FiiO X5 beta firmware 2.06beta-2.07beta download and discussion: all sorts of sorting improvements!

[Loquah]

   
Epic.  

  I am still on my first model, pushing 20 years so she's definitely a keeper.  How can she not be?  When she saw me wear the 846 the 1st time, she said "new HPs?  They look cool on you"  

 
That's got to be true love!

 

[reihead]

Epic.     I am still on my first model, pushing 20 years so she's definitely a keeper.  How can she not be?  When she saw me wear the 846 the 1st time, she said "new HPs?  They look cool on you"  

Sweet stuff!
Does she have a (single) sister?

 

[koiloco]

Sweet stuff!
Does she have a (single) sister?

Sorry, she's the youngest and so am I.  Btw, trust me you don't want anything to do with my wife's sister even if she's single.  Let's just say 2 different ends of the spectrum.  

 

[reihead]

  Sorry, she's the youngest and so am I.  Btw, trust me you don't want anything to do with my wife's sister even if she's single.  Let's just say 2 different ends of the spectrum.  

 
I wasn't expecting an answer
Glad she is not single then hahaha

 

[stuartm]

Just got my X5.  So far I think it's great but the UI doesn't seem right in some respects.  I use WMP on my PC to rip all my music and play in home music.  All my music is ripped to WMA lossless with full tag info and embedded art.  I just copy directories from my PC music library to the X5 so the structure is the same as WMP uses.  I pretty much just listen to albums with occasional playlist creation.  I did update from the 1.2 firmware the X5 arrived with to the 2.7beta.  My first observation is that if I browse to a folder and play it the tracks list/play in track order as they were on the album.  But If I select the same album thru the Albums or Artists category, the tracks list/play in some other order that definitely is not album track order.  This seems very wrong.  Secondly, When I play music on the PC I can go off while an album is playing and queue up more albums (or songs) to play while the current selection is playing.  Maybe it's just me not understanding the X5's UI  (A UI manual would definitely help)  but how do I add further things to play to the now playing list?  One further observation I am not sure I like the track info obscuring a fair bit of the Album art.  Perhaps there could be an option added to display a smaller version of the art that has nothing obscured above the now playing info.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Just got my X5.  So far I think it's great but the UI doesn't seem right in some respects.  I use WMP on my PC to rip all my music and play in home music.  All my music is ripped to WMA lossless with full tag info and embedded art.  I just copy directories from my PC music library to the X5 so the structure is the same as WMP uses.  I pretty much just listen to albums with occasional playlist creation.  I did update from the 1.2 firmware the X5 arrived with to the 2.7beta.  My first observation is that if I browse to a folder and play it the tracks list/play in track order as they were on the album.  But If I select the same album thru the Albums or Artists category, the tracks list/play in some other order that definitely is not album track order.  This seems very wrong.  Secondly, When I play music on the PC I can go off while an album is playing and queue up more albums (or songs) to play while the current selection is playing.  Maybe it's just me not understanding the X5's UI  (A UI manual would definitely help)  but how do I add further things to play to the now playing list?  One further observation I am not sure I like the track info obscuring a fair bit of the Album art.  Perhaps there could be an option added to display a smaller version of the art that has nothing obscured above the now playing info.

Question about your tracks.

1. Do their file names come with a number in front denoting their track order? e.g.
01 Track1.mp3
02 Track2.mp3
2. Have they been tagged with track number info in their ID3 tags?

Depending on your answers to these, I will discuss with the devs to see what may be going on.

 

[stuartm]

Answers to your questions:
 
1) The file names are all of the form track number space track title
    e.g. "04 Stairway to Heaven.wma"  (without the quotes).
2) The tags do have track numbers.  Note that AFAIK wma does not use id3 tags
    but has it's own tag format however all the same data is there.

 

[Renetemp]

Bug:
It looks like the playlists have problems with diacritics.
I have music from an Estonian composer named: Arvo Pärt
I created a playlist for his music.
But the X5 gave the error that it couldn't find the songs and skipped from one to the next song (continued like this to the end).
I changed the letter ä to the letter a in the names for the folders. And made the same changes in the playlist.
After this it played OK.
 
General experience:
I have the X5 now about 6 weeks.
In general I am happy with my X5.
I am not an audiophile, but I hear clearly that the X5 sounds better than my mp3-players and phones.
I notice that I am playing my music louder now (I think that is because the sound quality is better, so it is more pleasant to listen to my music)
It is clear that the firmware still has a long way to go before it will be mature.
For a very good set of options have a look at the Neutron player for the mobile devices.
But please don't try to copy that, since I have problems using it due to its complexity.
 
