The future of FiiO's AMP&DAC --Written on the day when FiiO passed the MFi Certification Program
May 20, 2016 at 9:47 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 51

JamesFiiO

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The future of FiiO's AMP&DAC --Written on the day when FiiO passed the MFi Certification Program

Dear Respected Head-Fi Members,

Words could not express my appreciation to you. The Portable Headphone Amplifier section is where FiiO takes off. In this lovely forum, I spent a large amount of time communicating with you and got numerous ideas, inspiration and help from you. To be honest, we wouldn't be able to design and produce so many fantastic products to share with all of you without your sincere help.

Unfortunately, as some of you might know, I haven't been here to communicate with you for almost a year because of my health issues. On the other hand, as the company is growing faster and faster and our product line is expanding, I have to spend more time on the management of FiiO and the development of FiiO’s staffs. Therefore, I have little time here to communicate with you and I'm so sorry about this.
However, it doesn't mean that I'm alienated from you. Actually, I miss the happy time when we discussed about anything here.

However, at the end of the day we have to come back to reality. That's why I'm writing this post to share with you our future plans. Also it would be easier for me to answer all of your questions in this post.

Before getting into our future plans, I would like to share a good news with you. FiiO has successfully passed the MFI certification! Meanwhile we are submitting a good deal of product planning to Apple for certification. Now rumor has it that iPhone 7 will come without the 3.5mm headphone jack. So this good news of FiiO passing the MFi really comes at the right time as we can make some adjustments to our new products planning.
Below are our plans for our future products:

First of all, we think that we need to update all of our portable DACs to support decoding for Apple's devices.

Then we will update all of our portable AMP & DAC to support 192K/24bit sampling rates and be certificated with "Hi-Res".

At last, we will define all of our portable DAC & Amp as Q series like Q1

In our future plan, our first target will be DAC & Amp including:

Q1(II): Q1 2nd Gen, MFi, "Hi-Res", brand new appearance design, similar output power and size with Q1

Q3 (actually the fifth generation product after E7, E07K, E17 and E17K): MFi supported, 192K/24bit format supported and DSD supported on the basis of E17K. Also it will adopt a brand new appearance design. Another good news to the Q3, the optical input will be back on Q3.

Q5: We will add decoding function for iPhone on the basis of our original plan. Besides, after in-depth research, we have decided to call off the WiFi connection because of its high power consumption.

Besides, to the iPhone users, we will have an i3 (the original iAMP3) in the future. There might be an i5 too. Different from the i3, i5 has no battery and will be powered by iPhone directly. Therefore, the target market and customer of these two products are different.

Since we need to hand in these product plans to Apple one by one and get down to real development after getting the permission from Apple. Then we need to pass the test and certification of Apple after we finish our development. So it will take a longer time to develop a new product than we used to and I couldn't have an accurate prediction of the availability of these products. But trust us, we're here to provide the best products to you.

In the end, I hope you can kindly understand that to produce any MFi products, we have to purchase lightning connector and related chips from Apple. Otherwise, it will be illegal for us to develop, produce and sell those MFi products. However, those components are quite expensive which will certainly lead to a little higher retail price of Q1, Q3 and Q5 to offset the increase of their cost.
 
FiiO Stay updated on FiiO at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
https://www.facebook.com/FiiOAUDIO https://twitter.com/FiiO_official https://www.instagram.com/fiioofficial/ https://www.fiio.com support@fiio.com
May 20, 2016 at 10:33 PM Post #2 of 51
This is awesome news. I just registered because I literally just bought an e17k to use with my iPhone 6+ and had some questions, but it looks like I'm going to return it and wait to see what comes out this year. 
 
One note: if there is anyway to consider re-adding optical-in to the "new e17k" device that is in planning, that would be amazing (especially for those of us using our portable amps for PC and phone). 
 
May 20, 2016 at 10:46 PM Post #3 of 51
.... FiiO has successfully passed the MFI certification! ...

FINALLY!!!
beerchug.gif

 
May 20, 2016 at 10:57 PM Post #4 of 51
This is really good news from Fiio, considering most of the portable DAC/Amp are still capped at mostly 44/16 bit for mobile devices (quite underwhelming, to be honest, but that's the limits of technology). Looking forward to those options soon.
 
May 21, 2016 at 4:18 AM Post #6 of 51
Congratulations James!!!


