• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Fiio K5 Pro First Impressions (Untrained)

josiah

Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2019
Messages
47
Likes
24
Hi everyone,

I recently purchased the Fiio K5 Pro. I allowed my Fiio K5 Pro to burn-in for 40 hours before doing these first Impressions.

Here are the highlights.
1.) I can now distinguish between the base used in every song. Especially songs that use different types of base.
2.) Treble sounds less sharp/metallic?
3.) Everything seems more smooth and more detailed than what I was using. It doesn't sound unnaturally smooth.
4.) I can differentiate more sounds than before.

Here are the thoughts based on Headphones:
Philips X2HR: Huge improvement. This is the one where now I can really hear the difference in all the base sounds. This is my daily driver, and one that is suppose to be easy to use. I didn't think I would hear such a difference, but I noticed a good difference. Used low gain for this.

58x: Another huge improvement. To be honest these sounded crappy before. Now they compare a lot closer to the Philips. It feels like they opened more.

Hifiman 400i (borrowing): I can now see what people like in these. Before I could hear things,, but now I have the detail I expected. The problem I have is the Philips X2HR is still my favorite. Considering getting a Sundara.

Here is what I have:
Auros Z390 Motherboard: ALC1220-VB
Senheisser GSX100
Fiio K5 Pro

I had a:
DX3 Pro

I know some of you will be curious about how the DX3 Pro compares to the Fiio K5 Pro. Unfortuantely, I was not able to compare them side by side. I didn't not get to listen to the DX3 Pro enough to really qualify the difference. To be honest I could not tell the difference between the Fiio K5 Pro and the DX3 Pro from my limited time with the device.

That's all for now. I figured someone else might be interested in this device, and it is currently hard to find information on it.
 
Last edited:

raif71

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Messages
2,333
Likes
2,535
Interesting dac and headphone amp. Hopefully this get measured/analyzed soon. Thanks for the 1st impressions.
 

Ty Bower

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2019
Messages
9
Likes
5
I received my FiiO K5 Pro as well. It was ordered from a vendor on Ali Express on September 12, and arrived here in the United States less than two weeks later. I bought this on a recommendation from a user on this forum when I asked what I might purchase as a replacement desktop amp. My old desktop unit was a Creative X-Fi USB HD.

Observations:
It came well packaged, with a water tight plastic mailer covering three or four layers of bubble wrap. The FiiO packaging was a straight forward but attractive pre-printed, retail quality cardboard box, shrink wrapped in plastic. FiiO's authenticity sticker (scratch and lookup the code) was present. Inside the DAC/amp was secured with foam on each end to protect the switches, knob, and connectors. The accessories (power supply, cord, USB cable, 3.5mm jack adapter) were contained in their own separate compartment.

The provided power cord is not for my country. Fortunately, the supply accepts a standard IEC-320-C5 type connector. I have plenty of those, so I just used my own power cord. The USB cable is a type B to type A. I like that they chose to use a chunky and durable connector like the type B on the K5 Pro. I find the type B micro connectors tend to wear out and fail prematurely.

The box is appropriately sized for desktop use. The attached rubber feet ensure it won't slide around. I appreciate that the DAC and the amp are housed together in the same enclosure, so I don't need two boxes connected with RCA cables cluttering up my desk. I also demanded the 1/4" headphone jack, which seems to be a rarity on many headphone amps in my price range. All in all, the form factor is pretty much exactly what I wanted.

I plugged in the USB cable, and Windows 10 recognized the device and loaded whatever drivers it thought it needed. Audio seems to play fine without any issue. I think there is a FiiO driver somewhere that I might need to enable features such as DSD decoding? I'm not sure about this... I'll look into it later.

The sound quality through my ATH-M50x headphones is better than excellent to my tin ears. With these headphones, gain is more than sufficient even on the lowest gain setting. I forsee no use for the mid or high gain settings. Noise level is inaudible. Treble is clean and crisp. Bass is tight and authoritative. I am reminded of the poor encoding quality of too much of my music collection, with much of it at 192 kbps MP3 (or worse). Cranking up the volume reaches the limit of my tolerance for volume long before the amp or the headphones make any untoward sounds.

