[Francki Conniff]

  There seems to be a lot of nitpicking re this player of late so I thought I might jump in;
 
Have had mine for 48 hours. Formatted the card in the player as suggested. Fixed all my tags (flac) and album art with mp3tag as suggested.
 
I have not updated the firmware as yet, shipped with 1.20.
 
X5 paired with NAD HP50 @ 65% volume, no EQ = synergy. Absolutely f*&%king brilliant!!
 
I also purchased the E12 but will not need it. However, I will more than likely justify the purchase of the amp with perhaps another purchase ie, V-Moda M100's as I can see myself enjoying those cans as well for certain genres (damn you Tyler!!).
 
Like most of us I did not read the manual and within 60 seconds had the controls down pat. I find them quite intuitive. I have experienced no issues whatsoever. Certainly none of the issues mentioned.
 
Now as for the SQ which is what we should be concentrating on refer line 4!!
 
I cannot believe the the SQ I now have and I am absolutely no s*&t, hands down, stoked. Thank you Fiio!!

Like you ( now that I finally got my X5 unit in KSA-- not much love for audiophile purity in the area that I've seen thus far) I'm not seeing areas where I can complain much at all. I have the NAD's as well and sound excellent. Albert King sounds fresh and new again compared to my other Mp3 player but I listen to a wide variety of genre be it classical or pop/rock etc. I have the E12 ordered as well and similar thoughts on the possibility of it sitting more than in use. Though I may likely use it on the plane going back and forth to the US more. I went ahead and updated to fw 2.0 soon as I got it. It just seemed like the proper thing to do. Listening to it as a DAC through my 901's and a Miller & Kreisel sub made the compound a more pleasant place to relax in. I even lost track of prayer time here when I sit in my Big " Maxell" comfy chair. I was about to purchase the Sony HAP-S1 for ease of use and more room for files but I think the X5 has put that on temporary hold for a while. The A&K 240 may have a more intuitive UI to work with but the X5 is not shabby at all for the end user. Thank you FiiO for an excellent line of products And to the nitpickers I thank you very much as well ..without you this unit wouldn't have improved on its superior performance and UI tweaks.
Assalamu Alaykum

 

[CH23]

Thank you FiiO for an excellent line of products And to the nitpickers I thank you very much as well ..without you this unit wouldn't have improved on its superior performance and UI tweaks.
Assalamu Alaykum

+1

Alaikum Assalam

 

[aangen]

The problem is that it is consistently inconsistent, random tracks will skip, then when I go back to play them they work fine on the 2nd or 3rd try. It's ok for best of collections or live albums but for most album it really throws you off when it just starts skipping tracks randomly.

Can I make a suggestion? It might be easy to do with another (smaller) memory card, but I suggest you select one or two albums that you KNOW FOR CERTAIN are good files with good art and good tags and all that. Load JUST THOSE TWO albums on the card, and update the database. Now try listening and see how reliable it is. If you cheat and put additional music on the card you miss the point of the test. The point of the test is to reduce variables. 

 

[dulty]

My turn: I've had the X5 for about 2 weeks, mostly used FW2.0 with a mix of Mp3, M4a, FLAC and little bit of DSD. Albums with and without tags, album art, etc. so essentially a mix of everything you might throw at it. Mostly using Westone W20 but some HE400, AKG Q460 and Nuforce NE7M as well. Haven't used DAC and line out functionality a lot but have tried just to see if it works. Music is a mix as well, lots of electronic, rock/metal, acoustic stuff (blues/jazz), just a bit of classic. Using one 64gb sandisk class 10 and one 4gb kingston (hehe, yep they still exist) formatted on the X5. I have even been lazy and updated the firmware a couple of times with the small card while it had lots of other junk in it. Finally my desktop system is Logitech Squeezebox Touch/Mac Mini to Hegel HD20 to Firestone Bobby (or Naim Nait 5i-2 and Monitor Audio Silver RX8s).
 
First the bad stuff (bugs and other):
- I find the scroll wheel is inconsistent, sometimes moving more than I wish, sometimes less. Its also a little wobbly.
- I've only had 2 freezes, both solved by holding down the power button for more than 10 seconds.
- Some clicking between tracks, not all the time and not loud. Totally random.
- The thing slows down a lot when playing DSD files. Once I thought it had frozen but decided to wait and it actually came back alive in a couple of minutes )
- I find a little bit of hiss with the W20 is audible even on low gain. No hiss on my X3.
- I think the center button should be inactive in lock screen mode 1.
- Common wish but still, would like playlist support and ability to play all subfolders within a folder (all songs from a certain artist etc.).
 
All of the above are minor complaints for me, no deal breakers. Only the last one is a must have for the future.
 
