[D3Seeker]

Not if they plow graphene batteries into the market. Seriously battery tech has been in need of an upgrade for every, but of course any new tech they stumble upon stays in the lab for a decade before it gets to us, while we suffer.

 

[Eric23]

Hi James,
 
Great thread.
 
For me, since it's going to be a flagship, sound quality should be the absolute most important thing. I'm looking for he best dac section you can make and as much amp output power as you can pack in so I don't have to get another headphone amp to add to it. I'm hoping it can be at least as powerful as the dx100 and apex glacier and hopefully even more powerful. Because it's a nice benefit if I can plug in my HD800 or LCD2's into it and listen to them anywhere around the house. Which is what I do with my galaxy s3 - apex glacier and I'm hoping the X7 can be an improvement over this. $700 US is too much in my opinion. For me something under $600 is reasonable. Form factor and size isn't that big of a deal for me since we're talking about a flagship model. Sound quality and output power is the most important thing to me. I also don't care so much for a touch screen if it's just going to add extra costs. Fast forward/rewind commands would be much more useful anyways. The reason why I didn't get an X5 was because it didn't have enough output power for me to run my lcd2's and hd800's well so I was hoping the X7 would have more power.
 
Just to sum it all up for me:
 
1) Sound quality - The best Dac performance and best amp output power you can put into it. Hopefully it'll sound better and is more powerful than the apex glacier and dx100. I'd love to be able to run my HD800 and LCD2's off of it directly without having to add another external amp. Also I don't think you necessarily need to use the Sabre dacs as you can still get very high quality sounds with other dacs. From my experience sabre dacs can sometimes sound a bit artificial and V shaped with elevated treble to give people that initial wow factor. But it's not necessarily accurate. But the type of dac is your call as long as it's very detailed and accurate.
 
2) Size isn't as important for me since we should focus on sound quality for a flagship dap. Currently i'm running a samsung galaxy S3 to apex glacier. So I'm fine is the same size as those two combined. I think that should give you plenty of room to add lots of power into it?
 
3) Price - under $600 would be right for me. $700 is too close to some of the other overpriced models out there. I don't need the touchscreen personally, but I won't mind it either.
 
4) having both a 3.5 mm and also the full sized headphone outputs for full sized headphones would be great.
 
5) a quality lineout.
 
6) please include a silicone case like you did with the x5.
 
Good luck with the development!

 

[bmichels]

 
2) Size isn't as important for me since we should focus on sound quality for a flagship dap.  AGREE
 
 
4) having both a 3.5 mm and also the full sized headphone outputs for full sized headphones would be great  .AGREE
 
5) a quality lineout.  AGREE   and.... do not forget the DIGITAL-out

 

[Makiah S]

   
 
2 x 256gb SD card gets you to 512gb (bit less in reality, but you know what I mean)
 
 
 
AFAIK, 1TB is the current mSATA limit. That's why mSATA could potentially be a game-changer (and, at any given capacity 500gb or less, mSATA would be a bit cheaper than 2 x SD cards of equivalent capacity, of course):
 
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/uk/html/about/SSD840EVOmSATA.html
 
 
mSATA is a no-brainer at this point in time - personally, I suspect that we may see it first in a DAP from A&K.   I dislike A&K as a company, but they chase the new features and I anticipate them bringing it to market very, very soon. Maybe in a $1,000,000 gold-plated AK480, but probably in a $5,000 AK480 or similar.
 
James would be foolish (IMO) to dismiss mSATA as a viable feature on the X7, particularly as it would allow him to distinguish the X7 from much of the current DAP competition in the marketplace.
 
 
.

 
 

   
 
 I don't disagree - and therefore I don't see the point in continuing the discussion much past this point - the Fiio engineers need to hunker-down and R&D this thing (which I'm sure they are).
 
Consequently, our feature discussions here on Head-fi have reached a stage where they have now become largely redundant.

