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FiiO BTR7 Review (Portable DAC & HP Amp)

Rate this portable DAC & HP Amp

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 2 1.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 14 6.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 83 40.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 108 52.2%

  • Total voters
    207

Brianc

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The fiio app has a PEQ now but it’s very limited. You only have 1 preset and 10 bands or so
In my experience with three different headphones, I've preferred manually entering the actual Oratory settings (with my own tweaks sometimes) instead of using the AutoEq presets on the Qudelix app.
 

Garrincha

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In my experience with three different headphones, I've preferred manually entering the actual Oratory settings (with my own tweaks sometimes) instead of using the AutoEq presets on the Qudelix app.
Exactly, since the number of headphones in personal possession might be different from 1, but rarely more than 10, one does not benefit too much from a huge database and manual tweaking is mostly advantageous.
 

Jimster480

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This lands the unit in "very good" category of all DACs tested and is especially good for a portable product. Here is Bluetooth wireless using LDAC at 0.6 mbit/sec datarate:
Fiio BTR7 Portable Headphone Adapter DAC Balanced Bluetooth LDAC Measurements.png
LDAC Measurements? How cool!
I always wondered how LDAC would perform on many of these products. It has become quite popular these days.
I think the Fiio is an unnecessarily large device just for iems. An Apple dongle can power most iems already.

The BTR7 is perfect for headphones that need more power than a normal dongle can provide.
For power hungry planars I would definitely get the Topping. My Topping NX7 is the only portable device that is capable of powering my Aeon Noires
Yea this definitely doesn't have enough power for something like an Aeon. I was thinking that as I was reading the review. In fact none of my Planars will run well with this power output (especially considering my devices are 3.5mm, so I would need balanced cables).
The big drawback with Fiio products is that they tend to be much less nicely made than their aluminium bodies suggest. I had a Fiio E7 (portable USB DAC/Amp); it had a one year warranty and failed between one and two years. I bought a Fiio E9 (desktop amp with dock for E7). It was DOA. I bought a Fiio M3K personal player; just out of warranty the screen fell out! No, really, the screen actually fell out of the front of the player! It had been attached with about two molecules of adhesive. All these items gained great reviews and a lot of praise but, despite an apparent quality feel, were horribly badly assembled or had awful design out of sight. Their software tends to be fairly terrible too. They always claim their players do gapless playback, then when people complain they don't they promise it will happen in a future firmware update, but it *never* happens.
Not sure, I have a FiiO K1 which was a cheap little "dongle type" DAC from literally ~7 years ago and it still works great. I keep it in my IEM case because it always provides enough power and performance to drive my 1More Quad drivers where most laptops and stuff fail.
 

norcalscott

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Not sure, I have a FiiO K1 which was a cheap little "dongle type" DAC from literally ~7 years ago and it still works great. I keep it in my IEM case because it always provides enough power and performance to drive my 1More Quad drivers where most laptops and stuff fail.
I have one of those as well and when it first released, it didn't work with several phones I tried it with, but I happened to dig it out a couple of weeks ago and was surprised to find that it worked with my Samsung S21 (using USB Audio Player) and my iPad Pro, and it actually sounds surprisingly good driving my Beyer DT-770 80's. I have other FiiO devices and have not had any issue with them at all.
 

testp

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Jul 22, 2020
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i'm thinking about Fiio ff3 earbuds, i prefer open styled ones, so choices are limited..
 

PeteL

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I think the Fiio is an unnecessarily large device just for iems. An Apple dongle can power most iems already.

The BTR7 is perfect for headphones that need more power than a normal dongle can provide.
For power hungry planars I would definitely get the Topping. My Topping NX7 is the only portable device that is capable of powering my Aeon Noires
But the apple dongle have you strapped to your phone which is extremely unconvenient and cumbersome.
 

imnotdrunk

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Nov 6, 2020
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Any chance of testing the Ifi Go Bar? They claim 475mW into 32 ohms which is a couple notches more power than any other similar product, wonder if they cut corners to get there...
 

juliangst

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But the apple dongle have you strapped to your phone which is extremely unconvenient and cumbersome.
Having to charge the Bluetooth dac and having two different volume controls is also inconvenient imo. Depends on what you prefer.
I used my BTR5 all the time but recently switched to the Apple dongle. It’s more convenient for me but I wish it had more than 0.5V output
 

jam

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Another excellent portable DAC/HP amp, both reviewed within a couple of days of each other. Thanks for the wonderful review Amir. Well if I had a budget of $300, even if it's 50% more expensive than the FiiO BTR7, I'd choose the Topping G5. I think it's worth the extra money considering its stellar perforformance.
 

Keened

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Actually you can get more and for rather some time in form of full blown DAP and with rather similar performance and better software for the same price (HiBy R3Pro CS43131 version for example).
I specifically have been avoiding DAPs with full blown OSes because they are almost always a security nightmare that start outdated and insecure from day one and then never receive security updates (or sufficent code scrutiny for whatever they do push out).

Also 97g vs 65g and less of a literal square shape. But it is a real shame since the DAPs offered now put historical offerings to shame, it's how we use technology in our day to day life has changed so we don't need the built in streamer or on-board memory.
 

