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Budget tier portable music sources seem a dime a dozen, don’t they? With so many options in the Asian Market to choose from, how are we supposed to know which ones are actually good? Custom Art Music One: The X3 exerts good control of the Music One for tight, well defined bass and a cleaner sound across the spectrum than the Clip+. Reverberant bass comes across as more prominent from the Clip+ since the control isn’t as good, and the driver keeps moving where the X3 keeps the presentation cleaner. The X3 is slightly smoother than the DX50, but less revealing and with less bass. Bass quality between the X3 and DX50 is similar. 6/10
Try as I might I could not get any connectivity from my Chrome Book (Asus Flip). I do know the new Q5 will work from the same Chrome Book so perhaps FiiO is using a set of drivers specific to just the most popular platforms for their mid to low-end Linux DAPs. Performance Audio Earz AUD-8X: The X3 is closest to the Clip+ presentation, but is a bit brighter while still retaining bass quantity and punch. Spatially, it is slightly larger than the iPhone, RoCoo, Nova, and Clip+, and while closer, it doesn’t have the spatial presentation of the DX50. There is no hiss with the 8X. 6/10 The level of pixelation from the new OS on the X3iii screen is similar to the X1ii’s performance with slightly inferior anti-aliasing to the 2nd gen HiBy system and glass. I have seen this on a few Linux powers software systems before and is usually related more to the font choice which has stayed the same for both DAPs. Memory Single Slot I’d naturally expect the treble at this point to feel a stark contrast to the rest of the response of the product. But, I was pleasantly surprised to hear yet another softer approach on the treble end. Even with an elevated treble response in the custom EQ window. I don’t consider the player overly soft feeling, I do consider it relaxing. Like the previous generation X3 the new X3 Mark III does not have any onboard memory. Instead, you have a single micro SD slot to the left side panel for cards up to 256Gb official.The previous implementation on the X1 2nd Gen had no such settings and if I had to guess was set to medium or low sensitivity. As a result, the experience was very slow. Given both have the same processor you have to feel a lot of the criticism of the speed of the X1ii lay in the response rate of the touch scroll wheel. the FiiO X3 III can go – if set – into standby mode after a chosen period of time ranging from 1 minute to 8 minutes; This review was written about two months after first receiving the X3. I was supposed to take only a month. If you hear nothing more out of me, Oyaide have probably... In general, balance between lows and highs is very good. No matter how big the bass, or how trilly the treble, lows and highs maintain great balance and detail at all safe listening levels. Out of the box, the gunmetal/titanium glossy finish of the aluminum body shimmers and begs to be appreciated. Shiny, solid and it appears that the jog wheel is now less wobbly than the one on its older sibling, the X5. Dimensions
The dual PCM5242 on the X3iii should offer a little bit better dynamic range capability than the previous single implementation. However, the numbers are not a significant step up on the CS4398 with similar decoding capability limited to 192kHz/24bit as it was in the X2ii. The DSD max decoding rate has also dropped from a previous DSD128 to DSD64. What they have done right: buttons in lieu of a douchey touchscreen, metal instead of plastic, standard ins and outs, is done well. Touch screens require good programming and layout knowledge - both items are Ancient Greek to audiophile companies. The local enthusiasts were excited to hear that the X3 sample unit has finally landed and so I invited them to play with it on the store, despite the local distributor not yet having a unit. Most of the comments were positive but there was a comment mentioning that there is a lag when moving between songs though it doesn’t happen all the time. Perhaps it’s a function of the file size (I had mostly AIFF and WAVs in the player) or the caching side of the player hitting the limit. While not super speedy as the Altmann Tera, I personally have no complaints about the speed of the UI. It works just fine in my opinion. Then at the same time, some piano key strikes are felt with a very beautiful sweetness and tonality that is on the musical end of the spectrum. That same guitar will then invert to a more sweetened tonality when Mr. Lagrene hits a harmonic. High Pitched Vocals The FiiO X3 III inherits a lot of design cues from its predecessors: we find the same rectangular landscape screen with a wheel below it, surrounded by four buttons. It is very similar to the FiiO X5 II, though the wheel is now fully touch and is flush with the rest of the front.
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My XRK Uber + X3II combo sounds very good and combined with the excellent UI, the experience is very enjoyable. I’d like to see the hardware used in the design that is friendlier to alteration in the next model. CNET wrote that high-resolution music 96kHz and 192kHz/24 FLAC sounded remarkable on the X3. The reviewer argued the sound on the X3 was "more complete and realistic" than that of the iPod. "Bass definition firmed up [...] after I spent a few hours with the X3 the iPod sounded rather bland and boring." [3] Just Audio uHA-120: The uHA-120 is a bit more open sounding than the X3 headphone output, but not by much. The differences are minimal. 7/10
However, FiiO has been a bit clever and added USB OTG support via firmware to the new X3 Gen 2, meaning you can add extra memory via flash drives much like Ibasso and the DX series. Given the ever-falling price of memory cards once you hit your micro SD card size limit with the X3 Gen 2 an extra OTG small flash drive might just be a very useful alternative.Usually, clinical tonality equates to a harsh feel to everything. But, in this case, the X3II is showcasing a rare quality: a flat bass and midrange quantity of equal portions, but with a more gentle approach. The 2.3″ screen is decent, but nothing more; its viewing angles are rather small and its brightness is acceptable. The 320 x 240 resolution is enough to provide a decent user experience. It could see a few improvements, though it works pretty well even as it is. Specifications FiiO X3 III Alongside the X7 Mark II, FiiO F5 and F9, FiiO made a big push for increased performance using their tried and tested value for money message that has served them well down through the years.
The mids are a bit more thin on the X3, they have good detail, but the more strainy/whiny sound they produce is less than desirable. This can add a bit of fatigue to the user, but the amount they are off by is not much. They have a slight upper mid spike of brightness at the very top of the range, but below that, the spike isn’t really there, and features a bit more subduing in the mid range.
It is still cheaper than the excellent DX50 from Ibasso and the Oppo HA-2 which might tempt some mobile phone users rather than buy a DAP. I wasn’t 100% sold on the X1, but I might just be on the X3 Gen 2 if it can do what it says it can do and do it well. What You Get Scanning on the new X3iii was much faster than the X1ii. Given they have the same processor I can only presume better optimization of the code from FiiO. It is still sluggish by mid-fi DAP standards taking 5 minutes and 42 seconds to update the media library with 2544 16BIT 44.1k FLAC files compared to 1 minute and 20 seconds on the X5iii. These use the FiiO X3’s line out so that the DAC remains the same while only the amp sections changes. Shonuyn 306a: The 306a has an overall good sound with the P2+1, but the bass isn’t all that strong and there is a slight hiss. The midrange is pushed a bit forward, and the overall sound signature isn’t as dynamic as the X3 headphone out. 5/10
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