 
 
well all in all, I hope they move away from dual SD card slots and just utilize a 500gb SSD through mSata, I thought that was one of the best ideas. interal SSD is faster and no need for swapping SD cards in and out of the player
 
but guess it's too late now 

 

[audiophile_007]

- A more than capable amp section
- A single ended and balanced out + good (maybe balanced) line out
- use installable Msata (<--this would make it an insta buy for me)

 

[kawaivpc1]

One more thing. 
 
Please use USB 3.0 interface instead of USB 2.0. 
I don't understand why developers are still using USB 2.0 while USB 3.0 is available for a cheap price. 
I highly recommend USB 3.0 interface and mSata 500GB for built-in set up. 

 

[Silverprout]

Hello,
 
The power consumption of a Samsung 830 512GB is about 5.5W (1.69A) max.
The overall power consumption of the X5 DAP is about 0.37A
 
Need more explanations ?
 
3.7/(1.69+0.37) = 1.79
 

1h48min autonomy

 

 

[ClieOS]

  One more thing. 
 
Please use USB 3.0 interface instead of USB 2.0. 
I don't understand why developers are still using USB 2.0 while USB 3.0 is available for a cheap price. 
I highly recommend USB 3.0 interface and mSata 500GB for built-in set up. 

 
Despite of common belief, USB 3.0 controllers are actually still few and far between, and many low to mid-end SoC simply doesn't support it internally, to save cost. For example, the SoC in X3 / X5.
 

---

 
Boys, mSATA is simply going to take up too much space to be viable. A DAP with mSATA needs to have a removable back cover, which not only increase thickness but also cut the battery bay by at least 1/3 to as much as 1/2 (if we goes with the current targeted size of X7). Think HM901 here, but with mSATA instead of amp board where you still need to put the amp section else where. Also, I suspect most SoC simply doesn't have SATA controller built-in as this isn't exactly a 'hot' feature to have on most mobile devices, probably rarer than USB 3.0. Not that it can't be implemented separately, but it isn't going to be as easy as SD, which you can find integrated into just about every SoC.
 
Simply put, it is technologically feasible except for being a design nightmare, unless you don't really care about how big the device will be.

 

[reihead]

Despite of common belief, USB 3.0 controllers are actually still few and far between, and many low to mid-end SoC simply doesn't support it internally, to save cost. For example, the SoC in X3 / X5.

[rule]
Boys, mSATA is simply going to take up too much space to be viable. A DAP with mSATA needs to have a removable back cover, which not only increase thickness but also cut the battery bay by at least 1/3 to as much as 1/2 (if we goes with the current targeted size of X7). Think HM901 here, but with mSATA instead of amp board where you still need to put the amp section else where. Also, I suspect most SoC simply doesn't have SATA controller built-in as this isn't exactly a 'hot' feature to have on most mobile devices, probably rarer than USB 3.0. Not that it can't be implemented separately, but it isn't going to be as easy as SD, which you can find integrated into just about every SoC.

Simply put, it is technologically feasible except for being a design nightmare, unless you don't really care about how big the device will be.

Yeah, definitely a challenge. If Fiio wants to shake the market as with the X5, pulling a player with mSATA while keeping a good size would be one way. I'm open to other ways. I think Fiio has a chance to do what Apple did with the first iPod.

 

[Sylafari]

Yeah, definitely a challenge. If Fiio wants to shake the market as with the X5, pulling a player with mSATA while keeping a good size would be one way. I'm open to other ways. I think Fiio has a chance to do what Apple did with the first iPod.

 
I don't think Fiio has the technical chops to make a device that uses a SOC to accept mSATA unless some other much larger company (and most likely not a company making a DAP) in the future makes mSATA standard on a SOC. It may not be "impossible" but I feel like there are definitely a huge barrier with the way how all these companies make these DAPs in the first place in terms of a SOC standpoint (just using SOCs that are available to the market).

 

[x RELIC x]

Fiio X7 with mSata released in 2020. Enjoy the wait.

