[CH23]

Fire up your X3:
-> System setting -> Update lib
+ and - changes it from 'manual' to 'auto' (rescans library when you plug the X3 out of your computer)
or
press the 'OK' button to update manually. Then wait for it to finish.
If the screen goes off before ending the update, flick the hold switch to see if it's finished instead of pressing a button. This will break the update if it's still busy, at least that's what I read.

Pressing a button while updating doesn't break the update process.

 

[graemei101]

Hi there
I bought my X3 last week and have to say that out of the box it is a sweet sounding player. after coming from 3 Cowon players, my expectations were high on sound quality and the X3 does not disappoint. I also have no problems listening with in ear earphones, both my triple fi 10s with custom sleeves and my Futuresonics atrios sound great.
 
I do have the same problem as some other people, where my Sandisk pro 64Gb card will read in the file browser but not in the categories. Surely this is an easy fix? the player can already see the card and is able to index in the file browser so there should be no problem indexing in the categories, allowing me to browse by album. I do also feel that there is a lag when manually changing tracks, sometimes this can be 2 seconds and I feel that this could be improved upon. I also seem to have an issue with the favourites function, is it just me or can you not add to the favourites from a 64Gb card? I can add no problem from internal memory and when I add from the card it flags up as added but these tracks do not appear on the favourites (either that or the number of favourites is allowed is only in the region of 50). I do also think that there should be a means of adding to favourites (or playlists) on the go without having to do it whilst playing the song, perhaps a long press on the menu key when a track s highlighted could bring up an add to favourites (or playlists) menu.
 
The issues I have are not with the sound of this player, as I said already I think it sounds great. The issues I have are in the user experience. I fully accept that people will want to use the player in different ways and people will adapt their ways of using a player to suit, but there are a couple quite basic functionality issues with the interface at the moment.. Please remember that this could be the best player in the world, but if all users cannot easily access the music that they want quickly, then the designers, engineers and manufacturers time is all for nothing.
I realise that this is a very new product, which will change over the coming weeks and months and I think it is laudable that James takes a great interest in this forum. I also accept that this is all subjective, but there seems to be plenty of people on this forum who are happy to help this player achieve greatness with all its' users.
 
update - it seems that tracks not indexed in the sd card cannot be added to favourites from the file browser even though the pop up on screen says that the track has been added.

 

[good sound]

Quote:

recognizes the memory card 
firmware FW1.23EN
 
wish me lock
 
Enjoying the preloaded files, nice touch. I like that 

Yes those Chesky files from HD Tracks are amazing sounding. If you go to HD Tracks and register and then download the HD Tracks manager, you can get a very nice free sampler of similar but different tracks, some of the artists are the same. Also if you are a member of AudiogoN , they offer for five dollars, an HD Tracks Chesky Binaural sampler. There may be a couple of tracks that are the same as the supplied sampler that comes pre-loaded on the X3, but the bulk of the tracks are different and again mostly the same artists from the Chesky fold, and of course there is the 15% off coupon for HD Tracks that comes with the X3.
 
The only thing concerning the Binaural sampler that comes pre-loaded on the X3 is that it seems to take up almost half of the available internal space of the X3, which considering they are FLAC files doesn't seem to make much sense. When I first powered up my X3 and checked the available internal space it was only just over 4GB. I understand the software and firmware will take up a little room but all of that and the Chesky files in FLAC shouldn't take up almost 4 gigs I wouldn't think. I'm not sure how much of that 4GB you would recover just by deleting the included Chesky sampler.

 

[nasilemak]

Quote:

Yes those Chesky files from HD Tracks are amazing sounding. If you go to HD Tracks and register and then download the HD Tracks manager, you can get a very nice free sampler of similar but different tracks, some of the artists are the same. Also if you are a member of AudiogoN , they offer for five dollars, an HD Tracks Chesky Binaural sampler. There may be a couple of tracks that are the same as the supplied sampler that comes pre-loaded on the X3, but the bulk of the tracks are different and again mostly the same artists from the Chesky fold, and of course there is the 15% off coupon for HD Tracks that comes with the X3.
 
The only thing concerning the Binaural sampler that comes pre-loaded on the X3 is that it seems to take up almost half of the available internal space of the X3, which considering they are FLAC files doesn't seem to make much sense. When I first powered up my X3 and checked the available internal space it was only just over 4GB. I understand the software and firmware will take up a little room but all of that and the Chesky files in FLAC shouldn't take up almost 4 gigs I wouldn't think. I'm not sure how much of that 4GB you would recover just by deleting the included Chesky sampler.

 
The Chesky sampler is almost 3GB!

 

[hoichi]

Quote:

 
The Chesky sampler is almost 3GB!

That's to be expected. Why would FiiO bundle a player capable of true HD playback with 44.1/16 sampler?

 

[CH23]

The only thing concerning the Binaural sampler that comes pre-loaded on the X3 is that it seems to take up almost half of the available internal space of the X3, which considering they are FLAC files doesn't seem to make much sense. When I first powered up my X3 and checked the available internal space it was only just over 4GB. I understand the software and firmware will take up a little room but all of that and the Chesky files in FLAC shouldn't take up almost 4 gigs I wouldn't think. I'm not sure how much of that 4GB you would recover just by deleting the included Chesky sampler.

