[Saidear]

  Damn, mine cost $7 (but it does hold 16 cards)

Well, mine are P66 (about $1.50) and hold 10 each - so yeah, I'd say you've paid too much.  Then again, I saw a 16 SD card 'tray' back in Canada that the local department store was selling for $15.  For that price it really wasn't worth it - I ended up snagging it on clearance for about $4 about two weeks later.

 

[fjhuerta]

After a couple of months using the Fiio X3 I have to say a couple of things....
 
I love the sound.
 
I love the fact that it can power everything I have, from iem's to my HD600s.
 
I love the battery life.
 
I love the size.
 
I love its expandability.
 
I love the analog bass and treble controls.
 
I love the output choices. This is the swiss army knife of DACs.
 
But the UI is terrible, horrible, useless. This is worse than an alpha product in that regard. I can't believe it can't manage playlists. Can't believe it can't index my tracks (FLACs) properly (some times it will, some times it will miss a couple of tracks, some times it'll place them on folders I don't even have on the SDCard). Can't believe I can't find the songs I want because of the slooooooow scrolling (and the fact that it displays album first, track name second). Can't believe the button lay-out is so incredibly bad and un-intuitive. Can't believe how SLOOOOOW it is to react to my commands. Can't believe I have to turn it on and WAIT 20 seconds or so for it to boot every time I want to use it.
 
Can't believe a piece of gear so extremely capable for high quality audio was so terribly designed. Such a shame. It makes me just want to go out, find a nice iPod Classic and really enjoy browsing through my music, not suffering through it.
 
I'll use it as my computer's DAC for a while, I guess. Is the X5 better in its UI? I like what Fiio is doing quality wise. They just need to fix the human interface.

 

[mikroski]

Can't believe I have to turn it on and WAIT 20 seconds or so for it to boot every time I want to use it.

I agree with you almost every point. But, my X3 boot up fast not 20 seconds for sure. Boot time of my X3, after I release the power button, it show the album cover in 5 sec and start play in next 2 sec.
 
If I don't set memory play, it will show main menu very fast after I release the power button. Not sure what went wrong with your player, do you set auto update library?

 

[Mmet]

  After a couple of months using the Fiio X3 I have to say a couple of things....
 
I love the sound.
 
I love the fact that it can power everything I have, from iem's to my HD600s.
 
I love the battery life.
 
I love the size.
 
I love its expandability.
 
I love the analog bass and treble controls.
 
I love the output choices. This is the swiss army knife of DACs.
 
But the UI is terrible, horrible, useless. This is worse than an alpha product in that regard. I can't believe it can't manage playlists. Can't believe it can't index my tracks (FLACs) properly (some times it will, some times it will miss a couple of tracks, some times it'll place them on folders I don't even have on the SDCard). Can't believe I can't find the songs I want because of the slooooooow scrolling (and the fact that it displays album first, track name second). Can't believe the button lay-out is so incredibly bad and un-intuitive. Can't believe how SLOOOOOW it is to react to my commands. Can't believe I have to turn it on and WAIT 20 seconds or so for it to boot every time I want to use it.
 
Can't believe a piece of gear so extremely capable for high quality audio was so terribly designed. Such a shame. It makes me just want to go out, find a nice iPod Classic and really enjoy browsing through my music, not suffering through it.
 
I'll use it as my computer's DAC for a while, I guess. Is the X5 better in its UI? I like what Fiio is doing quality wise. They just need to fix the human interface.

almost agree with you .... but i have 64 GB memory nearly full and it boot in 7-8 seconds !
and i don't have any complains about the user interface( yes it looks ugly but still functional ) ...it is good for me ....the button layout could be better but no major harm with that ..... 
my only grip is absence of  making and playing playlists 

 

[Mr Trev]

  almost agree with you .... but i have 64 GB memory nearly full and it boot in 7-8 seconds !
and i don't have any complains about the user interface( yes it looks ugly but still functional ) ...it is good for me ....the button layout could be better but no major harm with that ..... 
my only grip is absence of  making and playing playlists 

Playlists would be nice. Since it hasn't been done yet, I added it to the bugzilla site...go and vote for it & hopefully it will happen

 

[nmatheis]

I believe I was the first to mention the X3/E11 pairing...

