my XIII.

First impressions:

1) It's beautiful. It's as good looking as the Sony NW-ZX2.
2) It's better designed than the NW-ZX2.


Now, about the unit itself....

1) It's too slow to be usable. The first time I booted it, I couldn't even select the language. It froze. Then I managed to install it. It took around 10 minutes to install Facebook Lite, Chrome and Spotify.
2) Opening Spotify takes a while, but the bad thing is: selecting anything from the menu takes a while, selecting a song takes a while, selecting a new song takes a while. Everything is DEAD slow. As in "I bought a $30 Android Phone 5 years ago and installed Spotify on it" slow. And no, I'm not exaggerating.
3) Every once in a while, Spotify will quit, and will drop me to the home screen. And the unit already froze on me suddenly, and I had to reboot it. Which took ages.
4) Sound is mediocre. I'd rather listen to the output of my Galaxy S8+. It doesn't have as much output power, and I'm sure it doesn't sound as good as the Fiio with big cans, but with my portable headphones, sound is pretty much the same - but the S8+ is far more stable and quick. The user experience is so far above and beyond the Fiio, I'd rather use the S8+ all the time.
5) NO SYSTEM WIDE EQ?!?!?! My S8+ has it! I need it to use the iSine in-ears - no luck!

The weird thing is - I read so many good things about how awesome this unit was. And I've had nothing but excellent experiences from Fiio products. I have to wonder how many of those reviews were not completely honest. The X5 III, as is, is unusable, IMHO. YMMV, etc., but I'd rather have an LG V10 or V20 than the Fiio.

 

[BobSmith8901]

One thing is the WiFi on this thing is so weak. The fastest I can connect to my 300-n router is 65mbps--65!. Tried all of the settings in the router, 65 it is. Just the hardware limit in the X5 I guess. It's amazing that I can stream Tidal hifi at the far end of the house, once I do connect, while the tiny wifi monitor on my X5III can show even as low as a 1mbps connection to the router at times. For any major downloading I simply have to get closer or it is hopelessly slow.

That said, the thing is gorgeous and you want to work with it but I guess you have to keep in mind that the wireless part of it is simply not up-to-speed and appreciate it more for its Puresound SQ (for me it's good anyway as I came from the X1 [which is darn good sound for the price ]). And yes, it is slower than I anticipated it would be although Spotify does load faster than my circa 2104 EVGA tablet. And the thing gets hot! I find an intense listening session of more than a half hour if you're holding onto it is almost intolerable.

Anyway, I got what I wanted--a relatively lower cost player that can stream along with good quality local sound that's overall faster than my older tablet but leaves me disappointed at times (not every time).

 

[KopaneDePooj]

Just got the X5 iii, which I bought solely for listening to tidal offline. Am glad that tidal offline works flawlessly so far, but I didn't realise that I couldn't apply EQ to tidal offline.

Did a thorough search and realised that the problem was raised more than a year ago. Has there been any progress on this front? Am pretty bumped as I wanted a dap that would allow me to eq tidal offline.

I recommend this EQ, it should work in every music app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soundappsfree.equalizer

Just got my XIII.

First impressions:

1) It's beautiful. It's as good looking as the Sony NW-ZX2.
2) It's better designed than the NW-ZX2.


Now, about the unit itself....

1) It's too slow to be usable. The first time I booted it, I couldn't even select the language. It froze. Then I managed to install it. It took around 10 minutes to install Facebook Lite, Chrome and Spotify.
2) Opening Spotify takes a while, but the bad thing is: selecting anything from the menu takes a while, selecting a song takes a while, selecting a new song takes a while. Everything is DEAD slow. As in "I bought a $30 Android Phone 5 years ago and installed Spotify on it" slow. And no, I'm not exaggerating.
3) Every once in a while, Spotify will quit, and will drop me to the home screen. And the unit already froze on me suddenly, and I had to reboot it. Which took ages.
4) Sound is mediocre. I'd rather listen to the output of my Galaxy S8+. It doesn't have as much output power, and I'm sure it doesn't sound as good as the Fiio with big cans, but with my portable headphones, sound is pretty much the same - but the S8+ is far more stable and quick. The user experience is so far above and beyond the Fiio, I'd rather use the S8+ all the time.
5) NO SYSTEM WIDE EQ?!?!?! My S8+ has it! I need it to use the iSine in-ears - no luck!

The weird thing is - I read so many good things about how awesome this unit was. And I've had nothing but excellent experiences from Fiio products. I have to wonder how many of those reviews were not completely honest. The X5 III, as is, is unusable, IMHO. YMMV, etc., but I'd rather have an LG V10 or V20 than the Fiio.

