[angstromer]

I used to own most of FiiO players they launched (including X5III) and now I have X7II. I sold them all but X7II which I guess will not stay with me for a long time. I know it is a question of taste, and those are supposedly not to be discussed, but I do find the interface tacky and the screen poor (especially compared to Pionner XDP-100r whose screen and music interface I just love - it lacks power though).
I would not mind those downsides were the player able to work as advertised. Oh, it does play the files it is supposed to but, since I am not a native speaker of English I do enjoy looking at lyrics whenever there is something I cannot really make out while listening. And here is the biggest issue, making me mad with the player and its creators. If you implement the feature of automatic search for the lyrics, do it right. The search is hit or miss, in my case mostly miss. I do not listen to any niche garage bands and my music is tagged meticulously, but I usually get either wrong lyrics, or no lyrics at all. Where are the lyrics downloaded from and why on earth can't the player read them from tags (like Pioneer, for instance) instead of downloading crap from some obscure Chinese database? I know that currently it is impossible but perhaps someone at FiiO will finally realise that a flagship player should not ba a half-baked product.
Not to be too grumpy I have to say that it is the first FiiO product that I like soundwise, but for that price I would expect it to do what they say it does.

 

[TheoS53]

I used to own most of FiiO players they launched (including X5III) and now I have X7II. I sold them all but X7II which I guess will not stay with me for a long time. I know it is a question of taste, and those are supposedly not to be discussed, but I do find the interface tacky and the screen poor (especially compared to Pionner XDP-100r whose screen and music interface I just love - it lacks power though).
I would not mind those downsides were the player able to work as advertised. Oh, it does play the files it is supposed to but, since I am not a native speaker of English I do enjoy looking at lyrics whenever there is something I cannot really make out whie listening. And here is the biggest issue, making me mad with the player and its creators. If you implement the feature of automatic search for the lyrics, do it right. The search is hit or miss, in my case mostly miss. I do not listen to any niche garage bands and my music i tagged meticulously, but I usually get either wrong lyrics, or no lyrics at all. Where are the lyrics downloaded from and why on earth can't the player read them from tags (like Pioneer, for instance) instead of downloading crap from some obscure Chinese database? I know that currently it is impossible but perhaps someon at FiiO will finally realise that a flagship player should not ba a half-baked product.
Not to be too grumpy I have to say that it is the first FiiO product that I like soundwise, but for that price I would expect it to do what they say it does.

Unfortunately this is something to be expected with each of Fiio's DAPs. I don't understand it either. I've just finished reviewing the X7II and the device has SO MUCH potential. Fiio just keep shooting themselves in the foot by not spending enough time on the software. I'll go ahead and say it, Fiio SUCKS with software.
I did a little test, scanning a 200Gb card filled with around 6500 tracks and around 500 album art images. Scanning the card through the Pure Music app took 4 minutes and 47 seconds. Heck, even the Shanling M2s is faster, doing the same scan in 3 minutes and 16 seconds. I then went and deleted all the folders created by the Android system and ran the scan again on the X7II, but this time I did so through the Hiby Music app. Hiby completed the scan in 1 minute and 40 seconds. So what does that tell you about Fiio's software?
Fiio honestly makes some excellent products, but the software keeps letting them down, as well as their reluctance to fix issues that their devices have had for well over 3 years (the X7II manages an average USB transfer speed of 4.5Mb/s, whereas the M2s easily gets 14Mb/s to the same card).

However, that being said, I still rated the X7II highly as it is a genuinely great sounding DAP. I can easily see people ditching their Mojo or iDSD in favour of a more compact 'single-device' solution at the cost of a slightly "worse" sounding system. And by slight, i really mean SLIGHT.

