FiiO KA11 Portable DAC/Amp Review

[tccalvin]

otherwise surely he would have noted the other reconstruction filter options.

Amir is very busy as it is so I wouldn't expect him to go and fiddle with the app settings. The measured filter is probably the default one. But AFAIK filter options are exposed in the FiiO Control app, so just select "Fast roll-off, Phase-compensated" for general use and "Minimum phase fast roll-off" for latency-critical applications.

 

[boomboom]

Is Fast Roll‑Off generally recommended or just for this dongle?

 

[kekus]

I bought this dongle a few months ago and unfortunately the the cable doesn’t deal well with constant bending/stress. I got an unstable connection after two weeks of daily use (just keeping my phone in my pockets).

Same here, after a few weeks, audio was cutting out often. Also, for me it was getting very hot sometimes, almost too hot to touch, using iems. Audio quality was great.
It's gathering dust now, replaced it with jcally JM20, no issues since.

 

[Mnyb]

Is Fast Roll‑Off generally recommended or just for this dongle?

"yes" but i'm unsure of Fiio's naming system . There is atleast one filter setting for most DAC's that could be considered "correct reconstruction of the signal according to theory" but it's usually a bit obfuscated . Audiophile products expose all other settings for a bit of flair and something for the user fiddle with .

This should be an engineering decision and stuck in the correct setting .

However there seems to be low latency applications ? where you can accept some small fidelity loss to not have any appreciable time delay ?

If a product is aimed at such applications like a professional audio interface for direct monitoring of a recording while your playing or singing .
Such products should for the users benefit have "normal" and "low latency" settings

 

[tccalvin]

Is Fast Roll‑Off generally recommended or just for this dongle?

Generally for all DACs. If your sample rate is, say, 48kHz, everything above 24kHz (half of 48) is just ultrasonic garbage that at best is inaudible and at worst degrades audio quality (I hear it can also sometimes blow up tweeters). Fast roll-off usually targets 24kHz as the cut-off point for 44.1kHz and 48kHz sample rates. If the filter is slow (meaning, if it targets anything above half of the sample rate as the cut-off point) some of that ultrasonic noise is going to creep into the signal.

If a product is aimed at such applications like a professional audio interface for direct monitoring of a recording while your playing or singing .
Such products should for the users benefit have "normal" and "low latency" settings

Yeah, audio interfaces use minimum phase filters for the lowest latency.

 

[amirm]

FYI I shipped this back to its owner. He had sent a bunch of stuff to test and this was the last bit. So if there is more investigation to be had, it has to be with another sample/product.

 

[Grobbelboy]

So what would be the best choice for one of these dongles that offers PEQ as well? Still using the Qudelix which remains a wonderful little device, but the convenience of only a single extra bit of wire connected to the usb-c port of my phone is tempting.

 

[IsaacOscar]

So what would be the best choice for one of these dongles that offers PEQ as well? Still using the Qudelix which remains a wonderful little device, but the convenience of only a single extra bit of wire connected to the usb-c port of my phone is tempting.

I've been using the Fiio Tiny A, which has PEQ. I've already asked Amir to review it, hopefully it measures similarly to the KA11.

 

[Mnyb]

Honestly for dongle on the go , its very good . I cant imagine hearing any problem sitting on the subway with this in my ear

I gave it low vote due the CS chipset that seems to be a bit wonky , but on the other hand its the goto component in any such dongle ?

 

[tccalvin]

Apparently FiiO PEQ can be hit or miss:

Some notes on Fiio KA17

Due to audiophile uncontrollable reasons, KA17 and Neutron HIFI V1 DAC are on my 'not-needed-but-wanted' list. Any thoughts on KA17 vs Neutron , strictly for phone usage with Tidal/ streaming ? I haven't used Neutron HIFI V1 DAC, but given your needs I think you should compare their power usage...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[vkvedam]

Thanks for the review @amirm, is that USB C to USB A adapter attached to it in the picture? It took me a minute to figure that out

 

[JohnBooty]

Worth to mention.
It has PEQ built in. You can use web app or phone app to control it.

It seems like KA11 does not offer PEQ.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

I almost had a heart attack. PEQ on a device with this price and performance would go beyond "game changing", almost more like game breaking.

I'd buy one for each set of headphones I own so they could have dialed in EQ regardless of device.

I essentially "standardized" on my Bose QC headphones, which to me sound good-but-not-great, because they sound good out of the box and I don't want to mess around with EQ adjustments on every device.

 

[oleg87]

I almost had a heart attack. PEQ on a device with this price and performance would go beyond "game changing", almost more like game breaking.

I'd buy one for each set of headphones I own so they could have dialed in EQ regardless of device.

I essentially "standardized" on my Bose QC headphones, which to me sound good-but-not-great, because they sound good out of the box and I don't want to mess around with EQ adjustments on every device.

If you don't need the op-amp buffers for more demanding low-impedance loads, devices with PEQ at this price point already exist (ie the FiiO Melody, TRN Black Pearl).

 

[amirm]

Thanks for the review @amirm, is that USB C to USB A adapter attached to it in the picture? It took me a minute to figure that out

Yes. I forgot to remove it for the review picture. All of my desktop ports sans one is USB-A so I frequently use an adapter.

 

[obsessive9119]

These dongles are the best for IEMs. I bought two Apple USB C dongles for my Crinear Zero Reds and my Crinear 7 hz Zero Twos. I just keep a dongle attached to all four of my IEMS, and just plug into my phone's USB C slot, so no hunting or swapping of Dac/Amps ever. Pure convenience, and everything is powered just fine.

I do the same - the Apple dongle works perfectly fine for me, and as a bonus, the mic and volume controls on my IEMs work without issue. Do most of these third party dongle also support mic/inline controls?

 

[Stretch_]

Can these dongles be used puely as a DAC for a hifi setup, or are they purely for headphones? it's such a neat little unit i imagine it would be very handy for my office PC.

 

[oleg87]

Can these dongles be used puely as a DAC for a hifi setup

Sure, you can do that.

 

[IsaacOscar]

I do the same - the Apple dongle works perfectly fine for me, and as a bonus, the mic and volume controls on my IEMs work without issue. Do most of these third party dongle also support mic/inline controls?

You can check the manufacturers page here. But I didn't see any mention of mic/controls.
Most phone dongles do support them though

EDIT: Sorry @obsessive9119
I was wrong, as stated at the bottom of the FAQ it does not support a mic or volume controls.

 

[tccalvin]

I just checked the KA11 Firmware page on the FiiO website. The last update was in March 2024. Since the Cirrus DRE issue was discovered around August 2025 I think it's pretty safe to assume that this dongle still exhibits such a problem. But not all hope is lost because FiiO has been very receptive to our feedback and has managed to patch the DRE distortions out of other products by giving the user the option to disable the feature.

This means that this dongle has the potential to become the best adapter of this form factor on the market if we make our voices heard and ask FiiO for a Firmware update.

https://forum.fiio.com/note/showNoteContent.do?id=202403061706174125325&tid=77

 

[Corvuscorone]

This is inspiring. Could it serve as a preamp in a really minimal system?

IOW, perhaps:
PC running Foobar > FiiO KA11 > rca adapter > Topping Mini 300

Not sure about the volume control part.

I previously used the ibasso DC-05 dongle dac in the same way, connecting it to my Aiyima A07 amplifier. The combination worked great.