I've 6.89GB free space available on the internal memory after removing everything from there.(backed up the Chesky files, of course)
The thing with those files is that they're 24bit, 192Khz, so there's a lot of data in those FLACs.

 

[good sound]

Quote:

 
The Chesky sampler is almost 3GB!

Wow!, Okay. I guess that shouldn't surprise me that much, some of the 24/192 files I have made from ripping my DVD-Audio discs into uncompressed WAV are almost 6GB. I wonder if I sync the X3 in Media Center if I will be able to store this Chesky file there and free up some internal space on my X3. I don't want to lose the sampler but I would kind of like to free up some more of the internal space.

 

[good sound]

Quote:

That's to be expected. Why would FiiO bundle a player capable of true HD playback with 44.1/16 sampler?

I agree with that but my point was that even taking into consideration that the tracks of the sampler are 24/192 I wouldn't have thought that being in the FLAC format that they would require that much space.

 

[hoichi]

Quote:

I agree with that but my point was that even taking into consideration that the tracks of the sampler are 24/192 I wouldn't have thought that being in the FLAC format that they would require that much space.

FLAC compression ratio is maybe 65% of the original. So if the uncompressed data is huge, FLACs are bound be quite big as well.

 

[good sound]

Quote:

I've 6.89GB free space available on the internal memory after removing everything from there.(backed up the Chesky files, of course)
The thing with those files is that they're 24bit, 192Khz, so there's a lot of data in those FLACs.

Are you using a windows PC? Would you mind describing how you backed up the Chesky files. I tried syncing the X3 with JRiver Media Center and it hasn't worked. If it's too much trouble or you just don't feel like it I understand

 

[CH23]

Are you using a windows PC? Would you mind describing how you backed up the Chesky files. I tried syncing the X3 with JRiver Media Center and it hasn't worked. If it's too much trouble or you just don't feel like it I understand

Connected the X3 to my PC, opened the drive, selected all files, made 7zip compress it into an archive, and put said archive on my harddrive?
it's not that hard ;P

 

[nasilemak]

Quote:

Are you using a windows PC? Would you mind describing how you backed up the Chesky files. I tried syncing the X3 with JRiver Media Center and it hasn't worked. If it's too much trouble or you just don't feel like it I understand

 
Just connect X3 to your PC using USB cable. You should be able to see X3 internal memory and micro SD as two separate drives (only one if mSD not in the X3) in the explorer window. After that it is just navigating to find the album and copy it to your PC.

 

[good sound]

Thanks guys. Ya, I figured it out. The problem i was having initially was that my PC was not recognizing the X3. It is now and i was able to transfer thee Chesky files into My Music. The mini to standard USB cable that came with my X3 does not connect very firmly to the X3. If I just tip the X3 up the connector falls right out of the player. luckily this is a standard cable and I have a few of them lying around. One of them is bound to provide a snugger connection, I hope, unless the input connector on my X3 is the problem for example it's slightly oversized.

 

[tjw321]

I'm thinking of buying some IEMs to go with my X3 and I am a complete newbie, plus I have very little chance to audition any gear. My target budget is £150 (about the same as the X3 cost for non-UK head-fiers).
 
I'm not a bass-head but one of the first things I look for is "well-defined" bass. By that I mean I listen to a lot of music which features acoustic bass and I like to be able to hear and maybe even isolate the sound of the bass, especially when plucked.
 
The next thing I look for is directionality (i.e. being able to clearly detect the direction a particular instrument is in the mix).
 
Finally, my ears are a little old so a little bit of extra treble probably wouldn't hurt, but I'd prefer detail to volume (same as I tried to describe for bass, really) but this is much less important than the other criteria.
 
As I said, I'm a complete newbie, so I'm not sure if what I've tried to describe makes sense, but if anyone with more experience has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them. I currently have my eyes (ears) on a pair of Sony XBA-30s but maybe they would be a little too warm with the X3? (I know warmth is relative but, as a guide in my case, the X3 is already warm enough for me with my current 'phones - Sennheiser PXC 310s - a little extra warmth would be okay if I get some extra detail to go with it). According to my research the XBAs aren't that warm with a low-impedance source...but I could have misinterpreted something...but that is why I'm still considering them, plus the prices for them look pretty good ATM.
 
Just checked the definition of Warmth in the glossary. It turns out that some warmth is maybe what I want (but not the "excessive" bit):
 

Warm

 - Good bass, adequate low frequencies, adequate fundamentals relative to harmonics. Not thin. Also excessive bass or mid bass. Also, pleasantly spacious, with adequate reverberation at low frequencies. Also see Rich, Round. Warm highs means sweet highs.

 
But I think when I said that I like detail in the bass, I'm actually looking for the harmonics, as well. As I said: "Newbie", so feel free to correct me...

 

[IceOgre]

Has anyone used the X3's line out function with the Mont Blanc?  If so how does it sound?  I am currently using an ipod classic with the Mont Blanc and it sounds decent.