 

[Giraku]

Unfortunately this is something to be expected with each of Fiio's DAPs. I don't understand it either. I've just finished reviewing the X7II and the device has SO MUCH potential. Fiio just keep shooting themselves in the foot by not spending enough time on the software. I'll go ahead and say it, Fiio SUCKS with software.
I did a little test, scanning a 200Gb card filled with around 6500 tracks and around 500 album art images. Scanning the card through the Pure Music app took 4 minutes and 47 seconds. Heck, even the Shanling M2s is faster, doing the same scan in 3 minutes and 16 seconds. I then went and deleted all the folders created by the Android system and ran the scan again on the X7II, but this time I did so through the Hiby Music app. Hiby completed the scan in 1 minute and 40 seconds. So what does that tell you about Fiio's software?
Fiio honestly makes some excellent products, but the software keeps letting them down, as well as their reluctance to fix issues that their devices have had for well over 3 years (the X7II manages an average USB transfer speed of 4.5Mb/s, whereas the M2s easily gets 14Mb/s to the same card).

I agree that the software department is the weakness of X7mk2. I have been enjoying its sound and ability to drive power hungry cans (using AM5). But some minor software problems became annoying distractions as follows:

1. When playing the first song on Pure Music, there is a high chance of skipping the first ~0.3 second of music
2. With the gapless playing option on, music gets interrupted for ~0.3 second in a random fashion (higher reproducibility when playing long songs at higher sampling rate suggesting that large file size may be associated with the phenomenon)
3. Some 24/192 FLAC files cannot be played properly, while the same tracks can be played flawlessly by AK DAPs and other DAC/Amps such as Hugo 2 and Denon DA-310USB (more details in my past posts)

Other than these software problems, I do love this DAP. So FiiO, please fix these problems in the next firmware update.

 

[harpo1]

I agree that the software department is the weakness of X7mk2. I have been enjoying its sound and ability to drive power hungry cans (using AM5). But some minor software problems became annoying distractions as follows:

1. When playing the first song on Pure Music, there is a high chance of skipping the first ~0.3 second of music
2. With the gapless playing option on, music gets interrupted for ~0.3 second in a random fashion (higher reproducibility when playing long songs at higher sampling rate suggesting that large file size may be associated with the phenomenon)
3. Some 24/192 FLAC files cannot be played properly, while the same tracks can be played flawlessly by AK DAPs and other DAC/Amps such as Hugo 2 and Denon DA-310USB (more details in my past posts)

Other than these software problems, I do love this DAP. So FiiO, please fix these problems in the next firmware update.

Don't count on it. The original X7 still has a number of bugs and it's been out for over 2 years. They definitely need to hire some different developers who know their way around android.

 

[Jim Bobber]

Hi All and Fiio,

Apologies if this has been covered, but I could not find anything. I create playlists on my PC, and transfer them over. Thing is I see no way of maintaining the order of tracks as the player puts them the tracks into alphabetical or numerical order which is a real pain! I’ve had a few players over the year and this has never been a problem. I just downloaded neutron and this does seem to list tracks in the order that I curated the playlist, but it does not look that nice compared to the stock app. Am I doing something if not Fiio can you fix this?

Would appreciate any feedback, it’s a pain.

Cheers.

 

[397324]

I agree with the opinions expressed regarding the poor software that has become synonymous with FiiO and that if they hired a specialist Android team it would be a good move. It's in no small reason why I bought a Questyle QP1R (Still have my X7ii) so I didn't have to deal with Android at all. However, the QP1R has a battery indicator issue and can run out of actual battery at random indicated values. This is a well-known and only known issue but the last firmware update was December 2016. Also, Questyle NEVER and I mean NEVER answers emails and doesn't take part in their thread on here.

So FiiO may be a bit rubbish with their firmware, but at least they listen to their customers and try to fix known and new issues in a timely fashion.

 

[480126]

Has anyone expierence X7 ii with Chord Hugo or Hugo2?

 

[sjb57]

I agree with the opinions expressed regarding the poor software that has become synonymous with FiiO and that if they hired a specialist Android team it would be a good move. It's in no small reason why I bought a Questyle QP1R (Still have my X7ii) so I didn't have to deal with Android at all. However, the QP1R has a battery indicator issue and can run out of actual battery at random indicated values. This is a well-known and only known issue but the last firmware update was December 2016. Also, Questyle NEVER and I mean NEVER answers emails and doesn't take part in their thread on here.

