Some quick observations about the X5:
1. Apparently some people are having problems with the media scanning and that will be fixed in the next X5 firmware update. However, I have 64 GB of Lame 320 CBR MP3s on a Samsung 64GB microSDXC UHA-1 formatted to NTFS and the scan was remarkably fast and glitch free. 5000+ songs scanned in minutes and the numerical display showed them flying by. So maybe the answer is to buy a good card and format to NTFS.
2. The media library is actually kind of weird.
- Genres is really only useful for shuffling as you get a list of the entire genre of songs in alphabetical order by file name, which means every first song (if you are numbering them "01") then in alphabetical order, then every 02 song etc., no dividing by artist or album.
- Browsing by Artist gives you a list of Artists and then all songs by that artist when you go a level down, again in alphabetical order: 01, 02 etc, no division by album. That will actually be somewhat useful for me to browse songs by artist but if you are expecting further division by album, it does not do that. And again the alphabetical order system is weird. It is surprising that it orders it by file name, not tag, since it is scanning on the tags...
- Browsing by Song again orders by file name (01 ---------.mp3), so if you have song numbers in the file name - most of us do - a song's placement on an album determines first where it is on the list instead of true alphabetical order by song name.
- Browsing by Album works exactly as you would expect it to. This is the one category where the media library isn't kind of weird but rather correct.
3. Browsing by Folder is perfect! It is clean and fast. One nice feature is that when you go up a level, it remembers your place on the list. So if I go into my Rock genre folder, and then scroll to Talking Heads folder, and then Remain In Light folder, and then select a song and start listening, when I re-enter file view (the Back key), I can back up to Remain In Light, then Talking Heads and so on. Browsing by Folder is what I always do. It is perfect so I am very happy.
4. The scroll wheel works great. Overall the UI is fast and surprisingly mature.
5. I like how you can touch a volume key and then do further volume adjustment with the scroll wheel. Very fast, convenient and accurate.
6. Album art by "folder. jpg" does not work. However, the no art Play screen is quite attractive. More importantly, I just discovered the "bulk attach album art" utility in Foobar so I am solving the album art issue without waiting on Fiio for a firmware update.
7. And the most important observation: The X5 is sounding absolutely fantastic with my Heaven VI as a standalone DAP, no external amp. Still very early days - way too early to provide detailed SQ observations - but how about that!
i ordered from taobao (http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=36923543227&spm=a1z09.5.0.0.jRdjk0) on 15th Jan and still have not shipped out yet T_T
