[ZMan2k2]

Okay, so after a day or so of use, I've determined the following with the headphones that I have.
 
The JVC SZ-1000, driven well, needs the bass boost.  Then you get the headshake these headphones are known for.  They are a little congested, due to muted highs, but the bass is all there for a bass head like me.
 
Logitech UE6000.  Don't need to turn on the ANC/amp with this player.  Sound is rich and full.  Turning on ANC/amp introduces hiss and some artifacts.  Not my favorite with the player.
 
Beats by Dre Tour V2 IEM's.  Bass is VERY present.  Overpowering really.  Turning down the EQ settings is good, but not my favorite with these.  They sound too congested with the player.  With the iPod, they rocked, and I was thoroughly impressed with them, thinking Beats did a real trick with these, making them better than the originals.  But they don't mesh well with this player.
 
Atrio MG7's.  These have to be my favorite headphone with this player period.  I've been considering a new set of IEM's, and I was listening to the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings soundtrack with these and the player with 44.1/16 FLAC files.  I was thinking, I have to find something that sounds as good as these.  Then I thought, why bother, these sound GREAT!  By far my favorites.
 
Overall, the player is great, I haven't had any hiccups with it, and I've tried the gapless playback with the file search function, and it works just fine, playing back my "Celebration Day" FLAC's from Led Zeppelin.  Smooth transition from file to file, without clicks or pops, just next track.
 
Loving this little player, and can't wait to get my 128Gb card, to put all my music on it.  Having my entire library in CD quality, is just a fantastic prospect.

 

[x RELIC x]

Okay, so after a day or so of use, I've determined the following with the headphones that I have.

The JVC SZ-1000, driven well, needs the bass boost.  Then you get the headshake these headphones are known for.  They are a little congested, due to muted highs, but the bass is all there for a bass head like me.

Logitech UE6000.  Don't need to turn on the ANC/amp with this player.  Sound is rich and full.  Turning on ANC/amp introduces hiss and some artifacts.  Not my favorite with the player.

Beats by Dre Tour V2 IEM's.  Bass is VERY present.  Overpowering really.  Turning down the EQ settings is good, but not my favorite with these.  They sound too congested with the player.  With the iPod, they rocked, and I was thoroughly impressed with them, thinking Beats did a real trick with these, making them better than the originals.  But they don't mesh well with this player.

Atrio MG7's.  These have to be my favorite headphone with this player period.  I've been considering a new set of IEM's, and I was listening to the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings soundtrack with these and the player with 44.1/16 FLAC files.  I was thinking, I have to find something that sounds as good as these.  Then I thought, why bother, these sound GREAT!  By far my favorites.

Overall, the player is great, I haven't had any hiccups with it, and I've tried the gapless playback with the file search function, and it works just fine, playing back my "Celebration Day" FLAC's from Led Zeppelin.  Smooth transition from file to file, without clicks or pops, just next track.

Loving this little player, and can't wait to get my 128Gb card, to put all my music on it.  Having my entire library in CD quality, is just a fantastic prospect.

The better the player the more you can hear the quality of the headphone.

I find the iPod glosses over details, muddies the bass and sounds veiled overall so when using less capable headphones it isn't really an issue. With a more capable DAP you can quickly hear what the headphone is lacking.

Same with audio files. If you're listening to a poor master it sounds that much worse on a more capable DAP. Songs and albums I used to enjoy are very hard to listen to now on better gear.

 

[John Grady]

So I just got this player, before having it I had always had a Zune so always used the Zune Software. Inside the Zune software all my music is in order but I have noticed now, even transferring multiple albums under the same artists folder over to the X3, once I search it on the actual device, if there is any inconsistency in the spelling or anything in the artists name it will list the artists twice on the device.
 
Anyways, long story short, what I'm trying to ask is if there is a way to merge artist folders together on the device or if I have to go in and change all the song information to exactly match on my computer?