The volume knob itself deserves some discussion. It functions as a power switch for the unit. Rotating the knob fully counter clockwise turns off the amp. This is fine, I suppose. Although honestly, I see no reason to ever turn the amp off. The knob is surrounded by a multi colored LED ring, which glows blue or red or green to tell you what decoding mode is active. Unfortunately, I see no way to disable the light and simply keep it dark while the unit is active. This can be annoying in a darkened room. I'd much prefer if there were a software feature or physical switch to turn off the light. I may have to pull out the circuit board and drill out the ring's cathode connection to the circuit board. Alternatively, if FiiO had used a simply 2mm "dot" LED, I could have stuck a piece of black electrical tape over it, or painted it with black nail polish.

The volume function is also a bit odd. The knob itself is not directly in the audio path. Instead, it drives a command signal to a volume control IC on the circuit board. I suppose this ensures that as the unit ages, a dirty volume pot won't result in scratchy audio. Although honestly, I've owned quality audio pots that are decades old, and they have held up just fine. I guess it also assists with channel tracking at the low end of the volume range, which I believe may have been an issue on the previous generation of the K5. It does, however, cause the volume knob to behave exactly like a stepped attenuator. As you turn the knob a minute fraction of a degree, nothing happens until you reach the next step. This is most noticeable at the bottom of the range. I think FiiO claims the steps are 0.5 dB apart, which is much too close together at the bottom of the range. I can clearly hear steps 0, 1, 2, and 3. And I wish there were more steps in between. I'm not sure why FiiO was not able to implement a "normal" logarithmic audio taper, where the steps get closer together the quieter you turn the knob.

Finally, I checked the line out RCA jacks. I'm using an old Logitech Squeezebox as a transport, and the FiiO K5 Pro makes a dandy DAC & preamp for my vacuum tube Dynacos. The level out the RCA jack is adjustable via the volume knob on the front. Very convenient, if you happen to need an extra pre-amp around.

Lastly, I would complain that FiiO did not include a Bluetooth receiver in this desktop amp. It would have been a very convenient feature, and I expect it might have expanded their customer base.

Overall, a nice little unit. I think I will be keeping it for a while. I look forward to seeing some proper reviews. Thanks for having the patience to wade through my long and rambling post. I'm not very good at keeping things succinct.
 

Attachments

  • IMG-6129.JPG
    IMG-6129.JPG
    955.8 KB · Views: 2,705

raif71

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Messages
2,333
Likes
2,535
I received my FiiO K5 Pro as well. It was ordered from a vendor on Ali Express on September 12, and arrived here in the United States less than two weeks later. I bought this on a recommendation from a user on this forum when I asked what I might purchase as a replacement desktop amp. My old desktop unit was a Creative X-Fi USB HD.

Observations:
It came well packaged, with a water tight plastic mailer covering three or four layers of bubble wrap. The FiiO packaging was a straight forward but attractive pre-printed, retail quality cardboard box, shrink wrapped in plastic. FiiO's authenticity sticker (scratch and lookup the code) was present. Inside the DAC/amp was secured with foam on each end to protect the switches, knob, and connectors. The accessories (power supply, cord, USB cable, 3.5mm jack adapter) were contained in their own separate compartment.

The provided power cord is not for my country. Fortunately, the supply accepts a standard IEC-320-C5 type connector. I have plenty of those, so I just used my own power cord. The USB cable is a type B to type A. I like that they chose to use a chunky and durable connector like the type B on the K5 Pro. I find the type B micro connectors tend to wear out and fail prematurely.

The box is appropriately sized for desktop use. The attached rubber feet ensure it won't slide around. I appreciate that the DAC and the amp are housed together in the same enclosure, so I don't need two boxes connected with RCA cables cluttering up my desk. I also demanded the 1/4" headphone jack, which seems to be a rarity on many headphone amps in my price range. All in all, the form factor is pretty much exactly what I wanted.

I plugged in the USB cable, and Windows 10 recognized the device and loaded whatever drivers it thought it needed. Audio seems to play fine without any issue. I think there is a FiiO driver somewhere that I might need to enable features such as DSD decoding? I'm not sure about this... I'll look into it later.

The sound quality through my ATH-M50x headphones is better than excellent to my tin ears. With these headphones, gain is more than sufficient even on the lowest gain setting. I forsee no use for the mid or high gain settings. Noise level is inaudible. Treble is clean and crisp. Bass is tight and authoritative. I am reminded of the poor encoding quality of too much of my music collection, with much of it at 192 kbps MP3 (or worse). Cranking up the volume reaches the limit of my tolerance for volume long before the amp or the headphones make any untoward sounds.

