XDuoo X3 DSD 24Bit / 192KHz CS4398 Chip Lossless Music Player
Nov 7, 2015 at 1:53 AM Post #361 of 5,194
Changeable DAC filters are pretty useless TBH. It doesn't have any effect on the sound. Just a brickwall band limiter or any filter really would suffice. An EQ would be a much better feature to have because of it's obvious and immediate results.

The impact of 'style' EQs is certainly quite obvious, and that's why EQ as a whole has such a bad reputation. A fully-adjustable parametric EQ, on the other hand, allows carefully-targeted changes to balance the response of your headphones. Adjusting the parameters properly is quite fiddly, though, and requires some careful listening.

The next best thing is the bass/treble filters I suggested, which most people find easier to use.
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 2:20 AM Post #362 of 5,194
The impact of 'style' EQs is certainly quite obvious, and that's why EQ as a whole has such a bad reputation. A fully-adjustable parametric EQ, on the other hand, allows carefully-targeted changes to balance the response of your headphones. Adjusting the parameters properly is quite fiddly, though, and requires some careful listening.

The next best thing is the bass/treble filters I suggested, which most people find easier to use.

 
Low-pass and high-pass filtering as EQ would require hardware changes which is not easy to implement, especially when the product is already on the market. A software EQ uses gain to make the changes, so is much easier to implement. What I was talking about is DAC filtering which is what I think they have implemented in the system menu. That's different as it is used to filter all frequencies above the audible range to reduce harmonic distortion. 
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 2:23 AM Post #363 of 5,194
my iem is ATH IM70 and i am planning to buy a good budget DAP and on a tight budget. My considerations are x3 And Fiio x3 2nd gen. X3 will be available in India within 2 weeks and is half the price of fiio x3 2nd. I am currently using cowon c2 so UI is not a problem for me and i select music folder wise so my only concern is about SOUND QUALITY. which one should i buy? and anyone using both IM70 and X3
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 2:27 AM Post #364 of 5,194
  my iem is ATH IM70 and i am planning to buy a good budget DAP and on a tight budget. My considerations are x3 And Fiio x3 2nd gen. X3 will be available in India within 2 weeks and is half the price of fiio x3 2nd. I am currently using cowon c2 so UI is not a problem for me and i select music folder wise so my only concern is about SOUND QUALITY. which one should i buy? and anyone using both IM70 and X3

 
 
Do you enjoy a warmer or cleaner sound?
 
FiiO X3II is slightly warm in tonality, compared to XDuoo X3 the FiiO sounds rather 'smooth or polite in the mid-range, I don't like this personally. X3II does have quite good technical ability, the way it layers instruments around the stage and coherency, but for me the XDuoo simply sounds cleaner and more spacious, the detail more obvious.. If you want my honest opinion I'd say go with the XDuoo because its cheaper, and provides two micro sd card slots and the sound (I personally enjoy more)
 
I have not tried IM70 unfortunately,
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 2:38 AM Post #365 of 5,194
   
 
Do you enjoy a warmer or cleaner sound?
 
FiiO X3II is slightly warm in tonality, compared to XDuoo X3 the FiiO sounds rather 'smooth or polite in the mid-range, I don't like this personally. X3II does have quite good technical ability, the way it layers instruments around the stage and coherency, but for me the XDuoo simply sounds cleaner and more spacious, the detail more obvious.. If you want my honest opinion I'd say go with the XDuoo because its cheaper, and provides two micro sd card slots and the sound (I personally enjoy more)
 
I have not tried IM70 unfortunately

i prefer a cleaner sound, and IM70 is a mid centric iem with good soundstage. Thank you very much for the reply.
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 3:06 AM Post #366 of 5,194
Pardon the newbie question but I haven't been able to find an answer and I have looked - a lot.
 
Would this unit work well as a digital player into my home theater receiver?
 
I am hoping to find a quality unit to use with headphones and also use to play my digital collection through my HT receiver. (Marantz SR7008)
 
Thanks
Emmett
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 3:11 AM Post #367 of 5,194
  Pardon the newbie question but I haven't been able to find an answer and I have looked - a lot.
 
Would this unit work well as a digital player into my home theater receiver?
 
I am hoping to find a quality unit to use with headphones and also use to play my digital collection through my HT receiver. (Marantz SR7008)
 
Thanks
Emmett

 
It will work. You'll need to get a 3.5mm to RCA cable and connect the X3 line out output to one of the inputs on your receiver. 
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 6:38 AM Post #368 of 5,194
   
Low-pass and high-pass filtering as EQ would require hardware changes which is not easy to implement, especially when the product is already on the market. A software EQ uses gain to make the changes, so is much easier to implement. What I was talking about is DAC filtering which is what I think they have implemented in the system menu. That's different as it is used to filter all frequencies above the audible range to reduce harmonic distortion. 

There's no difference between filtering in hardware using reactive components and doing it in software before the DAC, except that software offers a greater choice of filter design and isn't subject to the degradation caused by component variability. They all work by modifying the gain of different parts of the spectrum.
 
