[shotgunshane]

Sounds like a great idea to me. I would certainly buy one. I have no interest in a tubby all in one player with completely average sound.

 

[stozzer123]

Quote:

why make just another player with average or best case only slightly better than ipod dac and amp? whats the point of that? the market is already crowded enough with these type of DAPs that dont really offer anything new or better and almost always worse as far as software. if its not top notch for audio performance, people will just use another dac/amp with it, making for a larger and more expensive overall package utilizing only half of the capabilities. why not make it a high quality transport, spend more money on a really good digital section with solid software and navigation, to integrate with other dac/amps including their own models and widen the market? if the end result is just another dap with compromised dac/amp sections due to battery life for features I wont use, then i'm not interested.
 
at least consider a version like this as another option, do proper clocking with dual clocks for both 44.1 and 48x multiples, present something a bit more unique with a more focused and savvy feature set

I get what your saying, and i would use the feature of a transport at times, but then there will be times when the majority will want to travel without the bulk of a dac amp and cables.  You can get good (enough) clean sound from the player out the hp out like in the s:flo, and cube amongst a few which i would consider better than on cowon, ipod, sony etc.   What im looking for is better than average sound out the hp and the option to bypass when i want.  Im sure they would sell a ton more of units using this than simply a transport so not sure if it would make sense to bring that out first.  I would in the future be interested in seeing what your talking about but as a seperate product (x3 naked edition anyone?).
 
For example I imagine the player incorporating something like the e17/e7 (im aware this would negate sales of these products) internals locked up inside the case and pretty sure that would sound pretty damm good, good enough for most uses and far better than the mainstream competition.  Add to that the option to bypass and you have pretty much a perfect situation, you can then throw however many hundreds of dollars tweaking to your hearts delight with dacs and amps.
 
As for UI im not a fussy one on it, something that works (all be it a bit counter intuitive) like the cube c30/n2 is adequate.  I do however think that it will be a bit more advanced in this case and that fiio usually has a good reputation for making there products work well and that would be the case with the x3

 

[shotgunshane]

I didn't find the e17 to be an improvement over the iPhone 4.

 

[stozzer123]

With the iphone 4 did that bypass the amp but still use the internal dac?  i ask because i havent used it with an iphone 4 only my computer and it sounded good utilising dac and amp.  

 

[ClieOS]

why make just another player with average or best case only slightly better than ipod dac and amp? whats the point of that? the market is already crowded enough with these type of DAPs that dont really offer anything new or better and almost always worse as far as software. if its not top notch for audio performance, people will just use another dac/amp with it, making for a larger and more expensive overall package utilizing only half of the capabilities. why not make it a high quality transport, spend more money on a really good digital section with solid software and navigation, to integrate with other dac/amps including their own models and widen the market? if the end result is just another dap with compromised dac/amp sections due to battery life for features I wont use, then i'm not so interested.

at least consider a version like this as another option, do proper low jitter clocking with dual clocks for both 44.1 and 48x multiples, transformer coupled and buffered spdif and isolated USB output with a proper power supply. present something a bit more unique with a more focused and savvy feature set. if its good enough trust me, people will use it for home audio as well, you just need to see how many of the QA350 are modified and used this way

Because FiiO will never get the benefit of mass production like Apple, Sandisk or even Cowon, and thus it will never be able to afford a team of software engineer (which by the way is the hardest kind of professional to hire in China. Even the half-decent one are hired by big company with salary well over FiiO's budget). Also because the really high end market has already been targeted by companies such as Little Dots, HifiMan, and iBasso.... and because FiiO's core business is never about audiophile. I talked to James about this before the original X3 project even started, and he has no illusion about the company's goal. They are not here to beat Apple on mass production and huge R&D budget or iBasso on high-end hardware and high-end price tag. They are only doing what they do best - offering decent products with good value and some unique mix of features, for those who don't want mainstream and can't afford high-end, yet hoping for something in between.

For those who are only interested in anything high end, I can already tell you X3 probably isn't what you want. I think I already said something similar way back in the first page of this thread.

 

[qusp]

see I dont think they will sell a ton more units, the marketplace in that sector already has it covered and is pretty saturated, the sflo is not what I would call a great amp section, or dac section and I dont mean just choice of dac chip, which is meaningless without a proper design, they arent even using a proper digital filter, which is a shame given the WM874X series has an excellent apodising filter
 
I think you both underestimate how many people we have here already on the forums that have a favorite dac/amp that works just fine and may be using it with one of the other options that present too many features; as well as overestimate the number of people who will buy a bulky dap that doesnt have top shelf performance.
 
