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FiiO X1 II Digital Audio Player Review

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FiiO X1 II DAP Review

The X1 II is a fine little DAP, with an inherently smooth sound, perfect for those wanting a player that is powerful and easy to use.

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Powerful headphone output
  • Form factor

Cons:

  • Lacking in detail
  • Slight hiss with sensitive IEM’s

FiiO X1 II

Aesthetics and User Interface

The little X1 II is styled like the iPods of old, with a small screen and scroll wheel, where it differs is the scroll wheel is surrounded by 4 buttons (menu, back, FF, RW). The edges of the player are rounded, making it comfortable to hold, and you will find the volume and power buttons on the side of the player. On the bottom you will find the MicroSD card slot, along with the USB port and the headphone jack.

This DAP feels solid in your hand, the buttons all feel solid and the headphone jack is tight. I have no issues with the build or the look of this player.

The FiiO X1 II is quite a simple DAP to get set up, once you put your MicroSD card with music in the player you will need to go to the system settings and scan the media on the card. This takes a little while, but once done the music should all be easy to find by the normal tags (artist, album, genre etc…).

The main now playing screen shows the album art, along with the band and track playing, if you press on the top left button you will get options to add the track to a playlist, or add it as a favourite. Also in this small menu are options to change the playback mode from shuffle to repeat to normal.

Going back to the main menu you have a folder view along with a category view, now playing, play settings and regular settings.

In the sound settings, you can toggle gapless playback on/off, change the playing order, resume mode, max volume, default volume, EQ, line-out and L/R balance.

In the system settings you have the update library option, Bluetooth, key-lock settings, screen timeout, brightness, idle standby (and timer), sleep, sleep timer, output select (headphones or line-out), USB mode (storage / in-vehicle), USB charge, font size and more.

Getting used to the X1 II won’t take long, it isn’t the snappiest player out there, but for the price it is perfectly functional. The battery life is around 10hrs of continuous playback, perfect for long commutes.

Sound Quality

The FiiO X1 II leans towards Fiios house sound, erring on the side of warmth and smoothness over absolute detail and clarity. This means it is quite an easy listen and you can click play and forget. There is a small amount of hiss in the background when using it with very sensitive IEM’s. The sound has an underlying warmth to it, with a little added body and weight to the low end, but without masking the midrange. The treble is well extended, but it is never bright, there is good detail retrieval but sometimes the smoothness makes the X1 II come across a little too safe.

What Fiio have created with the X1 II is a player for those not wanting the last word in detail, a player for the masses who want good sound at a low price, and in this respect it delivers. It still sounds a fair bit better than your average smartphone, with a full, impactful, but inherently smooth sound that is just easy to listen to. There is nothing missing from the core sound of the X1 II, it has excellent extension on both ends, with a wide soundstage and good layering, all delivered in smooth, harsh free listening experience.

The X1 II is powerful, it can drive IEM’s and portable headphones with ease, it even drives a lot of full-size headphones with authority.

Conclusion

For the price, and size the FiiO X1 II is a great little DAP, it will serve you well on your daily commute or when out and about. It has a smooth, easy to listen to sound that is about enjoyment over ultimate detail.

FiiO X3 Digital Audio Player – Mini Review

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I was excited about trying the  FiiO X3 Digital Audio Player, as the high quality portable music player has become very popular, and until now the other contenders have been quite pricey – I was not disappointed! Out of the box you get a USB cable, coaxial phono to mini jack adapter, a couple of screen protectors and a neat silicone protective cover. The player comes with 8GB internal storage and you can increase that with an extra 64GB micro SD card – that would give you 72GB of storage!!

The player itself is lightweight and very easy to use, the buttons are well placed on the front and the menu is easy to navigate. The X3 has a coaxial output and a line out – this allows you to use an external amplifier. Another great feature of the X3 is that with the new patch, available to download from the FiiO site, you can use the X3 as a stand alone USB DAC for your computer. The X3 can support the main music formats –  APE, FLAC, ALAC, WMA, WAV – this includes the Apples lossless codec; so all of you Apple users out there will be able to use your existing library of music. It’s hard to believe that you get all of this for only £159… And we haven’t even got to the sound quality yet!

I decided to test the X3 with the Earsonics SM64 and the HifiMAN HE-400 as they are both hard to drive and I wanted to see just what the player could do, turns out it’s a little beast! With the player set to high gain it drove both the SM64 and HE-400 effortlessly – the volume was just over 50% and it was more than enough. The sound quality you get is clear and crisp, separation is superb and combined with the powerful amp there is no distortion – not surprising as the X3 uses the same Wolfson DAC as the Astell & Kern AK100 which is currently priced at over 3 ½ times the price of the X3! When listening to albums the X3 has the option of gapless payback which can be turned on in the ‘Player Settings’ menu – you will need to select the album through the ‘Category’ menu to achieve this.

It was very easy to set the X3 up as a USB DAC with my PC. Once I followed the online instructions to update the players firmware the next step was to install the driver onto my PC; this was also easy as FiiO supply straight forward instructions to do this. The main screen on the X3 changes once it is plugged into the PC and you have a simple control panel where you can adjust the volume, bass, treble, gain settings and balance.

To sum up, I honestly can’t find any reason not to buy the X3 if you are in the market for a high quality player – at this price it is even worth buying purely as a USB DAC.