 

[TrollDragon]

  So I just got this player, before having it I had always had a Zune so always used the Zune Software. Inside the Zune software all my music is in order but I have noticed now, even transferring multiple albums under the same artists folder over to the X3, once I search it on the actual device, if there is any inconsistency in the spelling or anything in the artists name it will list the artists twice on the device.
 
Anyways, long story short, what I'm trying to ask is if there is a way to merge artist folders together on the device or if I have to go in and change all the song information to exactly match on my computer?

Bad ID tags in the songs, time to clean up your library... 

 

[John Grady]

I figured. What I'm asking is, if there's a quick and easy way to do that besides going into each artist or song and physically changing them.

 

[TheGiantHogweed]

I have just heard my first ever 24bit flac format album. It is definitely a lot better that 320kbps. The detail in the vocals is what I notice most of all. The improvement over the 320kbps version of this album I had is much more obvious on my Audio Technica ATH-AD700s rather that my AKG K550s. It will be because overall, the sound quality is much better because they are open back. I find the midrange to be much more clean. I just couldn't imagine better sound quality than a CD quality flac but this is noticeably better.
It easily sounds as good as listening to the flacs from this album on my PC through the FiiO E10.
 
I didn't expect it to take up quite the amount of space it does though. I have just been using my Transcend 32gb micro SD card for everything and it had about 30gb on it. Once I added it, It was very nearly full.
 
Because I normally add Mp3 files to it, it gets towards being full very slowly but this album was a 2 CD album but I just bought it as 24bit flacs and it took up 1.6gb. That isn't much of a problem because I have now moved a whole load of albums to the X3's built in storage. There was 7.5gb free there.
 
I would prefer to get a 64GB card when this all gets full instead of 2 32GB ones. I just never know what brand to get as loads of them don't seem to be genuine. I have had a Toshiba class 10 card in another device recently and that only lasted a few months. Don't think I would go for a Toshiba next time. I may have just been unlucky though.

 

[TrollDragon]

I figured. What I'm asking is, if there's a quick and easy way to do that besides going into each artist or song and physically changing them.

There are quite a few tag programs that will make the task easier.

An OCD attitude about ID3 tags makes life easier down the road...

 

[prscustom]

after reading all the reviews i bought fiio x3 and it arrived today. updated the firmware to 3.0 (i even had to buy an sd card just for that). after listening some flacs i must say im not impressed. am i doing something wrong? there isnt even a graphic equalizer in this device.
 
SQ is much better from my pc with harman+kardon soundsticks.
 
im using fiio x3 with miracles+ toxic scorpion

 

[prscustom]

and i didnt even wanted to mention other issues than SQ, because i bought this player solely for its SQ, but the controls and responsiveness are also annoying as hell. setting the volume is most jerky.

 

[TheGiantHogweed]

  after reading all the reviews i bought fiio x3 and it arrived today. updated the firmware to 3.0 (i even had to buy an sd card just for that). after listening some flacs i must say im not impressed. am i doing something wrong? there isnt even a graphic equalizer in this device.
 
SQ is much better from my pc with harman+kardon soundsticks.
 
im using fiio x3 with miracles+ toxic scorpion

You could maybe try playing some music on the X3 through the line out to your Harman Kardon soundsticks and see if that sounds as good as they do from your PC. I use the FiiO E10 at my computer and that sounds just as good with my headphones as listening to music through the X3.

 

[TrollDragon]

after reading all the reviews i bought fiio x3 and it arrived today. updated the firmware to 3.0 (i even had to buy an sd card just for that). after listening some flacs i must say im not impressed. am i doing something wrong? there isnt even a graphic equalizer in this device.

SQ is much better from my pc with harman+kardon soundsticks.

im using fiio x3 with miracles+ toxic scorpion

Wow that is not good...

From reading the reviews you should have known there is no graphic EQ on the X3. Since you own $1K+ CIEM's why would you even pair them with a sub $200 player to start with? I think there is an A&K with your name on it...