 

[D3Seeker]

   
Despite of common belief, USB 3.0 controllers are actually still few and far between, and many low to mid-end SoC simply doesn't support it internally, to save cost. For example, the SoC in X3 / X5.
 

---

 
Boys, mSATA is simply going to take up too much space to be viable. A DAP with mSATA needs to have a removable back cover, which not only increase thickness but also cut the battery bay by at least 1/3 to as much as 1/2 (if we goes with the current targeted size of X7). Think HM901 here, but with mSATA instead of amp board where you still need to put the amp section else where. Also, I suspect most SoC simply doesn't have SATA controller built-in as this isn't exactly a 'hot' feature to have on most mobile devices, probably rarer than USB 3.0. Not that it can't be implemented separately, but it isn't going to be as easy as SD, which you can find integrated into just about every SoC.
 
Simply put, it is technologically feasible except for being a design nightmare, unless you don't really care about how big the device will be.

Hence why these guys need to STOP using the low end chips. For one thing they wouldn't have as much of an issue making the darn player play lossless and uncompressed files with proper gapless out the gate (and just push the uber optimized software later via firmware thanks to the chip being fast and powerful enough to do it's job from the start, among other things............) Other peoples issues, but damit I want neeeww tech in my new player. My tech side and music sides are not sides. They are very much hand in hand....

 

[ClieOS]

  Hence why these guys need to STOP using the low end chips. For one thing they wouldn't have as much of an issue making the darn player play lossless and uncompressed files with proper gapless out the gate (and just push the uber optimized software later via firmware thanks to the chip being fast and powerful enough to do it's job from the start, among other things............) Other peoples issues, but damit I want neeeww tech in my new player. My tech side and music sides are not sides. They are very much hand in hand....

 
...then how much are you willing to pay? USD$1K? 2K? Do you know that if FiiO were to order a TOTL SoC from Samsung, the minimum order in itself is enough to suck up all of FiiO's cash float (if they actually manage to have enough money in the first place) and potentially bankrupt the company if they didn't sell enough of the DAP in a short amount of time? Also, with minimum order, it is very unlikely Samsung will be interested in sharing the basic firmware coding, which is a very big deal because it means FiiO will never have full control on firmware development and bugfix.
 
It isn't as easy as you think.

 

[SilverEars]

Please make it easier to take the uSD card out. I don't care for the dust cover as long as it's easy to push it in and out.  I don't want to have to reach for a pen to take the uSD card out.  I like how it's done on DX90.  Hopefully, this time there is nothing that would come out like the scroll wheel on the X5 that seems fragile.  It's such a contrast from the whole unit which is a solid build.

 

[D3Seeker]

   
...then how much are you willing to pay? USD$1K? 2K? Do you know that if FiiO were to order a TOTL SoC from Samsung, the minimum order in itself is enough to suck up all of FiiO's cash float (if they actually manage to have enough money in the first place) and potentially bankrupt the company if they didn't sell enough of the DAP in a short amount of time? Also, with minimum order, it is very unlikely Samsung will be interested in sharing the basic firmware coding, which is a very big deal because it means FiiO will never have full control on firmware development and bugfix.
 
It isn't as easy as you think.

1. I'm willing to pay a lot, on the spot for my dream player (and no. That other player that's charging over a grand isn't there) I know I'm asking for 'a lot' and that's no problem {which is why certain manufacturers need to stop beating around the bush and just build the darn thing like they've beed eyeballing for the last decade.............their name starting with an S that I've been in support of for ever and this one facet they intend on playing with my emotions 

}
 
2. Why would you use the Exynos as an example. It is just me here but it is been the case withing the rooting world that there is little support for Samsung chip, you even have devs that hate having to work on Exynos based devices because of it.
 
Otherwise your point is clear. For Fiio it may be asking too much, unless they try to make a player targeted at a slightly different crowd. Still I'm sure there are better chips than what they are going for that has support for modern components that isn't the top of the line.