Digital Drive

Posted by rlw (A) on September 08, 2015 at 12:48:38

It's *always* a good day when you get a new audio toy in the mail! And today looks to be a particularly good day because I just received the Fiio X3 DAP (Digital Audio Player) and a 64GB SDXC card.

For those of you not familiar with this product, it is a hi-res capable DAP AND DAC. That's right, this little unit can act as both a DAP and an asynchronous(!!) USB DAC.

My first impressions are good: the packaging is nicely done and the unit came well-packed with no damage to the outer carton. The unit comes with a black silicone sleeve pre-installed. The sleeve fits perfectly and everything except the SDXC card slot is accessible. I may alter the sleeve and cut out the portion that obscures the SDXC card, allowing me to change cards without removing the sleeve.

The unit itself feels reasonably "hefty", the case is made of medium-gray aluminum with no plastic visible and it has rounded corners so that it doesn't snag on a pocket and such. In-hand it feels like a quality piece. The controls buttons and click-wheel also feel well constructed and very sturdy - good job, Fiio!

The file format capabilities are quite good: FLAC, WAV, APE, AAC, Orbis, ALAC, DSD (DSD64 and ISO) and MP3 (shudder). It can handle PCM files up to 192 kHz as well as DSD natively - *without* conversion to PCM - cool! And all of this can be had for the miserly price of $169 from Amazon. I ordered the unit on Thur. and had it in my hands the following Tues. I probably would have gotten it on Mon. but Labor Day got in the way. Pesky laborers!!

I have paired this with my MEElectronics 161 In Ear Monitors (IEMs) for which I paid $69. This combination is astonishing for the sound quality it provides for less than $250!!

The X3 has *plenty* of power available to drive my IEMs. In fact, I used the X3s menu to cap the highest available volume at 100 out of 120. This will keep my ham-handed friends from blowing out my IEMs - and their ears - with too much volume. I generally listen at a volume of 75 - 85. I have also listened to it using my Sennheiser 580s and it also drives them to *very* satisfactory sound levels, albeit just a wee bit quieter than the IEMs.

I have only used the X3 for a couple of hours as a DAP, more info. to follow once I put another 20 - 30 hours on it AND I have a chance to use its DAC capabilities. So far, it looks like a *winner*!!

If you have any questions for me, post 'em and I'll try to answer them for you...




-RW-