I finally got around to trying out the X3 LO -> E11 yesterday with interesting results. I was using a very new pair of Somic Efi-82 MTs with HM5 pads (liking these quite a bit btw).

Listening to Mark Fell's Multistability (experimental electronic music, great production) in FLAC format, I heard a clear benefit from using X3 LO -> E11 with low gain and bass on 1. The music was most definitely more clearer, more detailed, and the bass was less muddy.

Listening to Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (classic prog-ish metal, so-so production) in iTunes Plus AAC format, I definitely preferred the X3 HO. For some reason, this was the less muddy option. Using the E11 here resulted in my beloved Iron Maiden sounding sluggish / smeary. Go figure...

I'll try amping some more with my other amps (E12 v1, E12 DIY (stock), and SoundMagic A10) and see what I think.

 

[fjhuerta]

  almost agree with you .... but i have 64 GB memory nearly full and it boot in 7-8 seconds !
and i don't have any complains about the user interface( yes it looks ugly but still functional ) ...it is good for me ....the button layout could be better but no major harm with that ..... 
my only grip is absence of  making and playing playlists 

I may have exaggerated. 10 seconds is more like it. But then, trying to select a song means 10 seconds more, at least, until the player loads my catalog. And there's no search...
 
The iPod: click, scroll, play. The Fiio: Boot up, wait, remember where the buttons are, try to hit them on your first try, try to remember artist / album name (no playlists), wait, scroll, wait for the complete name to show... it's really no fun, and a pretty bad implementation
 
When I fire up my Note's music player, or my Xperia's, or my iPod, it's all instantaneous. The Fiio is an Android doing nothing but music. It should be blazing fast and have a terrific music player. 
 
The hardware is impressive, the price is right, the implementation is a disaster. Sadly, it seems the X5 is pretty bad, too, so I don't know what to get... well, at least my Note has 192/24 converters.

 

[Mmet]

I finally got around to trying out the X3 LO -> E11 yesterday with interesting results. I was using a very new pair of Somic Efi-82 MTs with HM5 pads (liking these quite a bit btw).

Listening to Mark Fell's Multistability (experimental electronic music, great production) in FLAC format, I heard a clear benefit from using X3 LO -> E11 with low gain and bass on 1. The music was most definitely more clearer, more detailed, and the bass was less muddy.

Listening to Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (classic prog-ish metal, so-so production) in iTunes Plus AAC format, I definitely preferred the X3 HO. For some reason, this was the less muddy option. Using the E11 here resulted in my beloved Iron Maiden sounding sluggish / smeary. Go figure...

I'll try amping some more with my other amps (E12 v1, E12 DIY (stock), and SoundMagic A10) and see what I think.

Waiting your impressions with those amps 

 

[bhabba]

  (...)
 
But the UI is terrible, horrible, useless. This is worse than an alpha product in that regard. I can't believe it can't manage playlists. Can't believe it can't index my tracks (FLACs) properly (some times it will, some times it will miss a couple of tracks, some times it'll place them on folders I don't even have on the SDCard). Can't believe I can't find the songs I want because of the slooooooow scrolling (and the fact that it displays album first, track name second). Can't believe the button lay-out is so incredibly bad and un-intuitive. Can't believe how SLOOOOOW it is to react to my commands. Can't believe I have to turn it on and WAIT 20 seconds or so for it to boot every time I want to use it.
 
Can't believe a piece of gear so extremely capable for high quality audio was so terribly designed. Such a shame. It makes me just want to go out, find a nice iPod Classic and really enjoy browsing through my music, not suffering through it.
 
I'll use it as my computer's DAC for a while, I guess. Is the X5 better in its UI? I like what Fiio is doing quality wise. They just need to fix the human interface.

 
I comprehend your frustration about the UI, I really do! It's not very "mature", diplomatically spoken. But please help to improve things by participating in the bugzilla bugtracker, at least by voting for your most wanted features / bugs to be solved. There are already 47 reported issues (28 for the X3). Thereby you would let FiiO know your criticism in a way more constructive manner

 
 
@Mr Trev
I've added a (pretty elaborate) bug report for an advanced playlist support with the ability to create and edit playlists on the go (saved as .m3u) for the X3 and also voted for your bug

 

 

[Cannikin]

I may have exaggerated. 10 seconds is more like it. But then, trying to select a song means 10 seconds more, at least, until the player loads my catalog. And there's no search...

