[majo123]

will do.....im in england...dont know if that made a difference to batches rolled out??? anyway il post all tomorrow.

 

[kdub]

Hello all,

We should be issuing our statement on the matter of the WiFi within the next 12-24 hours.

Best regards,
Joe

Where will this statement be made ?

 

[kdub]

Does anyone know of any other music apps that can bypass the android SRC restrictions beside the Hibymusic app? How about power amp or neutron?

I also was curious if Neutron bypasses SRC as that is my current favourite 3rd party app. The following is the response I got. I'm not sure if I understand the response entirely though.

"Android's SRC is bypassed in terms that Neutron will try to output inhardware sample rate which is hardcoded in the firmware. It is the onewhich you can see in Audio Hardware dialog. Before 6.0 it is impossible to force audio output device into a different sampling rate. So your file will be converted to that rate by Neutron's high-quality SRC. If you activate 32-bit Output in Audio Hardware then 24-bit depth will be preserved.

Since Android 6.0 it will be possible to select output device and set current sample rate for it if firmware allows it. So since 6.0 things become better in this respect."

Anyone can make sense of this?

 

[wldcohso]

I have the X7 for three weeks + now and I have to say: I am impressed by the sound quality coming out of this device and I personally intend to keep it despite the problems being reported.

In my case this is what I did:

1. Update firmware at the time 1.3 -> V1.4, and recently to 1.5.
2. Before and after each upgrade I have reset it to factory defaults and cleared all the cache as per procedure advised by Joe.
3.  I did not install TIDAL from Fiio app store but rather from Google Play which by the way gave me zero issues.
4. I got a brand new Samsung Pro+ 128GB microSD Class 10 Memory Card and let X7 take care of the formatting and stuff.
5. Copied some HiRez files about 3GB worth and let it fly

I have to say there’re no major issues with the device that would warrant me returning it, if I could describe it in short, just pure musical bliss. Mine is NB-T333a – Serial: 60030150240901.

About noises and the Wi-Fi interference:

I started to notice it, as probably many of you by reading this thread. In my case, it is very low and only when I’m turning Wi-Fi ON with IE headphones of really low quality hooked up. I know this might sound weird, but this is how the problem manifests itself on my device, once I stream music in TIDAL, I cannot hear much else but music, must be lucky.

I walked away from the Wi-Fi antenna of my router to a point where I had only one bar on the X7 and the signal would kind of get choppy, then I would walk back slowly until I could get a good connection and then start to change the songs and albums in Tidal and see if I could hear anything:
With Senn’s (HD-25-1 and HD600) nothing, dead silent, with Audio Technica (ATH-MSR7) the same. At the moment I don’t have a good pair of IE Headphones to test, but I tried my wife Sony $30 pair, no noise. The only time I managed to hear some interference as in crackling noises is when I hooked up a pair, no name IEH as mentioned above, this is the only instance, I could hear something and then a very faint noise, but definitely there. I also tried this at my work, were we run a solid and reliable wireless Aruba - Wi-Fi System, same thing.

If something changes I will sure provide update, Cheers…!

As you've stated, I've heard the interference but it's so minimal next to non-existent that I plan to keep it. The sound with my Shure SE 846 is just amazing. I've never lost "track" of time just listening to music like I do now. If the price of the additional modules stay fairly low I'll grab all of them just for versatility.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Does anyone know of any other music apps that can bypass the android SRC restrictions beside the Hibymusic app? How about power amp or neutron?

I also was curious if Neutron bypasses SRC as that is my current favourite 3rd party app. The following is the response I got. I'm not sure if I understand the response entirely though.

[snip]

Anyone can make sense of this?

Please disregard the response you got. Regarding Neutron, the situation with the X7 is simple: it will resample music to 44.1kHz, using the proprietary high quality resampling algorithm of Neutron rather than Android's stock resampling algorithm.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Hello all,

We should be issuing our statement on the matter of the WiFi within the next 12-24 hours.

Best regards,
Joe

Where will this statement be made ?

The statement will be shown here in this thread of course, among other places.

 

[kdub]

Please disregard the response you got. Regarding Neutron, the situation with the X7 is simple: it will resample music to 44.1kHz, using the proprietary high quality resampling algorithm of Neutron rather than Android's stock resampling algorithm.

So anything higher than 44.1 kHz is not possible with Neutron if I understand correctly.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Please disregard the response you got. Regarding Neutron, the situation with the X7 is simple: it will resample music to 44.1kHz, using the proprietary high quality resampling algorithm of Neutron rather than Android's stock resampling algorithm.

So anything higher than 44.1 kHz is not possible with Neutron if I understand correctly.

With the present Neutron code, no.

 

[Peridot]

 
what's the prices? Not sure if i'm looking at the right spot but I don't see any numbers and this is all in chinese so can't read.