The volume knob itself deserves some discussion. It functions as a power switch for the unit. Rotating the knob fully counter clockwise turns off the amp. This is fine, I suppose. Although honestly, I see no reason to ever turn the amp off. The knob is surrounded by a multi colored LED ring, which glows blue or red or green to tell you what decoding mode is active. Unfortunately, I see no way to disable the light and simply keep it dark while the unit is active. This can be annoying in a darkened room. I'd much prefer if there were a software feature or physical switch to turn off the light. I may have to pull out the circuit board and drill out the ring's cathode connection to the circuit board. Alternatively, if FiiO had used a simply 2mm "dot" LED, I could have stuck a piece of black electrical tape over it, or painted it with black nail polish.

The volume function is also a bit odd. The knob itself is not directly in the audio path. Instead, it drives a command signal to a volume control IC on the circuit board. I suppose this ensures that as the unit ages, a dirty volume pot won't result in scratchy audio. Although honestly, I've owned quality audio pots that are decades old, and they have held up just fine. I guess it also assists with channel tracking at the low end of the volume range, which I believe may have been an issue on the previous generation of the K5. It does, however, cause the volume knob to behave exactly like a stepped attenuator. As you turn the knob a minute fraction of a degree, nothing happens until you reach the next step. This is most noticeable at the bottom of the range. I think FiiO claims the steps are 0.5 dB apart, which is much too close together at the bottom of the range. I can clearly hear steps 0, 1, 2, and 3. And I wish there were more steps in between. I'm not sure why FiiO was not able to implement a "normal" logarithmic audio taper, where the steps get closer together the quieter you turn the knob.

Finally, I checked the line out RCA jacks. I'm using an old Logitech Squeezebox as a transport, and the FiiO K5 Pro makes a dandy DAC & preamp for my vacuum tube Dynacos. The level out the RCA jack is adjustable via the volume knob on the front. Very convenient, if you happen to need an extra pre-amp around.

Lastly, I would complain that FiiO did not include a Bluetooth receiver in this desktop amp. It would have been a very convenient feature, and I expect it might have expanded their customer base.

Overall, a nice little unit. I think I will be keeping it for a while. I look forward to seeing some proper reviews. Thanks for having the patience to wade through my long and rambling post. I'm not very good at keeping things succinct.

Have you seen @amirm review of the unit here ?
 

Mr:River

Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2019
Messages
76
Likes
35
I
I plugged in the USB cable, and Windows 10 recognized the device and loaded whatever drivers it thought it needed. Audio seems to play fine without any issue. I think there is a FiiO driver somewhere that I might need to enable features such as DSD decoding? I'm not sure about this... I'll look into it later.

Any news, drives, asio etc?
I don't know any fiio drive to download, I don't find links.
 

raif71

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Messages
2,333
Likes
2,535
Did you play any file? If I'm not mistaken green would indicate hires or dsd file being played. Besides using usb, you can try using other inputs such as line in, coax or optical to just check whether sound can be produced. Thus far, I've only used coax to play files from my DAP. Haven't tried playing this off a computer before.

Beside this thread, you can ask questions on the Review and Measurements of Fiio K5 Pro thread. There are more users there. Good luck @Mr:River
 
Last edited:

Adam C

New Member
Joined
May 25, 2019
Messages
2
Likes
0
Got my f5 pro too, had it for 7 days. For me there are scenarios under spdif where the stereo image opens up.
And I'm not totally sure what changes it. Noticed it when I unplugged usb - was like it it had a crosstalk in resolution
depth timing bass burn-in
I'm unsure, maybe other factors like cabling.

My setup: pc w10, wasapi 44.1/16 > nvidia hdmi > Sams tv
> spdif > k5 pro.
Could test x99-a or ae-5 spdif. I prefer the convience of one main source but im keen to try maybe as it's only the
stereo image that I perceive a change.
Headphones: Bayer 770 80ohms (daily driver) low gain. Sen hd600, audio tech m50x.


update: hours later boy its knocking my socks off with its detail, high notes, just so clean [770 80ohms]
(i suspect its usb/spdif crosstalk maybe) as i noticed crosstalk when i tried analog once - once i disconnected everything
apart from the spdif it improved? super-subjective of me maybe its ear pressure,
connection or something else but right now i want to enjoy the music D-)
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom