[greenkomodo1]

Has anyone found this player insanely bright? I have tried listening with various earphones and vocals and guitar sound really painful to me ears, if I listen on really low volume it's okay but any sign of volume it just turns my earphones really harsh. Turning the 4k band down helps only just a bit, still enough to hurt.
 
Also been getting a problem where all of a sudden my player will just pause so I have to manually play my music again.

 

[Zweistein]

  I assume the resulting tracks will work properly on the X3ii, and that 89 dB is a good level to use?

Don't assume... I did have trouble getting the X3II to recognise the gain values in some MP3 files. Roughly speaking, It likes ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 and doesn't like ID3v2.3 UTF-16 and ID3v2.4 UTF-8 tags. Even though It always recognises the "ordinary" values, like title and album name, and the gain values are written in simple ASCII. But then I have files that don't fit this pattern. I tried hard (using Mp3tag, mp3diag, eyeD3) but couldn't make sense of the X3II's behaviour, nor of the formal specifications of tags for MP3 and gave up. I haven't noticed any such problem in FLAC, M4A or OGG files.
 
I use foobar2000's ReplainGain component, and its default target volume level of 89dB. Average modern albums yield a -7dB gain and only 30 year old masters ever get a slight positive gain, but that's fine since the X3II has plenty of volume to spare.
 

One exception: I'm NOT using that Track setting for my classical music collection after reading all sorts of comments and the Help file, but rather the Album setting, to preserve the higher dynamic range (between very soft and very loud) which is a feature of classical music. Again, is this right?

 
I always use the album-wide gain, and only encountered one (collection) album where the tracks aren't at compatible levels, so just tweaked the loud tracks. Just the other day I ripped Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitch - would you really prefer to hear track 7 (a whispering intro) to be cranked up by +16.35db before joining track 8 at -9.67dB?

 

[Indigo Bob]

  Has anyone found this player insanely bright? I have tried listening with various earphones and vocals and guitar sound really painful to me ears, if I listen on really low volume it's okay but any sign of volume it just turns my earphones really harsh. Turning the 4k band down helps only just a bit, still enough to hurt.
 
Also been getting a problem where all of a sudden my player will just pause so I have to manually play my music again.

Yes.  I have found that if you have bright IEM's, the sound can be pretty bright.
 
I would not call the x3ii a warm source.

 

[JWolf]

  Don't assume... I did have trouble getting the X3II to recognise the gain values in some MP3 files. Roughly speaking, It likes ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 and doesn't like ID3v2.3 UTF-16 and ID3v2.4 UTF-8 tags. Even though It always recognises the "ordinary" values, like title and album name, and the gain values are written in simple ASCII. But then I have files that don't fit this pattern. I tried hard (using Mp3tag, mp3diag, eyeD3) but couldn't make sense of the X3II's behaviour, nor of the formal specifications of tags for MP3 and gave up. I haven't noticed any such problem in FLAC, M4A or OGG files.
 
I use foobar2000's ReplainGain component, and its default target volume level of 89dB. Average modern albums yield a -7dB gain and only 30 year old masters ever get a slight positive gain, but that's fine since the X3II has plenty of volume to spare.
 
 
I always use the album-wide gain, and only encountered one (collection) album where the tracks aren't at compatible levels, so just tweaked the loud tracks. Just the other day I ripped Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitch - would you really prefer to hear track 7 (a whispering intro) to be cranked up by +16.35db before joining track 8 at -9.67dB?

 
If you are ripping to MP3, stop. Rip to Ogg Vorbis. With Ogg Vorbis, you can use replaygain and it will work. Plus, Ogg Vorbis sounds better than MP3 and ACC and you get smaller file sizes and you can have a higher bit-rate for a similar file size.

 

[JWolf]

  Has anyone found this player insanely bright? I have tried listening with various earphones and vocals and guitar sound really painful to me ears, if I listen on really low volume it's okay but any sign of volume it just turns my earphones really harsh. Turning the 4k band down helps only just a bit, still enough to hurt.
 
Also been getting a problem where all of a sudden my player will just pause so I have to manually play my music again.

 
What earphones are you using? Do they have a bump in the high end? The thing is that the X3II is pretty neutral and earphones/headphones that are bright may not be a good fit. For example, Grados are a poor fit because of their bright sound.
 
I also have a Cowon J3 and that has a rolled off high end so it would be a better fit for bright earphones/headphones. You actually do want as neutral a source as possible. The only problem with that is that if you are used to listen with warm or rolled off highs, then you might find the cans you liked are now not all that good.