So FiiO may be a bit rubbish with their firmware, but at least they listen to their customers and try to fix known and new issues in a timely fashion.

After a career in the software industry, I appreciate that developing software can be an expensive & on-going commitment, but if Fiio made the right choices then I believe the better user experience could help grow their market & profits substantially because they already provide good value for money hardware in most of their products. There is a margin between Fiio's prices and those of its closest rivals but we might have to trade some of that for an exceptionally better user experience. However, it is much easier just to add another electronic widget for the next upgrade even if many buyers cannot exploit it (can't hear the difference or don't even have AptX HD speakers etc.). And, their current customer base seems to want the new widget more than a better user experience.

Imagine, the next DAP X8 or whatever is identical to the X7ii except in software content. What would it take for you to ditch the X7ii and spent $/£650 to get it???????

 

[Peter68]

Looking for suggestions or help. My X7II just shut down in the middle of playing a song (in the Apple Music app) and is now completely non-functional. It won’t power on, won’t take a charge, and is basically bricked. I tried holding the power button down for 15 seconds, but it had no effect.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get it to turn on again? I’d hate to have to send it in for service and be without it for however long that takes. Thanks very much.

 

[howdy]

Looking for suggestions or help. My X7II just shut down in the middle of playing a song (in the Apple Music app) and is now completely non-functional. It won’t power on, won’t take a charge, and is basically bricked. I tried holding the power button down for 15 seconds, but it had no effect.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get it to turn on again? I’d hate to have to send it in for service and be without it for however long that takes. Thanks very much.

I think if you hold the power and volume down and the same time it will do a hard reset.

 

[Peter68]

I think if you hold the power and volume down and the same time it will do a hard reset.

Thanks for the reply, but this is the Mark II, with the click wheel, so there is no volume down button. Is there another combination of buttons I should try?

 

[howdy]

Thanks for the reply, but this is the Mark II, with the click wheel, so there is no volume down button. Is there another combination of buttons I should try?

Schiit, sorry didn't even think about that, he-he. Power and track down button.

 

[Peter68]

Schiit, sorry didn't even think about that, he-he. Power and track down button.

Thanks, I just tried that, and no luck. I’m really hoping this unit isn’t just totally dead.

 

[Giraku]

Looking for suggestions or help. My X7II just shut down in the middle of playing a song (in the Apple Music app) and is now completely non-functional. It won’t power on, won’t take a charge, and is basically bricked. I tried holding the power button down for 15 seconds, but it had no effect.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get it to turn on again? I’d hate to have to send it in for service and be without it for however long that takes. Thanks very much.

From the FiiO support site:
Since the X1 2nd gen, X5 2nd gen, X7, M3, X5 3rd gen, X3MKIII & X7MKII don't have a Reset hole, the only way to try is to force shut-down by holding the power button for around 15 seconds then turn it on again.

When you tried holding the power button for 15 seconds, did you try turning it on again?
Did you do this procedure while connecting the unit to the charger?

BTW, what is Apple Music app? On your X7mk2 unit? Or do you mean iTunes software on your Mac or PC?

 

[Peter68]

From the FiiO support site:
Since the X1 2nd gen, X5 2nd gen, X7, M3, X5 3rd gen, X3MKIII & X7MKII don't have a Reset hole, the only way to try is to force shut-down by holding the power button for around 15 seconds then turn it on again.

When you tried holding the power button for 15 seconds, did you try turning it on again?
Did you do this procedure while connecting the unit to the charger?

BTW, what is Apple Music app? On your X7mk2 unit? Or do you mean iTunes software on your Mac or PC?

Yes, I did try all of that, and still no luck. And by the Apple Music app, I mean just that. It’s the Android version of Apple’s streaming music service app called Apple Music. Basically, Apple’s version of Spotify.