There's something wrong with your unit, mine is never that slow. Did you try to use it without any SD card? An incompatibility with the card can explain the slowness.
Why would you want to install Facebook (even the light version) on an Hi-Res DAP is beyond my understanding...
You should keep your DAP as clean as possible and not install loads of apps, it's not a phone. It has limited RAM and processing power so save them for what is made for: MUSIC ONLY.
4) IMO sound of X5 is MUCH better than my HTC 10 which is better than the Galaxy S8. But if you can't tell or appreciate that... maybe you're better with your phone.
5) I agree, Viper Effects (including EQ) should have been implemented at system level.

 

[MinnieOne]

One thing is the WiFi on this thing is so weak. The fastest I can connect to my 300-n router is 65mbps--65!. Tried all of the settings in the router, 65 it is. Just the hardware limit in the X5 I guess. It's amazing that I can stream Tidal hifi at the far end of the house, once I do connect, while the tiny wifi monitor on my X5III can show even as low as a 1mbps connection to the router at times. For any major downloading I simply have to get closer or it is hopelessly slow.

That said, the thing is gorgeous and you want to work with it but I guess you have to keep in mind that the wireless part of it is simply not up-to-speed and appreciate it more for its Puresound SQ (for me it's good anyway as I came from the X1 [which is darn good sound for the price ]). And yes, it is slower than I anticipated it would be although Spotify does load faster than my circa 2104 EVGA tablet. And the thing gets hot! I find an intense listening session of more than a half hour if you're holding onto it is almost intolerable.

Anyway, I got what I wanted--a relatively lower cost player that can stream along with good quality local sound that's overall faster than my older tablet but leaves me disappointed at times (not every time).

65mbps is twice the speed I get. My wired PC and my wifi connected laptop get 115-120mbps, yet Fiio is 30mbps. I don't really use the wifi much but it sucks worse than yours. So don't feel bad!!! lol

 

[KopaneDePooj]

@FiiO

After one week with the X5, I'm pretty happy with the user experience and VERY satisfied with the sound quality.
But there is room for improvement, so here's a list of issues I encountered so far:

• Folder browser in FiiO Music app should remember last navigation position, and not return to root every time.
• It would be better to take ViPER4Android out of FiiO Music and make it a system app so it can be available for any music player.
• ID tags not handled properly in the "Now Playing screen" when loading a single-file FLAC album with .cue sheet, first song displays "Unknown Artist", and correct album name. Then from the second song on, "Unknown Album" and correct artist name.
• Battery percentage in status bar not visible on lock screen
• .wv (WavPack) format not supported with FiiO Music
• Pausing playback for 1 minute or more, cannot be resumed using headphone's inline remote, only physical or screen button on X5.
• When in Pure Music Mode, starting the DAP, music should auto-resume only if a jack is inserted. (headphones or LO).

 

[fjhuerta]

There's a reason for everything.

1) I installed Facebook Lite in order to log in with Spotify. I then realized it's not necessary to have it running. Still - I can't believe this unit can't run Spotify and FB Lite.

2) I took it out of the box, didn't even install an SD Card. My unit is slow OOB. With only Spotify loaded. No music. No nothing. Nada. I even reinitialized it. No luck.

I'm selling it as soon as I can, and getting an LG V20 instead, I guess. My old V10 was amazing in its SQ, it beat the pants off every DAP I tested. I can imagine the V20 will be even better.

 

[KopaneDePooj]

When I listen to music on the go with the X5, I needed a way to know when my phone is ringing and because I can't feel the phone vibrating in my jeans pocket I found this:

Instant notification on your X5 when your phone rings:
- Install "Join" on both your X5 and your Android phone using the same Google Account to log in.
- Make sure "SMS and Call Service" is enabled in Join settings on phone
- Make sure "Pushes > Heads Up Notifications" are enabled in Join on X5. All the other switches under "Pushes" can be disabled. Also disable "SMS and Phone Calls", "Clipboard", "Send Notifications" in X5 to conserve RAM.
- Because X5 doesn't come with a default notifications sound, you'll have to copy a notification sound of your choice (mp3) under [ Internal storage/Notifications/ ]. Select the sound you copied in Join > Settings > Pushes > Sound
- Now you're all set to receive an instant sound notification in your X5 > headphones when your phone rings.
- The X5 needs internet access when on-the-go. For that, create a Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot in your phone and connect the X5 to that Wi-Fi.

Or just buy a smartwatch and let it vibrate your wrist