 

[Spidworthy]

Thanks for the advice. My collection is already in maximum-rate MP3 so it's not really practical to convert it to something else (like Ogg Vobis) as suggested elsewhere. I have also done a complete MP3Gain tagging since I originally posted, so I'll see how that works out on my X3ii and if it's not effective, as far as I understand it's possible to reverse that gain tagging with MP3Gain without any loss, and I can then try Foobar2000 to see how that goes.

 

[greenkomodo1]

   
What earphones are you using? Do they have a bump in the high end? The thing is that the X3II is pretty neutral and earphones/headphones that are bright may not be a good fit. For example, Grados are a poor fit because of their bright sound.
 
I also have a Cowon J3 and that has a rolled off high end so it would be a better fit for bright earphones/headphones. You actually do want as neutral a source as possible. The only problem with that is that if you are used to listen with warm or rolled off highs, then you might find the cans you liked are now not all that good.

 

 
Yes.  I have found that if you have bright IEM's, the sound can be pretty bright.
 
I would not call the x3ii a warm source.

 
I'm using Trinity PM4 at the moment, I previously like RHA t10i and Senn IE80 as I love that thick bass sound. Also I thought with a V signature like these it wouldn't be so accented. If anyone can recommend any dark IEMs would be greatful!

 

[Dobrescu George]

  Has anyone found this player insanely bright? I have tried listening with various earphones and vocals and guitar sound really painful to me ears, if I listen on really low volume it's okay but any sign of volume it just turns my earphones really harsh. Turning the 4k band down helps only just a bit, still enough to hurt.
 
Also been getting a problem where all of a sudden my player will just pause so I have to manually play my music again.

 
4K is not where brightness is at, that's a problem of the headphones... 
 
Brightness is around 8KHz - 16KHz...
 

   
 
I'm using Trinity PM4 at the moment, I previously like RHA t10i and Senn IE80 as I love that thick bass sound. Also I thought with a V signature like these it wouldn't be so accented. If anyone can recommend any dark IEMs would be greatful!
 

 
 
Since you mentioned Ie80 and those are already overly dark, it would be best to look into really thick sound IEMs if this is what you're looking for.
 
Hm... NuForce IEMs are overly dark and NightHawk was a really dark headphone if I remember well., 

 

[Mustainized]

Is there a way to expand .cue files? Because for some albums of certain bands, I don't want all the songs in the album when I put them in my X3ii but .cue is just one file as whole album and they only expand when I play them with my computer. I use AIMP3. X3ii is on the way, I still did not get it. Can I manually delete some songs from .cue file after I've transferred it to X3ii? Can that player show .cue as song by song like AIMP3?

 

[JWolf]

  Thanks for the advice. My collection is already in maximum-rate MP3 so it's not really practical to convert it to something else (like Ogg Vobis) as suggested elsewhere. I have also done a complete MP3Gain tagging since I originally posted, so I'll see how that works out on my X3ii and if it's not effective, as far as I understand it's possible to reverse that gain tagging with MP3Gain without any loss, and I can then try Foobar2000 to see how that goes.

 
MP3 does not use Replaygain tags. So Foobar2000 is out. I suggest reripping to OGG Vorbis because it sounds better and does support Replaygain tags.

 

[harpo1]

   
MP3 does not use Replaygain tags. So Foobar2000 is out. I suggest reripping to OGG Vorbis because it sounds better and does support Replaygain tags.

I setup replay gain on my MP3 Albums in foobar2000 and it works but I'm no expert.  Can you explain what you mean for dummies like me.

 

[ext23]

Is there anyway to boost the X3ii's volume when docked into the K5 amp and running as a DAC? FWIW I have it set to high gain and max volume already and the K5 still doesn't really get loud enough which is crazy cause it's specs are huge.

 

[Indigo Bob]

   
 
I'm using Trinity PM4 at the moment, I previously like RHA t10i and Senn IE80 as I love that thick bass sound. Also I thought with a V signature like these it wouldn't be so accented. If anyone can recommend any dark IEMs would be greatful!

Oh, well there's your problem lol.  The pm4 is a bright IEM and unforgiving with detail.  It does not pair well with the x3ii.  The new Master seems to fix those problems, though.
 
I just picked up the LZ A4 and it is very smooth with the x3ii.  It has a great sub bass, but I wouldn't call it dark.

 

[Brooko]

Is there anyway to boost the X3ii's volume when docked into the K5 amp and running as a DAC? FWIW I have it set to high gain and max volume already and the K5 still doesn't really get loud enough which is crazy cause it's specs are huge.

Make sure the X3iis line-out is set to fixed rather than variable.

 

[ext23]

Make sure the X3iis line-out is set to fixed rather than variable.

 
Thank you, I noticed you replied to my comment on your review as well, you're a life saver!