look at the people out there using an ipod plus CLAS, or an ipod plus fostex and still use another dac/amp or just amp. the E17 is ok, but there are already better options and I for one (perhaps an extreme case) am using an option that kills it because I didnt have any budget or time constraints. the chances of squeezing one into a dap like this are nil, even the dx100 has a number of compromises
 
the clocking, PSU and receiver sections of these players always lose out, most just using one consumer grade clock, pretty simple power supplies and not enough of them, usually one clock for 48khz multiples and resampling everything to that because its a comparatively round number, even though most have majority 44.1 music. then the digital out is often an afterthought to round out the features
 
perhaps use something like the silicon labs Si570 DSPLL which is a lower jitter clock than anything weve seen portable, for not much money, with great PSRR and the ability to produce clock speeds to suit whatever rates you like. add a small fifo buffer + flipflops and hey presto, awesome low jitter transport. if I had the funds and infrastructure to put behind it thats what I would be doing, rather than trying to compete for an ever shrinking segment

 

[stozzer123]

Quote:

 
I think you both underestimate how many people we have here already on the forums that have a favorite dac/amp that works just fine and may be using it with one of the other options that present too many features; as well as overestimate the number of people who will buy a bulky dap that doesnt have top shelf performance.
 

I think the fact this topic has 153 pages is testament to how many people are interested and would buy this.  The original idea has a number of features that can suit many and as clieos already stated fiio know where they want to compete, they are not and have never competed in the upper echelon and are catering to good features and good sound at a price point.  Having top shelf sound was and never will be the point of it,  I assume its more along the lines of good sound (better than mainstream, clip, ipod etc) with features that high end guys like yourself will use. I never said the e17 was the be all end all, i dont even have mine anymore, but that dac and amp section is better than whats already in an ipod and i dont see why they can get one into a player, barring the shocking battery life (e7 would be more practical in that sense.)  
 
I'm pretty sure, even though you may be inclined to disagree, that fiio will make a lot more money out of producing a dap as opposed to a transport (unless they bump the price to create ridiculous profit margins).  As a separate product I agree totally the would sell some, i myself probably included in that, but it definitely wont happen with the x3.

 

[ClieOS]

The thing about S:flo2 is, (well I am not supposed to tell anyone about this as I have promised someone, but it shouldn't be too big of an issue now since it is out-of-production for over a year already), the model is much less popular than you might think. The is very solid evidence that Teclast only made a few hundreds of them, probably less than a thousand in total for the whole production run. The information was leaked indirectly from a Woflson insider who handles Teclast order of WM8740 during the production, and S:flo2 was the only model in Teclast line-up that used the chip at the time (so it is easy to know how many S:flo2 Teclast has made). Another things II can't tell you in detail is actually how many unit of 'another--very-well-known-brand' of audiophile players has been made - you will be shocked on how little that number are in contrast to how popular that players is in HF.

Anyway, the point is, audiophile players are not as hot selling as you might think they are. Realistically we might be only talking about a few hundred units of X3 even being sold if FiiO is doing half-decent (even at their estimated $200 price tag) - over a thousand, if FiiO is lucky. Given X3 is the most expensive project FiiO has even taken (and a lot of money has been wasted on the first SoC), we are talking about a product that has the potential to sink a company if they are not being 100% cautious or simply rely on wishful thinking (okay, maybe not as bad as sinking, but you get the idea).

Sorry about a lot of the cryptic talking but I am not in the position to share some of those information that were brought up in private conversations.

 

[stozzer123]

I was thinking about 1000 would be a very very good production run for fiio on the player if they reached that.  Ultimately the s:flo2's interface made it intolerable for myself but the sound was good.  Very curious on what the other player your referring to is, I'm gonna say hifiman.
 
Edit: also at $200 im probably out there are other options id consider when it gets to that figure.

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Because FiiO will never get the benefit of mass production like Apple, Sandisk or even Cowon, and thus it will never be able to afford a team of software engineer (which by the way is the hardest kind of professional to hire in China. Even the half-decent one are hired by big company with salary well over FiiO's budget). Also because the really high end market has already been targeted by companies such as Little Dots, HifiMan, and iBasso.... and because FiiO's core business is never about audiophile. I talked to James about this before the original X3 project even started, and he has no illusion about the company's goal. They are not here to beat Apple on mass production and huge R&D budget or iBasso on high-end hardware and high-end price tag. They are only doing what they do best - offering decent products with good value and some unique mix of features, for those who don't want mainstream and can't afford high-end, yet hoping for something in between.
For those who are only interested in anything high end, I can already tell you X3 probably isn't what you want. I think I already said something similar way back in the first page of this thread.

 
i'm not entirely sure you are understanding, i'm talking about wasting LESS money and time for a better result with a product with no real direct competitor, not more money and time on one that has many

the point is you can offer a better product than ibasso (ive seen the inside pics, its ok but so much space and power used on creeping featurism)
 
^^bad example, what I mean is do the job at hand better
 
you can do this for less money than apple if you just focus the objective and not try to be all things to all people, falling short on all of them.
 
