[aravaioli]

I bought the Q3 MQA last weekend and have been mightly impressed so far. From Meze 109 to Arya SE, HD600 or LCD-X this little beast has been always up to the task and seems to perform just as well as my Mojo and audibly better than the BTR7 in USB mode. The extra bass button also works really well, just as good as the iFi implementation.

 

[originalsnuffy]

Kind of a technical question here. So I have a new iphone 15 Pro Max, connecting to a FIIO Q3-MQA. The FIIO has an indicator that shows if DSD is being received. It worked fine with a USB C to Lightning Cable with OTC using HiBy music with DoP enabled.

I hear music just fine now; but it seems to be coming in at PCM. At least the indicator is not changing and nothing really changed when I switched from DoP to regular.

I have mainly experimented with the USB C to USB C OTG cable that came with the unit. A good quality third party cable did not change the equation.

I have already reset the USB accessory setting and that changed nothing. Also turned off Atmos in music and that made no change either.

The audio out setting in the control center shows a headphone symbol with FIIO Q3.

Any thoughts on what to do next?

 

[FiiO]

Kind of a technical question here. So I have a new iphone 15 Pro Max, connecting to a FIIO Q3-MQA. The FIIO has an indicator that shows if DSD is being received. It worked fine with a USB C to Lightning Cable with OTC using HiBy music with DoP enabled.

I hear music just fine now; but it seems to be coming in at PCM. At least the indicator is not changing and nothing really changed when I switched from DoP to regular.

I have mainly experimented with the USB C to USB C OTG cable that came with the unit. A good quality third party cable did not change the equation.

I have already reset the USB accessory setting and that changed nothing. Also turned off Atmos in music and that made no change either.

The audio out setting in the control center shows a headphone symbol with FIIO Q3.

Any thoughts on what to do next?

Dear friend,

The iPhone 15 is using the C port so are you using an adapter for using the C to lightning cable?
When using the C to lightning cable, the DSD output as it should. But not when using C to C cable? Did you try with other DAC and will you get this issue as well?
We got similar feedback from other users using the DAC from other brand. And we are ordering the iPhone 15 for checking about this still.

Best regards

 

[originalsnuffy]

Dear friend,

The iPhone 15 is using the C port so are you using an adapter for using the C to lightning cable?
When using the C to lightning cable, the DSD output as it should. But not when using C to C cable? Did you try with other DAC and will you get this issue as well?
We got similar feedback from other users using the DAC from other brand. And we are ordering the iPhone 15 for checking about this still.

Best regards

Yes, the same Q3-MQA works well with an older iphone (iphone 12) and the OTG lightning to USB C dongle provided by FIIO

But this Q3-MQA does not pass DSD with the iphone 15. Of course I am not using a lightning to USB-C cable (wrong type of cable). Instead, multiple USB-C to USB-C cables were tested. The tests include the USB-C to USB-C cable from FIIO (which is directional and I believe is OTG). PCM files are passed just fine.

I no longer own any other DAC dongles so I can't test other dongles. I like the Q3 much more than the others that I have owned.

I am hoping that perhaps a firmware update can fix this issue. Or some other kind of cable?

 

[FiiO]

Yes, the same Q3-MQA works well with an older iphone (iphone 12) and the OTG lightning to USB C dongle provided by FIIO

But this Q3-MQA does not pass DSD with the iphone 15. Of course I am not using a lightning to USB-C cable (wrong type of cable). Instead, multiple USB-C to USB-C cables were tested. The tests include the USB-C to USB-C cable from FIIO (which is directional and I believe is OTG). PCM files are passed just fine.

I no longer own any other DAC dongles so I can't test other dongles. I like the Q3 much more than the others that I have owned.

I am hoping that perhaps a firmware update can fix this issue. Or some other kind of cable?

Dear friend,

Since the issue happen not only with our DAC, I think we may need to wait for the update from Apple company instead. We will also try to check what we could do in our end as well.

Best regards

 

[originalsnuffy]

Good news. For many Apple users!

The problem isn't my DAC or my phone. It is the software.

I found something called Ever Play. Its DoP does work! The DoP in HiBy Music did not work.

So it can be done, now it is a matter of software vendors figuring out what to do.

I am very relieved!

 

[FiiO]

Good news. For many Apple users!

The problem isn't my DAC or my phone. It is the software.

I found something called Ever Play. Its DoP does work! The DoP in HiBy Music did not work.

So it can be done, now it is a matter of software vendors figuring out what to do.

I am very relieved!

Dear friend,

In addition to HiBy Music, have you tried Fiio Music and other music software that can play DSD songs?

Best regards

 

[originalsnuffy]

Dear friend,

In addition to HiBy Music, have you tried Fiio Music and other music software that can play DSD songs?

Best regards

I did find one working app called Ever Play. That app, unfortunately, does not handle DSD gapless properly. Anyway, I suspect that FiiO should look into a firmware update to make the DSD process more consistent and reliable. I have not heard of any other apps working properly with DSD so far.

The FIIO app is not working for me with DSD. And it seems to not work with SACD ISO files, only DSD extractions. Well, to clarify it plays DSD files as PCM, even with DoP enabled.

Assuming FiiO gets the apps to work with DSD, hopefully you can speak to your engineers about one meaningful issue. The FIIO app does not work well with Apple's file program. If your app registered in the phone, I could move files from other apps directly into your app. It would be nice if that was fixed.

I edited this post because it turns out that none of the units that supposedly handle DSD with the iphone 15 Pro Max have been proven to actually do that. I just purchased a Cayin RU7 and so far it is behaving exactly the same as the FiiO unit. PCM is fine, DSD is not fine. It was also edited to mention that the FiiO does not do the job with DSD.

 

[bassdad8]

I purchased this back in May of ‘23 and returned it in favor of the HipDac2. The price on Amazon was (and still is) $140.
I just re-bought is on AliExpress (Bright Audio Store) brand new for, get this: $72.31. Sometimes when things die, like MQA has, there is a benefit to the consumer. The Q3 is still THX. It still has good bones. And from what I remember, a nice, pretty transparent sound. This probably isn’t the first, and definitely won’t be the last Dac/amp that boasted “full MQA unfolding” or “rendering”, or “decoding” to take a nosedive in price. Keep your eyes peeled. There are surely more deals coming… I still feel kinda bad for the companies that literally bought into MQA, or paid their licensing fee, etc., but the consumer has also paid. It’s nice to get a little something “back” from that whole mess.

 

[originalsnuffy]

FIIO, can you please let us know if your engineers have looked into supporting DSD via DoP with the iphone 15 Pro Max? I imagine it would only require a small firmware update. Right now I get an equal amount of digital noise and music which means a signal is making to the unit. The signal simply isn't being recognized properly.