Veri

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I am assuming if balanced out is used, then it will be for balanced connection to the target device. That issue only occurs if you take balanced to unbalanced/RCA.
I believe 4.4mm is properly tied to ground but on devices with 2.5mm balanced (or 3.5mm balanced which is rare but exists), if adapter is not tied to GND you can have the ground potential ruin the device. It was discussed here
just want to mention it, it's fine with BTR7, but other devices might not fare as well; you can't use every balanced headphone out as a line out.
 

ZolaIII

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@Keened DAP is relatively isolated by it's functionality device. It's not you will do payment's with it, fill a bunch of personal stuff to it or that it has cameras which could be used against your privacy. Actually such don't even have mics while BT receivers do. It's a relatively small market all together for a respectable hacker even to fuss with especially when it comes to specialised out of branch OS running one's. In that regard DragonFly BSD is probably the most secure OS on the planet but I won't get in to arguing about that. I don't even think you know what CVE's are.

Story goes how most of Chinese HiFi brands stood together to develop a OS for such devices (DAP's, BT's...) including Shangling and Fiio and it whose HiBy.
At first year or two HiBy failed to deliver regarding particular requests and quality of the player software so mentioned ones split their own way and developed their own software. Today HiBy is far more developed than those but still has a lot of room for improvement and lot of things to be implemented better. The rest two are bug collector items.

Regarding use scenarios please keep your opinion for your self. 96% people hire will say no to BT audio but won't have anything against using it as remote interface, they won't have anything against WiFi streaming and built in streaming services and will use losseles of those and will certainly prise on device storage.
 

lhimelfarb

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The SR25 is a DAP while the fiio is a bluetooth DAC Amp. Two completly different kind of devices
The SR25s have Bluetooth also... that was part of my point. Research the jargon for all of these portable devices. It can be very confusing.
 

lhimelfarb

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The A&K SR 25 is a DAP and not extremley expensive ($750). But their flagship model costs $3,500, so it is a very bold statement to say that you get what you pay for. Bling bling? I haven´t seen any measurements of a A&K device, but there are many transparent alternatives around, which do not have this outrageous prices.
They are marketed on current availability, the DAC chip, and yes... bling. But they are better than the "what's available" cobbled together price point DAPs. Try one. I use the DAPs as portable streamers more than headphone amps because no portable device, as of 2022, can compare to dedicated amplifiers. The other functions, voltage amplifiers and processors, are handled as well or better than most other devices. The only thing that appears to be out of reach for all DAPs is processing via an R2R ladder DAC.
 

DrEz

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Sticking with Qudleix 5K with it's similar performance and much more advanced app that allows full PEQ and ability to swap AutoEQ presets on the fly.
 

PeteL

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Having to charge the Bluetooth dac and having two different volume controls is also inconvenient imo. Depends on what you prefer.
I used my BTR5 all the time but recently switched to the Apple dongle. It’s more convenient for me but I wish it had more than 0.5V output
The volume control are independant? Strange, the BT should control the phone volume.
 

juliangst

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The volume control are independant? Strange, the BT should control the phone volume.
Fiios always have independent volume which is a good thing for such devices. But it still adds inconvenience
 

Keened

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@Keened DAP is relatively isolated by it's functionality device. It's not you will do payment's with it, fill a bunch of personal stuff to it or that it has cameras which could be used against your privacy. Actually such don't even have mics while BT receivers do. It's a relatively small market all together for a respectable hacker even to fuss with especially when it comes to specialised out of branch OS running one's. In that regard DragonFly BSD is probably the most secure OS on the planet but I won't get in to arguing about that. I don't even think you know what CVE's are.

And if it ran DragonFly BSD that'd be great, but it runs Android 8.1 so...

Also I thought FreeBSD was the most secure but it has been a moment since I checked in on the BSD family.

I do know what CVEs are and yes this does not have direct access to a camera or a good microphone, but it presents a potential entrance into other devices or a network which does. Wardriving is stupid cheap these days and any network capable device is a liability if it's running the same OS as a bunch of other target devices.
Story goes how most of Chinese HiFi brands stood together to develop a OS for such devices (DAP's, BT's...) including Shangling and Fiio and it whose HiBy.
At first year or two HiBy failed to deliver regarding particular requests and quality of the player software so mentioned ones split their own way and developed their own software. Today HiBy is far more developed than those but still has a lot of room for improvement and lot of things to be implemented better. The rest two are bug collector items.
Given China's extreme pressure on firms to introduce back doors (and I'm not saying the US is less pushy when they want to be, just not as ubiquitous in application) that's probably even worse. I'm loving a lot of the electronics coming out of China and the designs, but networking stuff is verboten.

Regarding use scenarios please keep your opinion for your self. 96% people hire will say no to BT audio but won't have anything against using it as remote interface, they won't have anything against WiFi streaming and built in streaming services and will use losseles of those and will certainly prise on device storage.
Well I'll be using it with BT, the LDAC test shows it's sufficiently transparent for walking around and doing stuff; I imagine plenty of other people will as well. You're right that fully contained wifi streaming is a nice option, but I'd rather use a dedicated interface device like my phone or a tablet to control it either way.
 
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