Thanks for the heads-up. Re USB, maybe my Meridian Explorer2 will work properly now. Almost afraid to try!
Well, after a day of checking out the new firmware there's very good news for me in my particular set-up.
My issue was when streaming Tidal in USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP--latest 4.31) connected via USB to a Meridian Explorer2 (ME2). The issue was, starting after about a minute and a half, I would start to experience brief dropouts with flickering DAC lights. This would continue for the rest of the song. It was not listenable.
With firmware 1.21 it plays steady all the way through the song in either HiFi or Masters and the ME2's lights display Blue or Green for MQA and White for a regular 44.1 HiFi. No glitches, no dropouts. Sounds very nice too. The combination of the X5's warmth and the ME2's sort of clinical sound results in a very enjoyable presentation. Adding to the warmth is that I have everything running through a Cayin C5 amp as, aside from its nice sound signature, gives a little more headroom and has the bass boost button. It's quite a handful of gear and I'll have to figure out how to attach it all together although I already have the X5 and C5 hooked together with FiiO's X5 stacking kit. I have the ME2 connected to the FiiO using an angled OTG cable.
On some of the newer ECM Masters albums in Tidal, the sound is really impressive, even out of my modded Senn PX100's and Audio Technica ATH-M40X's. Just the level of detail and black background is something one couldn't have imagined in the past in a streaming setup. If I could drop $2K on a pair of Focal Clears...!
I also should add that, at first when I was streaming Tidal in UAPP, I was occasionally getting errors (I don't remember the exact error) coming up and songs wouldn't play, not every time but enough that it seemed there was something wrong. I don't know if it was proximity to my router or what (we all know the X5's lack of robustness in the WiFi area). So, in UAPP settings, I went into USB Audio Tweaks and turned on USB tweak 2 and it seemed to clear things up, no more errors. Again, that issue may have been caused by router proximity or a thousand other things so YMMV.
My experience with USB when using the X5's Pure Music mode is not a positive but keep in mind this could just be the ME2's interaction with the FiiO via USB without the mediating factor of the dedicated USB app UAPP. In either Pure Music Mode or Android when I play a song using the native FiiO music player, the sound is very nice but every few seconds I get a sort of distortion sound like if you bumped into your turntable and the needle jagged very briefly across the record. It happens in either Pure Music or Android. I tried turning on and off DoP in the player's settings but it made no difference. It doesn't bother me personally as when I listen to my local files in the FiiO I always go into Pure Music Mode and utilize the X5's DAC as it renders so beautifully anything I could ever throw at it (except obviously doesn't render/decode Tidal MQA, although in UAPP Hi Res driver mode without a DAC connected, plays HiFi and MQA songs fine when streaming Tidal).
Edit: Thought I had lost my ME2 a second ago, no lights when connecting to X5 or anything else. Looks like my original ME2 USB cable that came w/the unit went bad, too much bending I guess. Might have explained the earlier issue with hardware volume control. Connected a cable I had on hand from my old digital camera and everything's 5x5!
Not to mention the fine support staff who when we ask for ice cream with our cake, give us party hats and confetti in short order. Doesn't matter, I love my fiio all the same. Its sound character brings back memories of my old Sony Walkman 30 years ago. The price was right. It holds all the music I would ever want to hear. I will be sad when it bursts into flames 2 seconds after the warranty expires. Another please!