notice I said better, more solid software (read reliable and streamlined), not more bells and whistles with touchscreen, wifi, android and still dont handle the clocking logically
 
if a small group of DIYers, sometimes single DIYers can produce excellent and reliable results for an SD player that can be put together for less than $100, a company with infrastructure and proper labs can, the money is in the chassis and testing. the teraplayer has already shown that you dont even need a screen for people to be interested if you handle the hardware properly and it works as advertised within the constraints (i'm not a fan of the dac choices, but just an example). the way I see it, very few of these products actually have audio performance as a goal. high end does not have to mean overpriced, just focused objectives
 
but hey ok I guess i'll stick with my nearly 15 year old iriver

 

[ClieOS]

A DIYer doesn't need to make money. A company does. If the product doesn't excess a certain number of sale, then the company is in red. FiiO just set a price tag that they think they can sell a DAP, then design a DAP that fit into that budget and have all the features they think are useful. Remember a $200 DAP doesn't mean FiiO is making $200. The actual profit margin is much lower then that because they have to pay for R&D, the SoC supplier, other parts, a factory full of worker s, overhead as well as keeping a considerable amount of profit for distributor and retailer.

Let me tell you a story from a friend who are an Apple authorized dealer locally. I brought an iPod from him once. Generally he would have given me discount since I am a regular customer and old friend, but that day he said he can't, because he is only making $16 on every unit of Apple iPod he sold and by contract, he can't rise the price or give discount (not that he have enough profit to give discount, as he does have a store to run), or Apple can take his Apple dealership away. So I asked him why he is still selling Apple when it doesn't make much money at all - and he replied that, even though he doesn't make money on Apple, his customer want it, so he ended up selling a popular product that doesn't make money because that keep his customer happy and coming back for other audio stuffs.

You might think FiiO can do better, which I think you are right, but there is a price for everything. For X3, it simply isn't an all-out project like DX100 or HM901. It is not a 100 units production run that cost $800+, or a 100K production run that you can force your dealer to take minimum profit. FiiO is just doing what they think is logical and fit into the budget. You are right on one thing - it is not about sound quality, well, not all of it. It is certainly not about being audiophile, just functional. Like I said, it is a consumer level product, and that will be all it is.

iriver was once the king of DAP, then Apple comes alone and see what happens to iriver now?

 

[doublea71]

You made a lot of sense to me with that post, ClieOS. I won't get my hopes up too high.
 

 

[shotgunshane]

My only issue is dap size. I don't want a Hifiman or dx100 brick. If Fiio can make it much smaller than those 2, I don't really care if it has a Dac/amp but if it's a big brick that sounds like an E7, I'll pass.

 

[doublea71]

The size of the one in the picture is curious - it looks too big to be a regular dap, so I'm wondering why...if it's not going to be a upper-tier product, why the hefty size? Maybe they have a trick or two up their sleeve...
 

 

[qusp]

I'm NOT talking about competing with existing high end products

apple cannot legally produce a DAP with an overt digital output due to its record industry ties.
 
i'm well aware of the profit thang, i'm not some O2/ODAC fanboi that thinks things should cost a pittance more than the cost of parts, do you really think you are teaching me something with this 'education'? ive been running my own business in one shape or another since my teens. Having run several group buys for diy projects of varying sizes as well as designing and producing a one off high end device for myself, i'm aware of how much cheaper parts and PCBs get in even small runs of 20-50, let alone hundreds, compared to a one off BOM cost like my $100 example. one easily outstrips the other. buy enough for 500 units and you reduce the BOM to ~$30-40, but it wasnt meant as a direct comparison to the X3, more to illustrate that they most certainly have the knowhow.
 
you havent done much DIY if you think its cheaper to make a high quality DIY product as a one off, than it is to produce one as part of a production run including costs of business. its the biggest lie of DIY that its cheaper, one I wish would go away because it attracts people with the wrong motives. You diy to make exactly what you want and spend money where it matters to you, plus the joy of doing it, not to save money, because it doesnt really save money except at the entry level without time or a proper chassis. certain popular 'diy' products pricing is based on a false economy that rules out ALL the costs for R&D, support, prototyping, documentation, distribution. ive been pretty vocal about this.
 
what does apple and their well known low margin have to do with it? iriver failed because they took their eye off the ball and stopped innovating, lacked advertising savvy and just kept recycling the same ideas
 
doing what I propose requires LESS development time, less parts cost, less breakdowns, less software, less hardware and has no competition. its 100% about being functional
 
 
clearly i'm not getting through and the path is set, I wish them luck, but given the water passed under the bridge since the thread was posted, i'm not sure the gap is still there, I was simply informing of a gap and a gap that could be filled with an adaptation of existing hardware and software. would it not be MORE efficient to leverage now pre-existing IP and hardware into another product?