Anyone have a Fiio X1 Player? Thoughts?

[RabbitTroop]

Glad to see you're enjoying the X1! If firmware 1.4 is working fine for you, I recommend NOT upgrading it.

When I first got my X3, the firmware was in 2.X. A few months later they came out with firmware 3.0 and it actually broke some functionality until 3.1 came out. Fortunately until then I was able to downgrade it (something you're not always able to do depending on the device) and I kept 2.X for a long time.

Yeah, firmware on players I don't mess with unless I'm having trouble. Very seldom do they fix anything, and usually they just muck up battery or something in the process My X1 should be here tomorrow with a 128GB microSD card. Perfect timing, since I have a trip on Monday and I'll get to chill on the flight with the new player.

 

[GohanX]

I did update my firmware to 1.6. The only difference I can tell is that the scroll wheel works a little better now.

Got home, player set to line out and connected to my stereo, which is an old 80's Pioneer beast component system with giant floor standing speakers. Sounds fabulous, I don't think it's quite as good as playing a CD through the laserdisc player, but it's really, really close. Not bad considering the LD player was like $1000 back in the day. I get better bass response from the X1 than the LD player though.

 

[RabbitTroop]

My X1 arrived today. Like Gohan said, quality is top notch, packaging was top notch. This looks and feels like a much more expensive player than it is. Love all the extras in the box. The free hard plastic bumper case is nice, and will keep the device safe from drops. The pre-installed screen protector, that they even let you remove the top protective piece of film off of, is nice. That they included more screen protectors, case stickers (I agree the carbon fibre does look very good, but I'll leave my player its naked black) were very nice to have included.

This package looks and feels like Fiio gives a shit, and I have to say I'm impressed. My 128GB card is doing a slow format and full consistency check before I load it up with goodies. I got into the habit of doing long checks on flash memory as soon as I buy them, due to a few bad cards over the years. Hate to be on a flight with no music! After that, I can't wait to put this player to use.

Thanks all... Wasn't expecting anyone else to be interested, but thanks for all the input, and glad it also got at least one more person to take a plunge on this company. Fiio has throughly impressed me.

 

[GohanX]

Yeah, it's pimp as shit. I cannot get over how good the line out sounds,I keep hooking it up to different systems just to see how it sounds. I cannot believe this is a portable player.

 

[RabbitTroop]

Holy shit, the X1 playing 24bit/96kHz FLAC through a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones is unreal. Probably my final word on this player... Probably. Just leaving testament. If anyone is searching and stumbles on this thread in the future, wondering if the X1 is worth the $99. Yes. Yes it is. Fiio is legit.

 

[Average Joe]

I picked up an X1 for like $60-70 (forget exactly... but it was cheap since the newest FiiO model had just come out) when it was on sale a while back after my 160gb iPod HDD decided to die--it ended up being a blessing in disguise because I love my X1 infinitely more than I ever loved my iPod.

I ended up upgrading my home headphone set to Audio-Technica ATH-M50x shortly after getting the X1 just so I could boost my listening quality up a couple more notches, and combined with the FLAC and higher bit/kHz options my listening setup at home has never been better.

I used my X1 at work every morning too, and it's a durable little machine.

I always felt that I was walking on eggshells bringing my iPod to work (even with its hardshell case) at my somewhat physically-demanding job, but I'm not the least bit concerned with my X1 (doesn't hurt that the price point is at the easily replacing area.)

I love my X1 and FiiO has a new customer for life because of it.

There's just so many nice little touches to the machine, but coming from a former iPod user,

 

[GohanX]

Now I kinda want to try one of their DACs for my computer.

 

[ki_atsushi]

Got my Fiio A3 headphone amp yesterday, and it's just as boss as the E11 it replaced... better actually, because I can use it while it charges unlike the E11.

The bass boost still gives my Sony D-25/Grado SR225 combo just the right amount of punch, sounds fucking excellent! (and I'm sure it will give a nice boost to my X3 as well!)

Glad to hear you dudes are enjoying your X1's, Fiio never fails to deliver!

 

[GohanX]

Well ki, I also went full retard here. I use some Sennheiser HD 439 headphones, and the X1 sounded excellent, but it wasn't as good as if I had the X1 connected to the stereo instead. In addition, the flac files played back from my PC sucked compared to the player due to shitty onboard audio, and I started looking for a USB sound card. My research brought me back to Fiio, they have a Q1 amp/dac combo that's basically Ki's amp with a DAC in it. So it serves two purposes, you can hook it to a PC through USB and use it as a USB sound card and headphone amp (and the audio is cleaner than even the pimp Sound Blasters I used to use) or you can hook it to a headphone jack and use it a portable headphone amp. It's perfectly sized for mating with the X1 as well. It does a great job filling out the midrange when I crank the volume, which is mainly what I was looking for.

This shit is fantastic! I haven't been sleeping much because I'm listening to music all night while dicking around on the computer.

 

[twalden]

I'm going to pick one of these up soon. Is playlist creation/mangement difficult with the X1? It handles .m3u files so hopefully it's easy.

 

[GohanX]

I have no idea, honestly. I either play by album or just random everything.

 

[ki_atsushi]

Nice! Yeah, the Fiio players kick out more mW's than most portable players and cell phones, but compared to amp/receiver they're small potatoes. Always helps to put an amp in-between the player and the headphones.

And Fiio's are so clean sounding! The noise floor is like "what noise"? And there is no distortion either. They really are super fucking products, and unbelievably inexpensive on top of it all.

 

[GohanX]

With the amp I can't make these headphones distort before the point that my ears bleed. The volume knob is only at 5. My stereo can't do that.

 

[ki_atsushi]

I'm going to pick one of these up soon. Is playlist creation/mangement difficult with the X1? It handles .m3u files so hopefully it's easy.

I can't speak on the newer fiio players, but on my 1st gen x3 there was no such thing as easy playlist creation, lol. You certainly could make one via winamp and put it in the folder with the files when you transfer the music over, but that's about it.

I never cared about playlists on the thing until I started to use them to record mixtapes on my Sony WM-D6C, lol

 

[RabbitTroop]

Personally I like the interface on the Fiio. It's no nonsense. There isn't even a clock. Just a database view that sorts your library by tags, or folder browse. Pick something and it plays. Playlists supported with .m3u and .cue files, but those need to be made elsewhere. This is a pick up and play machine, and I really like that.