FiiO X1 – £99.99

We’ve certainly been spoilt by Fiio’s offerings of recent years; it’s a situation that’s all too easy to get used to. First it was amps which got insanely cheap, then DACs. Now we have to get used to the idea of great quality digital audio players for under £100. What’s the world coming to?

Based on the design of bigger brother the X5, the X1 sports a control wheel on the front and buttons for an alternative means of control. Options and tracks can be scrolled through quite easily, and information is displayed clearly on the generously-sized screen. EQ status and battery can be checked at a glance, and other improvements have been made to the player’s software when compared to Fiio’s other players, such as the X3. For instance when moving around the menu system whilst listening to a track, it is now possible to see on the file list which track is playing; but you will need to find your own way to the exact folder where the file is.

Output options are reduced when compared to the X3 and X5; the X1 has one audio output socket only, but is good for both headphones and line-level output. This needs to be selected within the player options menu while no music plays, so don’t worry about the possibility of damaged equipment!

Another very nice feature is the capacity to detect button presses from a headset. When used with headsets on the newer CTIA wiring standard, the X1 should be able to pause, skip track forward and skip track back. This was tried with the new Sennheiser Momentum in-ear model, and the SoundMAGIC E10S.

The sound is amazing for a player under £100. Compared to the X3, the X1 comes across as slightly cooler-sounding and the quality is what we have come to expect from Fiio. The sound gives a slightly brittle impression when compared to more expensive players such as the AK100; but at a fifth of the price the Fiio X1 is a very credible alternative for the cash-strapped music fan!

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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.

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