Regarding output power, yes it is less than the X3 but more than enough for my needs. With the W20 (quite sensitive even though listed at 33ohms) I use 35-40 on low gain, quiet environment. Edit: Just tried, above 80 becomes uncomfortable. I only use high gain for the HE400 and although the amp is not ideal for this HP volume level around 70-100 is enough for all my listening.
 
I find the user interface quite adequate, cant say its very user friendly but like the previous poster, it took me only 10 minutes to get used to it. I am in the group that thinks the rotation is the wrong way, but I adjusted before all the useful mods came out I like the way the volume button works in lock screen 1, using for both volume and track skipping is in my opinion ideal.
 
The SQ (which is why I am here in the first place) is superb. For everything but some electronic stuff and using the W20, I am in heaven, can't ask for more. Crazy detail, not harsh at all, excellent instrument separation and soundstage (for my liking anyway). Maybe a bit more thump in the bass for those electronic stuff, but I just use the Nuforce or the AKG Q460 when I listen to that stuff and all is well again
 
And the best thing: the support! Before the X5, I've had the E12 and X3 and asked Fiio support a couple of questions via email, I always got a very satisfying answer within 24 hours (despite timezone difference of about 10 hours). Also being able to read stuff form their staff on here in realtime is awesome. I've never seen such customer support before.
 
So in conclusion thank you everyone at Fiio, keep up the good work! 

 

[reihead]

The problem is that it is consistently inconsistent, random tracks will skip, then when I go back to play them they work fine on the 2nd or 3rd try. It's ok for best of collections or live albums but for most album it really throws you off when it just starts skipping tracks randomly.

In my experience, these kind of problems are memory card related most of the times. I think the idea of taking just a couple of "suspect" tracks and loading them to a new card is a good one to try.

 

[Canaudio]

The problem is that it is consistently inconsistent, random tracks will skip, then when I go back to play them they work fine on the 2nd or 3rd try. It's ok for best of collections or live albums but for most album it really throws you off when it just starts skipping tracks randomly.

I occasionally get what I will call "stuttering" on a track;  it will start skipping and then settle and play the rest of the track.  It is almost always a 24 bit Flac file, often one with embedded art.  These are often files purchased from HDTracks. The skipping is never repeatable.   My theory is that the skipping is most likely a system memory problem - it takes processor and memory resources to decompress and play a Flac file.  i assume 24 bit files are more demanding.  I would like a means to turn off the media library function and free up all the resources that it consumes (since I never use it) and see if that helps.  at the moment I have close to 3000 Flac and some Aiff files on 2 64 GB cards; the media library is storing a fair amount of data all the time..

 

[gelocks]

The problem is that it is consistently inconsistent, random tracks will skip, then when I go back to play them they work fine on the 2nd or 3rd try. It's ok for best of collections or live albums but for most album it really throws you off when it just starts skipping tracks randomly.

 
Are you using both SD card slots?
Have you noticed if it happens when just using 1 card slot (and not the other) or vice versa?
Try just using 1 card on SD1... test...
Then using the same card on SD2... test...
If it doesn't happen, test the same procedure with your second card and check what results you get.
It might be card related or maybe even the X5 card reader... who knows...
 
 
Good luck!

 

[Flomet]

I occasionally get what I will call "stuttering" on a track;  it will start skipping and then settle and play the rest of the track.  It is almost always a 24 bit Flac file, often one with embedded art.  These are often files purchased from HDTracks. The skipping is never repeatable.   My theory is that the skipping is most likely a system memory problem - it takes processor and memory resources to decompress and play a Flac file.  i assume 24 bit files are more demanding.  I would like a means to turn off the media library function and free up all the resources that it consumes (since I never use it) and see if that helps.  at the moment I have close to 3000 Flac and some Aiff files on 2 64 GB cards; the media library is storing a fair amount of data all the time..

To clear out the library, remove both cards then start and library update (this shoud clear the database)

Re-install the cards but don't update library.

This might help.

 

[thericochet]

@ goldendarko
I had this same skipping problem (with all FLAC 16/44 files) constantly on firmware 1.22 beta (although I was also using NTFS-formatted cards).
I have not had any problems at all on 1.23 beta and now 2.0, all after formatting my cards to FAT32.
So I can't accurately say that the firmware or the cards were the problem, only that there was a problem with one of the two things.
If you try to reinstall fw 2.0 and test your cards (I think you formatted them on the device itself, right? In which case they should be fine unless physically faulty), I don't see what else you can do other than contacting FiiO directly.
 
Good luck though - I have a rock solid X5 experience now after similar problems to yours making it unusable at first, so hopefully you can find out what causes it in your case.