 
May 21, 2016 at 9:14 PM Post #7 of 51
  This is awesome news. I just registered because I literally just bought an e17k to use with my iPhone 6+ and had some questions, but it looks like I'm going to return it and wait to see what comes out this year. 
 
One note: if there is anyway to consider re-adding optical-in to the "new e17k" device that is in planning, that would be amazing (especially for those of us using our portable amps for PC and phone). 

 
 
  Sorry, there are not new E17K but change to Q3. and yes, the optical input will added to Q3. 
 
FiiO Stay updated on FiiO at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
https://www.facebook.com/FiiOAUDIO https://twitter.com/FiiO_official https://www.instagram.com/fiioofficial/ https://www.fiio.com support@fiio.com
May 21, 2016 at 9:24 PM Post #9 of 51
   
 
  Sorry, there are not new E17K but change to Q3. and yes, the optical input will added to Q3. 

 
Thanks for your response, and that is amazing news regarding the optical! One other question: would you happen to know if you're going to stick with the PCM1798 DAC of the e18 or perhaps the PCM5102 DAC of the e17k?  What about the low pass OPA1622 (the stage is excellent and it's neutral, but still slightly warm - lots of color to the sound)?
 
Thanks so much again! 
 
May 21, 2016 at 9:29 PM Post #10 of 51
   
Thanks for your response, and that is amazing news regarding the optical! One other question: would you happen to know if you're going to stick with the PCM1798 DAC of the e18 or perhaps the PCM5102 DAC of the e17k?  What about the low pass OPA1622 (the stage is excellent and it's neutral, but still slightly warm - lots of color to the sound)?
 
Thanks so much again! 

 
 
sorry, the MFi change everything so we have to restart now, the detail has not decided yet cause we have not start from the ID. but basiclly it will use XMOS chip as USB receiver and we may change to AKM DAC chip , cause it can supports DSD and 384/32.
 
FiiO Stay updated on FiiO at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
https://www.facebook.com/FiiOAUDIO https://twitter.com/FiiO_official https://www.instagram.com/fiioofficial/ https://www.fiio.com support@fiio.com
May 21, 2016 at 10:31 PM Post #11 of 51
   
 
sorry, the MFi change everything so we have to restart now, the detail has not decided yet cause we have not start from the ID. but basiclly it will use XMOS chip as USB receiver and we may change to AKM DAC chip , cause it can supports DSD and 384/32.


Will the external shell be redesigned as well? A more premium external casing would be pretty great too :)  Whatever it is I am buying it day one lol. I love the E17K
 
Jun 12, 2016 at 10:38 AM Post #13 of 51
I just purchase and E17K Aspen 2.  Is the MFI certification for further products?  I was hoping to use the E17K with my iPhone 6 by purchasing a lightning to microusb adapter and then connecting this to a microusb to microusb cable
iPhone 6--lightning: microusb adapter--microusb to microusb cable --E17k microusb port
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SZH730K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2691ZBIKXAV7P
 
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZYB44UW/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3UZZ0M53CX865
 
 
or should I wait for the new product and return the E17K?
 
Jun 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM Post #14 of 51
  I just purchase and E17K Aspen 2.  Is the MFI certification for further products?  I was hoping to use the E17K with my iPhone 6 by purchasing a lightning to microusb adapter and then connecting this to a microusb to microusb cable
iPhone 6--lightning: microusb adapter--microusb to microusb cable --E17k microusb port
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SZH730K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2691ZBIKXAV7P
 
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZYB44UW/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3UZZ0M53CX865
 
 
or should I wait for the new product and return the E17K?

 
That's exactly what I did. I purchased an e17k that I returned. I want to wait to see what products they come out with by the end of the year and if anything, could always repurchase the e17k (hell - it might even be on sale). 
 
edit: right now, you could use the L19 cable from penonaudio, but since Fiio was approved from MFI, they are likely going to make their own Lightning to USB MFI-certified cables. You can also grab one of those if you want to use the e17k
 
Jun 12, 2016 at 11:28 AM Post #15 of 51
That's exactly what I did. I purchased an e17k that I returned. I want to wait to see what products they come out with by the end of the year and if anything, could always repurchase the e17k (hell - it might even be on sale). 

edit: right now, you could use the L19 cable from penonaudio, but since Fiio was approved from MFI, they are likely going to make their own Lightning to USB MFI-certified cables. You can also grab one of those if you want to use the e17k


I feel like an idiot. I hate the buy and return. I thought I could use it with my iPhone 6. I sorry I opened it. I hate doing that to a merchant.
 

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