The iPod: click, scroll, play. The Fiio: Boot up, wait, remember where the buttons are, try to hit them on your first try, try to remember artist / album name (no playlists), wait, scroll, wait for the complete name to show... it's really no fun, and a pretty bad implementation

When I fire up my Note's music player, or my Xperia's, or my iPod, it's all instantaneous. The Fiio is an Android doing nothing but music. It should be blazing fast and have a terrific music player. 

The hardware is impressive, the price is right, the implementation is a disaster. Sadly, it seems the X5 is pretty bad, too, so I don't know what to get... well, at least my Note has 192/24 converters.

I have had the same experience as you, but worse: my X3 crashes every time I use it, often multiple times. When playing 192/24 files it often plays two or three tracks and then stops, makes a click sound and then it is locked up until I push the reset button. This often happens several times during an album. FiiO support contacted me and suggested I install newer firmware, then suggested older firmware, and then suggested I reformat both the TF card and the device internal memory and try installing firmware again. None of these things fixed the problem, so now the X3 is sitting in my desk drawer, unused. I bought an AK100 and it is a FAR better device. The X3 wasn't worth the trouble. (And because of that, I will NOT buy the X5, which I was considering)

 

[r010159]

I have had the same experience as you, but worse: my X3 crashes every time I use it, often multiple times. When playing 192/24 files it often plays two or three tracks and then stops, makes a click sound and then it is locked up until I push the reset button. This often happens several times during an album. FiiO support contacted me and suggested I install newer firmware, then suggested older firmware, and then suggested I reformat both the TF card and the device internal memory and try installing firmware again. None of these things fixed the problem, so now the X3 is sitting in my desk drawer, unused. I bought an AK100 and it is a FAR better device. The X3 wasn't worth the trouble. (And because of that, I will NOT buy the X5, which I was considering)

The AK100 should be a better device at $700 a pop. I also have read the UI is rather basic in the features it offers. But the sound is supposed to be phenomenal.

Bob Graham

 

[fjhuerta]

   
I comprehend your frustration about the UI, I really do! It's not very "mature", diplomatically spoken. But please help to improve things by participating in the bugzilla bugtracker, at least by voting for your most wanted features / bugs to be solved. There are already 47 reported issues (28 for the X3). Thereby you would let FiiO know your criticism in a way more constructive way

 
 
@Mr Trev
I've added a (pretty elaborate) bug report for an advanced playlist support with the ability to create and edit playlists on the go (saved as .m3u) for the X3 and also voted for your bug

Thanks, I will. But I honestly don't know where to start. One of the first things Fiio got incredibly wrong is button lay-out. That's not fixable via software. Then, the overall slowness - which I guess happens because of  a slow CPU...
 
I wish the Fiio could be a giant killer. I really do. I own it and I love, love, love the sound. I just don't know how much can be fixed via software.

 

[Mr Trev]

I have had the same experience as you, but worse: my X3 crashes every time I use it, often multiple times. When playing 192/24 files it often plays two or three tracks and then stops, makes a click sound and then it is locked up until I push the reset button. This often happens several times during an album. FiiO support contacted me and suggested I install newer firmware, then suggested older firmware, and then suggested I reformat both the TF card and the device internal memory and try installing firmware again. None of these things fixed the problem, so now the X3 is sitting in my desk drawer, unused. I bought an AK100 and it is a FAR better device. The X3 wasn't worth the trouble. (And because of that, I will NOT buy the X5, which I was considering)

It's weird how this happens. I read about other people having all kinds of problems, yet mine is nearly flawless. Then all of a sudden one day, everything started crashing: playback, library updates. Most of the time I had to stab the reset hole to get it playing again. Got fed up, and used my ipod for the next day or 2, and the X3's been problem free since. Honestly don't know how to explain it other than sunspots, or possession by evil spirits. Fingers crossed it stays working.

 

[mikroski]

One Question
 
I'm consider to buy Woo WA7 DAC/AMP. The problem is that Woo has only USB input and X3 has only coax output.
 
Is there any solution to use WA7 as DAC/AMP and X3 act as source
 

 

[frankrondaniel]

I would think a 3.5mm to 2-RCA cable would do the trick?  Connect the 3.5mm end to the LO of the X3 and the RCA's to the Left/Right inputs of the WA7, set the rear switch on the WA7 to RCA.