 

[Muenchener]

I think that my brain finished its burn-in/break-in. I now can say that the sound of the X5 is notably superior than before. Assuming that the player itself didn't change because of the first days of use, I must have adapted to its sound signature. Although, perhaps there is a break-in for electronic devices as well.

I must say I miss some functionality that I would love to see added to the X5. I hope Fiio continues to work on the firmware for months to come. Neutron Player with Fiio hardware would destroy the competition. I can dream of a Fiio player based on Android...

I already have my E12 in tandem with the X5, and the amplification is now superb. I'm pretty sure that Fiio designed the X5 to have a perfect synergy with the E12. At about the same volume, the E12 drives my "difficult" headphones way better. I would prefer to get that kind of sound directly from the X5, but I know that the size and price would have been bigger. It's smart to let the customers chose between the two options.

If anyone is in doubt about buying the X5, do not. I don't think you can't get better sound for this kind of money, let alone the 2 mSD that allows you to have, today, 256 GB of music in your player.
 
To USA buyers: B&H has the X5 in stock, as well as the E12 and the Sony MDR-7550 on sale. That is a killer combination in my view.

 

[Scorpion667]

I'm still also experiencing crashes, albeit rarely. Seems very random and not repeatable.
I have formatted my single 64GB card in the device and am using it in the second slot ATM. "Stress testing" the device which has been playing non-stop for ~ 7 hours with no crashes. Oh. Nevermind I just checked it and it crashed within last 10 mins.
 
I can't replicate the issue with tracks that it's crashed on previously. Perhaps Fiio could implement a crash recovery routine where the device dumps everything from memory except for the track location which you were playing, and tries to resume the song or plays the next track. I'm okay with errors as downtime is minimal, but crashing really takes me out of the "zone" when I'm trying to chill out to some tunes. It's a great device SQ wise but stability is something I guess I took for granted on every other DAP I have owned which literally never crashed. Some days I feel it's a complete game breaker and some days I'm ok with it.
 
Those of us that are crashing should post our settings. Perhaps there is a setting that we all have enabled which causes the issue. I'll create a template below:
 
Fiio X5 Settings Template:
 
Device Settings
Language: English
Update Media Lib: Manual
Key-Lock Settings: Lockscreen 2
Screen Timeout : 60sec
Brightness: default, 60%
Idle Poweroff: On
Idle Poweroff Time: 5min
Sleep: Off
Sleep Timer: 10min
USB Mode: Storage
 
Music Settings
Play Mode: List (icon: 3 vertical lines stacked)
Resume Mode: Off
Gapless Playback: off
Max Volume: default (120)
Power-on volume: Fixed
Fixed Volume setting: 60
Gain: L (low)
Balance: 0
 
Headphones: Ultrasone Pro 900 (40ohm)
IEM: Atrio MG7 (32ohm)

 

[SilverEars]

Hi, does anybody use ODAC?  I love the DAC, it's fantastic to my ears and iems.  Anybody able to compare ODAC to X5, I would be interested.  
 
Thank you,
SE
 

 

 

[subver]

Any word yet on US retailers selling the x5 accessories? Namely the HS6 bundle.. Can't wait to get me some accessories!

 

[otaran]

you are nothing but a fraud​

(A. L. Webber Jesus Christ Super Star)​

I bought X5 as a X3 substitute, and before that I had a Sansa Fuze (with Rockbox software) – it is still in working condition (after 5 years).
 
As for me there was three main CONS of X5:
Absence of bass/treble correction and useless EQ which is not worked with 24/96 24/192 ,ape and .flac. Fiio promotes X3 and X5 for high resolution sound – but without any possibility to adjust a sound – shame. In Sansa (year 2008) I have possibility to listen some high resolution files (24/96) with Equalizer. The price of Sansa was about $60.
 
Weak sound. You are buying $350 player and then find that you have to buy another $130 gadget to drive my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 250 ohm. For Sansa I have FiiO E11, but I want to remind - the price of Sansa was about $60.
 
And the third - a tin-pot player controls - more or less the same as in 2008 Sansa, but X5 has one button more , because Sansa uses wheel as volume control. Also each time I want to adjust volume level, I have to press the power button to exit lockscreen, because I have no choice – just two peculiar lockscreen modes.
 

 
 
I can agree that the sound quality of X5 is better than Sansa (but I'm not sure that it is better than X3). So if you want good sound you can use X3, because you will have all you want for $200 but not for $350.

 

[Michalmk6]

  Any word yet on US retailers selling the x5 accessories? Namely the HS6 bundle.. Can't wait to get me some accessories!

Take a look at my post.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/661411/fiio-x5-thread-info-updated-on-jan-17th-2014/8925