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Fiio X5 mk3

Graph Feppar

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Hello,I have a wish,can someone please measure Fio X5 mk3? I would love if someone made detailed measurements,low gain high gain,balanced,single ended,as amp,as dac,with real low impedance dynamic headphone as load,also linearity and jitter/phase noise and output impedance of the amp.

I would also like these kind of detailed measurements for X7 mk2 and iBasso DX150/200 and Sony ZX300 but the X5 I want the most.There are measurements on the russian "reference audio analyser" website but after I spend whole day looking at all the graphs of all the DAPs I came to conclusion that the man who does them either does some mistakes or gear isnt good enough so I dont have confidence in his measurements
 
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amirm

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I would also like these kind of detailed measurements for X7 mk2 and iBasso DX150/200
I have someone kindly buying the iBasso DX120 and sending it to me for testing.
 

amirm

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I own one, maybe if @amirm gets a slow down in his to do list of stuff, I could send him my unit to measure if he is interested.
Definitely like to test more of these DAPs. Let's touch base in a couple of weeks. Thanks.
 

JJB70

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Have you considered the Shanling M3s? I bought one of these last year and honestly don't see any reason to spend more. The sound is excellent with a transparent DAC and a headphone output which drives my headphones as loud as I want them to go and a balanced output if that is important. Very nice quality feel and a nice UI. Unlike most modern DAPs it uses a scroll dial rather than a touch screen. I am genuinely very happy with it, I paid £170 in a sale and like I say I really don't see any reason to pay more as it is nicely made and sounds great.
 

frogmeat69

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Have you considered the Shanling M3s? I bought one of these last year and honestly don't see any reason to spend more. The sound is excellent with a transparent DAC and a headphone output which drives my headphones as loud as I want them to go and a balanced output if that is important. Very nice quality feel and a nice UI. Unlike most modern DAPs it uses a scroll dial rather than a touch screen. I am genuinely very happy with it, I paid £170 in a sale and like I say I really don't see any reason to pay more as it is nicely made and sounds great.
Ugh, only 1 sd card slot, and only 256gb support. All of my music is in flac, not nearly enough storage space, otherwise I would be interested, my X5iii is so slow and has issues.
I loved my X5ii, until it wouldn't take a charge anymore after 2 years of regular use, no silly wonky OS or touch screen, nice fast scroll wheel. FiiO said they could take a look at it, but who knows what shipping to China and possible repairs would cost, might not be worth the hassle.
I do love the Shanling M0, only problem I have is it's size, tough to hold on to with stiff fingered ham hands. Just need to get a 512gb card for it.
 
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JJB70

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I have over 700 CDs on mine, all FLAC, that's not bad. Certainly enough not to run out of stuff to listen to.
 
OP
Graph Feppar

Graph Feppar

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I think Shanling is better than Fiio. There is just one problrem with Shanling and newer Fiios, they dont allow all android apps to be installed. The old X5 mk3 is android and there is no app whitelist, that means I can install Neutron player and use its advanced custom EQ feature.

There is no other way to get fully custom EQ on DAP than getting DAP with Android and no whitelist and installing Neutron player. I hate those standard 10 band slider equalizers, I want to set my own frequency and my own Q factor, custom EQ sounds trillion times better than 10 band slider.
 

JJB70

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I think that the Pioneer and Onkyo DAPs can download apps. Although the Shanling uses android it does not have the usual android UI or touch screen and is old school feeling. I had an older Pioneer DAP and although I never downloaded any apps I think it could have.
 
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Graph Feppar

Graph Feppar

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I think the Shanling and the new Fiios while running android have this whitelist feature where all apps are blocked except select few and nobody have yet put Neutron player on their whitelist.
 

frogmeat69

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I have over 700 CDs on mine, all FLAC, that's not bad. Certainly enough not to run out of stuff to listen to.
What size card are you using?I have 2x200GB cards in my X5iii, and don't think I have that many albums worth of music ,and they are almost full.
 

JJB70

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256GB, a lot of my CDs are from the vinyl era and so quite a bit shorter than albums made to fill the space available on a CD.
 

frogmeat69

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256GB, a lot of my CDs are from the vinyl era and so quite a bit shorter than albums made to fill the space available on a CD.
Vinyl rips? Yeah, they usually are smaller files, thanks for letting me know.
 

JJB70

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Not vinyl, but rips of CDs that originated as vinyl, if that makes sense. Most of the music I listen to is old, I'm a big fan of classical recordings from the 60's.
 

frogmeat69

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Not vinyl, but rips of CDs that originated as vinyl, if that makes sense. Most of the music I listen to is old, I'm a big fan of classical recordings from the 60's.
I get ya, back when you wrote enough music to fill both sides of an LP, not a 75 minute compact disc.
 

JJB70

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The sad thing is that as audio technology has become commoditised and genuinely excellent audio equipment and sources have never been more accessible so standards of recording and mastering have plummeted essentially wiping out the gains made in audio equipment.
 

Reinhold

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Ugh, only 1 sd card slot, and only 256gb support. All of my music is in flac, not nearly enough storage space, otherwise I would be interested, my X5iii is so slow and has issues.
I loved my X5ii, until it wouldn't take a charge anymore after 2 years of regular use, no silly wonky OS or touch screen, nice fast scroll wheel. FiiO said they could take a look at it, but who knows what shipping to China and possible repairs would cost, might not be worth the hassle.
I do love the Shanling M0, only problem I have is it's size, tough to hold on to with stiff fingered ham hands. Just need to get a 512gb card for it.
you can buy a refurbished one
 

kaylf1016

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Have you considered the Shanling M3s? I bought one of these last year and honestly don't see any reason to spend more. The sound is excellent with a transparent DAC and a headphone output which drives my headphones as loud as I want them to go and a balanced output if that is important. Very nice quality feel and a nice UI. Unlike most modern DAPs it uses a scroll dial rather than a touch screen. I am genuinely very happy with it, I paid £170 in a sale and like I say I really don't see any reason to pay more as it is nicely made and sounds great.


Hi there! I’ve been looking into a Shanling M3s (or M2x).. wondering if you still own this DAP and recommend it? If so, will it drive 300ohm headphones (balanced is fine).. and does it allow any offline streaming (through songs being downloaded onto SD cards through the streaming app) either directly or through side loading?

Sorry for all the questions but thank you so much for any possible guidance as I sift through the world of DAPs. :)
 

JJB70

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Hi, I only use my M3s with files loaded onto a microSD card, I don't think it has any WiFi or streaming functionality. I think it is a pretty basic DAC and amplifier, but it is a nicely made one with a quality feel and a good UI using a scroll wheel rather than a touch screen. The output drives all of my headphones to more than sufficient volume, however all my headphones are much lower impedance and pretty efficient so am not sure about 600 ohm cans. However, the balanced output should be able to drive even pretty hard to drive cans to a decent volume. To be honest I bought it because it was in a really good clearance offer and it ticked all my boxes. Sound quality is excellent, the DAC and headphone amp are transparent, though as I say I actually find my smartphone is too within it's volume limits. You can pay an awful lot more for a DAP but I found this one past the point of diminishing returns and that there was no point going further if only considering SQ. However, that is not to say that you might want to spend more to get more functionality, or just because you like something else. I use it with some very good headphones (Oppo PM-2, Sony MDR Z7, Audio-Technica MSR7 and the very revealing Etymotic ER4SR IEM) and the M3s does them all justice with no sense that the DAP is holding headphone performance back.
 
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