 
It states approximate pricing of CNY 698 for the mid- and high-power modules and CNY 498 for the balanced (I'm surprised at that one being significantly cheaper)
 
Translates to a base price of approx CAD $150/110 or GBP £75/55

 

[majo123]

£75/55 pounds sounds reasoanable 

 do you have any idea when gos on sale?

 

[Peridot]

The article suggests end of January for availability in China, so I imagine not too much longer after that for western markets.
 
The price will of course be higher by the time it's offered by our favourite vendors, but it gives us something to go on.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Dear FiiO X7 users:​

It has recently been brought to our attention that some of our new X7 units suffer from noise in the headphone output when streaming music through WiFi. Upon further investigation, we have the following information to offer:

A. The X7 is prone to some low level of WiFi-induced noise in the headphone output by nature.

As you know, the X7 prides itself on having discrete SoC, DAC, voltage amplification and current buffer sections (the latter two being placed in the interchangeable amplifier module). We still believe that such an approach offers the highest audio fidelity possible. However, such an approach also carries with it great sensitivity to radio noise, as analog audio circuits are spread out all over the X7 internals, ready to pick up radio interference from any source. Great pains must be taken to minimize the effect of any such interference and even then some effect on the audio output cannot be avoided when WiFi is on and transmitting.

There are countless smartphones on the market that can play music without apparent interference while streaming music through WiFi, or e.g. surfing Facebook, for that matter. There are several features that can make such radio noise rejection performance possible:
1. High level of integration of the analog audio circuits (preferably totally integrated within the SoC itself) for minimum analog circuit footprint.
2. Class D amplification, in effect turning the amplifier circuit into a digital circuit, immune from RFI. The analog audio signal is recovered only at the end of the circuit through a low pass filter.
3. Low power output, in particular a low maximum gain. This simply attenuates the RFI via the reduced gain level.

As you can see, each of these radio-friendly design features has great potential to degrade audio quality. Coming from a background of offline audio players, FiiO did not realize the great extent to which the perception of audio quality of an online-capable player would be driven by the compromise quality while streaming online audio. The natural approach was to design the player as a music player first and online device second. Hence, while we believe the X7 offers nearly unparalleled offline music performance at its price, the noise level while online may leave something to be desired.

If using sensitive IEMs, (e.g. BA IEMs / CIEMs of under 20ohms impedance), some level of interference noise can be expected to be heard from any X7 unit, in a quiet environment, with quiet music, while the WiFi is transmitting / receiving.

However, such noise is usually drowned out by the music itself, and stops once the music has been buffered. It cannot be heard on less sensitive earphones or headphones.

If you're using sensitive IEMs / CIEMs, we suggest that you listen more to offline music and / or buffer/download online music in advance, to take advantage of the X7's uncompromising offline audio performance.

B. However, there is also a QC problem with some X7's suffering from excessive noise.

As McCol first demonstrated, some X7's suffer from excessive interference noise that are the result of a manufacturing problem rather than design problem. The symptoms of such excessive interference are:
1. Obvious interference noise that can be heard with any headphone, including full-size over-ear headphones.
2. X7 has great tendency to indicate a weak WiFi signal even when close to the WiFi hotspot.

Such excessive interference are the result of a fault in wiring the WiFi antenna and the shielding within the X7. The faulty WiFi antenna makes unusually high levels of radio emissions as it attempts to acquire the signal, while the faulty shielding allows such radio emissions to interfere with the audio signal to a great extent.

C. The criterion for returning the X7 for a WiFi fault is?

As outlined by A and B, some low level of WiFi generated radio interference is normal while a high level of interference is indicative of a faulty unit. However, there is also great variability in the level of interference that may be experienced with a faulty unit, since

1. the manufacturing fault can affect the resulting interference to variable extents
2. different WiFi hotspots communicating with the X7 can cause different levels of interference, and
3. different headphones and different listeners will pick up the resulting interference to differing extents.

Since none of these factors are under control by the customer evaluating his X7, there has to be criteria for declaring an X7 faulty that can be readily evaluated by the customer. We have settled on the criterion that if the interference noise can be heard through any one or more pairs of on-ear or over-ear headphones you own--as opposed to earbuds or IEMs,

we will readily accept its return / exchange (in the return / exchange period) or take it in for repair (in the warranty period).

On the other hand, we will not be carrying out any cross-examination of the customer's claims on the above when evaluating returns. We are depending on your goodwill as a FiiO customer to return genuinely problematic units to us and see us through this difficult period for our company.

Best regards,
FiiO

 

[majo123]

thanks for the headsup.

 

[majo123]

can anybody tell me if amazon prime music streaming app will work on x7? ....as i use this to check out albums before i buy physical copys. 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

can anybody tell me if amazon prime music streaming app will work on x7? ....as i use this to check out albums before i buy physical copys. 

Android music apps all work on the X7 now with no known exception now that Google Play is enabled on the latest firmware.