Firmware:
For me the main thing that lacks is the 5800 songs limit on the database. (Is this the reason that my playlists do not show in the "Play by category/Playlists"?)
There is no good substitute for the database.
The filebrowser is only a partial solution. Since you have 2 microSD cards, that makes it annoying to traverse through the folders from one card to a folder on the other the other card.
The playlists helped me with making it possible for me to play all the songs from an artist. So that is definitely a big plus.
The playlists do not show in the "Play by category/Playlists" (is this a bug?)
The play "All songs" options plays all the songs found in an alphabetical order, thus playing all the songs with track-number 1 first, then all the track-numbers 2 and so on.
I think it should play them in the order it encounters them in the folders/albums.

 

[tjw321]

  Bug:
It looks like the playlists have problems with diacritics.
I have music from an Estonian composer named: Arvo Pärt
I created a playlist for his music.
But the X5 gave the error that it couldn't find the songs and skipped from one to the next song (continued like this to the end).
I changed the letter ä to the letter a in the names for the folders. And made the same changes in the playlist.
After this it played OK.
 
General experience:
I have the X5 now about 6 weeks.
In general I am happy with my X5.
I am not an audiophile, but I hear clearly that the X5 sounds better than my mp3-players and phones.
I notice that I am playing my music louder now (I think that is because the sound quality is better, so it is more pleasant to listen to my music)
It is clear that the firmware still has a long way to go before it will be mature.
For a very good set of options have a look at the Neutron player for the mobile devices.
But please don't try to copy that, since I have problems using it due to its complexity.
 
Firmware:
For me the main thing that lacks is the 5800 songs limit on the database. (Is this the reason that my playlists do not show in the "Play by category/Playlists"?)
There is no good substitute for the database.
The filebrowser is only a partial solution. Since you have 2 microSD cards, that makes it annoying to traverse through the folders from one card to a folder on the other the other card.
The playlists helped me with making it possible for me to play all the songs from an artist. So that is definitely a big plus.
The playlists do not show in the "Play by category/Playlists" (is this a bug?)
The play "All songs" options plays all the songs found in an alphabetical order, thus playing all the songs with track-number 1 first, then all the track-numbers 2 and so on.
I think it should play them in the order it encounters them in the folders/albums.

See this post:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/726023/fiio-x5-beta-firmware-2-06beta-2-07beta-download-and-discussion-all-sorts-of-sorting-improvements/75#post_10717371
 
Hopefully that will solve the diacritics for you.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Answers to your questions:

1) The file names are all of the form track number space track title
    e.g. "04 Stairway to Heaven.wma"  (without the quotes).
2) The tags do have track numbers.  Note that AFAIK wma does not use id3 tags
    but has it's own tag format however all the same data is there.

Are the albums that play out of order in artist / album mode multi-disc albums by any chance?

 

[Renetemp]

Thanks, I tried it.
I created a M3U8 playlist with the MP3TAG program.
Works as a charm. No problem on the X5 with this format.
So I will consider recoding them all to M3U8. (Or are there any risks/problem with doing that you know of?)
I have never had the need for playlists before, so I don't know if my mp3 players would have a problem the diacritics.
I will try it out.
 
What I forgot to mention is: what I really like about the X5 is the 120 step volume control.

 

[tjw321]

  Thanks, I tried it.
I created a M3U8 playlist with the MP3TAG program.
Works as a charm. No problem on the X5 with this format.
So I will consider recoding them all to M3U8. (Or are there any risks/problem with doing that you know of?)
I have never had the need for playlists before, so I don't know if my mp3 players would have a problem the diacritics.
I will try it out.
 
What I forgot to mention is: what I really like about the X5 is the 120 step volume control.

AFAIK, the only real difference between m3u and m3u8 is that m3u8 allows a much wider range of characters - which is what you need. So, no, there shouldn't be any risks/problems with using m3u8.

 

[Renetemp]

Are the albums that play out of order in artist / album mode multi-disc albums by any chance?

Hi Joe, no, the albums are no multi-disc.
I tried out giving the albums a disc-number in the tag, rebuild the DataBase. Checked the play order.
No difference.
Next remove the disc-number again, rebuild the DataBase. Checked the play order.
No difference.
I tried playing with the name:
<track-number> <dot> <space> <track-name>
No difference.
<track-number> <space> <dash> <space> <track-name>
does not make any difference.
 
If you have any suggestions how and when they should be ordered Artist, Album, Song
let me know and I will try it

 

[RemixIt]

I might be missing something, but has anyone mentioned in this firmware, you can't skip ahead in a song and still hear it playing as you're searching for a particular area within a song?

 

[pato128]

  I might be missing something, but has anyone mentioned in this firmware, you can't skip ahead in a song and still hear it playing as you're searching for a particular area within a song?

I just tested that functionality and it still works on 2.07. I believe it does not work if your screen is off, but as long as your screen is on it works just fine.