 

[prscustom]

 
You could maybe try playing some music on the X3 through the line out to your Harman Kardon soundsticks and see if that sounds as good as they do from your PC. I use the FiiO E10 at my computer and that sounds just as good with my headphones as listening to music through the X3.

 
i just plugged the speakers in line-out and listening to them as i write (test track chris isaak- wicked game .flac on both platforms), i must say the quality isnt crap at all, actually pretty good but different than from my pc. too much bass and something is not right. the music is somehow not balanced. it sounds much more balanced, easy and beautiful to listen to from pc.
 
 

Wow that is not good...

From reading the reviews you should have known there is no graphic EQ on the X3. Since you own $1K+ CIEM's why would you even pair them with a sub $200 player to start with? I think there is an A&K with your name on it...

 
well even my old cheap sony mp3-play that costs 50eur has graphic EQ, i guess its normal to expect from a DEDICATED HIFI player with crap exterior quality to have that feature. graphic eq is a  must have and pretty shocking actually that x3 doesnt have it.
 
also from what i read in reviews that A&K is overpriced and not much better in EQ than x3. and which a&k model do you mean? ak240 costs like 2500eur no way im going to pay that much for a mp3 player its ridiculous. and prob SQ isnt even that good.

 

[TrollDragon]

 
well even my old cheap sony mp3-play that costs 50eur has graphic EQ, i guess its normal to expect from a DEDICATED HIFI player with crap exterior quality to have that feature. graphic eq is a  must have and pretty shocking actually that x3 doesnt have it.
 
also from what i read in reviews that A&K is overpriced and not much better in EQ than x3. and which a&k model do you mean? ak240 costs like 2500eur no way im going to pay that much for a mp3 player its ridiculous. and prob SQ isnt even that good.

 
Well since this is FiiO's first kick at a DAP and considering the X3 isn't fabricated at Foxconn like Sony and Apple products, I guess it has some quirks that you either have to get used to or sell it an move on.
 
The X3 is lacking in quite a few things but SQ isn't one of them.

 

[TheGiantHogweed]

   
i just plugged the speakers in line-out and listening to them as i write (test track chris isaak- wicked game .flac on both platforms), i must say the quality isnt crap at all, actually pretty good but different than from my pc. too much bass and something is not right. the music is somehow not balanced. it sounds much more balanced, easy and beautiful to listen to from pc.
 
 
 

If I use the X3 as a DAC from my computer and plug my Pioneer stereo amplifier into the line out, the sound is a huge amount cleaner that just plugging my amplifier into the outputs on the back of my computer. You don't get any of that interference when you use USB compared to using the analog outputs on the back of a PC.
 
Even if you were just to use the X3 as a DAC with your PC, depending on where you have your speakers plugged in at the moment, it should make them sound better. It is also very good at being a headphone amplifier when you are using it as a DAC. If you have headphones that are around the same price as the X3, they will go with it a lot better that ones that cost well over what the X3 does.
 
It would be similar to me plugging my decent £100 Tannoy speakers into really cheap amplifier under £20. It is better to get a pair of headphones that cost a similar amount to the X3. That will be why my AKG K550s and Audio Technica ATH-AD700s go so well with it.
 
I agree that the X3 does lack many things but as TrollDragon says, the sound quality isn't one of the problems at all. It is one of the best sounding portable players for around this price.
 
What you use may sound a bit better if you use FiiO's E12 through the line out or something. I'm not sure how much that would help but I would have thought it would a bit.

 

[prscustom]

i expected x3 to sound like a better version of iphone 5. x3 is abit too dark sounding, i expected better resolution, cleanness, nice body, volume and soundstage, without shrill highs. disadvantage of iphone is that its sometimes too bright. why is it so hard to get a clean and detailed sound like my desktop system. which player would you recommend to me? i cant even change the sound of x3 because theres no eq...so stupid. how can a player without any EQ be rated so high.
 
and they put some binaural tracks in internal storage to make it sound good..ridiculous. even that doesnt sound amazing.