The DAC filtering option they have in place is a gimmick, probably pandering to some Chinese audiophile fad.
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 6:51 AM Post #369 of 5,194
  There's no difference between filtering in hardware using reactive components and doing it in software before the DAC, except that software offers a greater choice of filter design and isn't subject to the degradation caused by component variability. They all work by modifying the gain of different parts of the spectrum.
 
The DAC filtering option they have in place is a gimmick, probably pandering to some Chinese audiophile fad.

 
It's not a gimmick, it's an important part of an audio DAC. You need to cut out all the higher up frequencies because modern audio DACs can go all the way up to megahertz. What they do is applied a low-pass lifter to cut out all the in audible frequencies that can cause harmonic distortion in the audible spectrum. There are different types of phase and apodizing filters that all pretty much do the same thing. 
 
But as I said before, the type of EQ you're talking about would not be possible without changing the HW of the X3. A software EQ would work as a DSP.
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 7:00 AM Post #370 of 5,194
   
It's not a gimmick, it's an important part of an audio DAC. You need to cut out all the higher up frequencies because modern audio DACs can go all the way up to megahertz. What they do is applied a low-pass lifter to cut out all the in audible frequencies that can cause harmonic distortion in the audible spectrum. There are different types of phase and apodizing filters that all pretty much do the same thing. 
 
But as I said before, the type of EQ you're talking about would not be possible without changing the HW of the X3. A software EQ would work as a DSP.

All DACs need an anti-aliasing filter. There's no point messing around with different slopes - that's the gimmick. I suspect it's a result of the 'brickwall filters are bad' silliness that's part of ultrasonic audio. Aliasing is worse than any hf ringing.
 
There's absolutely no need for extra HW, I have no idea what you're talking about. All these filters can be implemented in software and the only limitation is the processing power available. The chip they're using is perfectly capable of doing this.
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 7:10 AM Post #371 of 5,194
  All DACs need an anti-aliasing filter. There's no point messing around with different slopes - that's the gimmick. I suspect it's a result of the 'brickwall filters are bad' silliness that's part of ultrasonic audio. Aliasing is worse than any hf ringing.
 
There's absolutely no need for extra HW, I have no idea what you're talking about. All these filters can be implemented in software and the only limitation is the processing power available. The chip they're using is perfectly capable of doing this.

 
You're absolutely right about the aliasing. I do believe that a simple brickwall filter is best.
 
Are you saying that they can use the processor to filter the sound on the DAC side?
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 7:57 AM Post #372 of 5,194
   
You're absolutely right about the aliasing. I do believe that a simple brickwall filter is best.
 
Are you saying that they can use the processor to filter the sound on the DAC side?

Yep, that's what done in Rockbox, for example. Since the audio is in digital form already, you can just apply the filter algorithm before sending it to the DAC. It used to be that general processors weren't powerful enough to do this in real-time and you needed a specialised DSP chip, but we're well past that point now. A digital filter can do anything an analogue one can do, the only difference being that the digital form will introduce a very slight delay, which is irrelevant when you're just playing music (delays are an issue in live audio though).
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 9:37 AM Post #373 of 5,194
Gents,

Let us stop going off topic so much for EQ / DSP discussion. This old topic has been discussed many times before.

X3 has simple style EQ, if you hate it don't use it. If you like it, enjoy it.That is all, why waste so much time and page space on it. For parametric EQ, Rockbox will bring it.

FYI, Bob Katz and Tyll Hertsens use EQ and use it very carefully (selected frequency fix, for specific heaphone measurement, within less than 3db), as they think there are no perfect-sounding headphones currently (after hearing most expensive headphones available).

But hey, every set of ears is different and what matters is your ears. Your make your own decision, but know that the opposite side also has valid points.
 
Nov 7, 2015 at 1:07 PM Post #375 of 5,194
I just received my XDuoo X3 from Penon Audio! I wish to thanks them as i was unable to complete my checkout on the first batch because by mistake the X3 was in stoch on their site: after i e-mailed them about the problems they were so kind to reserve one unit for me on the second batch!
 
Coming to the player, i'm using it with two 128 GB SanDisk MicroSD without any problem: i just inserted them and my 200 GB music collection was stored into the library (so far, even if the second microsd is only half-full, more then 21000 files went into the index and i can play them in Random Mode without any problem at all!).. It's a pity that a true Random Mode is missing in the little brother XDuoo X2!
 
I tried with the player just a few of my IEM and it plays really well with T-Peos Altone 200, Pioneer DJE-1500, Havi B3 Pro Old version and MOE SS01: i will test more IEM later this week. Instead i find my DUNU Titan 1 a little harsh with X3.
 
Owning also FiiO X3 and Fiio X3-II, i find the player excellent: a few less details then FiiO X3-II but more fun to listen!
 
At a price tag of $ 110 it's a real bargain!
 

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