FiiO X7 - Peak Performance, Palatable Cost
Author：Vividcard
Review from：Head-Fi
→→ Read the original article on Head-Fi：>> Click here
INTRODUCTION:
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had the ability to have our favorite hi res audio on the same device that allows us to find and listen to new music? A versatile device that allows the device to adapt to our needs? Enter the FiiO X7, Android based, packing some serious hardware. The X7 is designed to be a versatile all in one device for all of your music needs.
A device like this being released from FiiO has a lot of potential ups, but will definitely create some pretty good hurdles for FiiO and their engineers to get past to make this the device that every person wants. Thankfully, FiiO has an excellent record with listening to the customer voice and providing features and enhancements to make their devices even more desirable.
While the $650.00 price tag is definitely a high price, the features and functions packed into the device make the price well on point or even below, as most comparable devices are hitting well into the $1000 dollar range. The competition is also beginning to show their age. So does the FiiO X7 have what it takes to replace these behemoths in the ring?
ABOUT FIIO:
FiiO Electronics Technology Co., Ltd. Is a Chinese based audio company established in 2007. Rather than focusing on the information you can find on the about page, let’s focus on what they don’t say. FiiO has been making audio products that have become a staple of the head-fi and general audiophiles gear. Nearly everyone on our forums has at least had some time with one FiiO product or another. FiiO has made themselves known for inexpensive, high quality gear with a knack for customer focus. I feel this has helped FiiO become a strong contender in the few years of products they provide. If you want to know more about FiiO, please check out their about us page located below:
http://www.fiio.net/en/about.html
WHATS IMPORTANT (To me…):
Like most people, when I look for a device, I have set of demands or requirements that I would like the device to meet. I have included my list below, this will help you identify what I will focus on in my review. If you find your requirements to be similar to mine, you will likely feel the same about the device that I do.
For me, the x7 should have the following:
A high build quality, something sleek and good looking, but also functional
A decent battery life while understanding the limitations of the device’s extra features
A simple, easy to use interface
The ability to drive my gear, if possible with enough room to grow with my gear
Large, expandable memory
Charges with standard power cables (Please, no proprietary)
Many power steps: since the device doesn’t use a physical volume knob, it needs to have enough volume steps to allow me to fine tune volume
Wifi/Bluetooth connections: Bluetooth for the occasional on the go setup, and Wifi for…
Streaming options! If you can use android, let us use the streaming options of our choice! Tidal, Spotify… Pick your poison.
Water ‘Resistant’: Can I use this without fear in mild Oregon weather. I don’t want to fear pulling the device out in the rain.
These are the things that I felt were the most important to me prior to receiving the device. At the end of my review, I will cover if I felt FiiO hit these points for me.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Dimensions: 130 x 64 x 17mm Price (USD): $650.00 Material: Aluminum Weight: 7.4 oz Supported File Types (audio): APE, FLAC,WAV, ALAC, AIFF, WMA (Lossy/Lossless), MP3, AAC, OGG Battery: 3500 mAh (Non-replaceable) DAC Chip: ES9018S Amplifier: OPA1612 Hi-res Ability: 384/32bit Line Out: Yes Digital Out: Yes, 3.5mm to Coax cable (included) Internal Storage: 32GB External Storage: 1 Micro-SD slot up to 128GB Supported Screen: 4 inch 480x800 touch IPS Android version: 4.4.4 Bluetooth Version: 4.0+EDR Processor: Cortex A9 Quad cord 1.4ghz Ram: 1GB
More specs on the X7 can be found on FiiO’s own specs page located here: http://www.fiio.net/en/products/45/parameters
PACKAGING AND IN THE BOX:
Packaging for the device is elegant and practical. There are no wood or metal boxes or other fancy frills here. Box feels like it is of a good quality and will provide more than enough protection for the device. It also looks nice enough to draw you in. Personally I have never understood the need for a fancy box or anything. To me, this just translates into extra cost to the consumer. I’d rather keep my price low and have a better device.
Upon opening the device you will be presented with your aluminum beauty, as well as a decent set of extras. One thing I have always liked about FiiO is the number of included accessories. This is a small added value, but something that has probably saved my device once or twice. Included in this box kit is the following:
Coaxial Cable for Digital line out
T5 Screwdriver (For removing and changing amp modules)
Replacement T5 screws
USB cable
Warranty Card
3 total screen protectors (1 pre-installed, 2 extra)
I did note that the X7 did not include a simple case like most FiiO products. This could be due to the nature of the pre-release box and product, or it may not be included. Remember, as this is a pre-release device, things can change.
BUILD QUALITY/DESIGN:
The X7 is really an eye catching device. It is made out of solid 6061 aluminum and feels like a very high quality device. It feels very solid and has a decent heft for what it is. Some may consider its size cumbersome; however I use a larger smartphone, so I don’t find this an issue. The device is technically 2 parts, the top half is the screen and the actual device, whereas the bottom (Beginning just beneath the screen) is the interchangeable amp module. While the build between the two pieces is solid, I noticed some wiggling after some usage. Tightening the screws again seemed to do the trick. (***NOTE: This has been brought up to FiiO and us testers have been informed that this has been resolved in the production model’s of the device).
On the bottom of the device (Technically, the amp) you will find the Micro-USB charging port and the traditional headphone port. To the left side you will find the Volume +/- and the Power button, as well as the Micro-sd card slot. The right side uses symmetrical set of buttons for track up or down, as well as the play/pause button. Finally, on the top, you will find your line out port.
I did find that I was not a huge fan of the identical buttons on each side, as it was occasionally confusing. According to FiiO this is intended as it will allow settings to be modified for left or right hand usage. During my time I was not able to find this feature, which was sad as I am a fellow left hander. I also was not a fan of some of the other design ideas. Take for example raised screen, as it seems like it would make the device much less durable. I would have liked to see this flush mounted, even if it meant a slightly larger device. Finally, I would have liked to see a better implementation of the micro-sd card slot, perhaps inside the device and accessed via removing the amp module. I fear that the card may be popped out or rain may get into this slot and damage the internals.
The buttons have a nice feel and are easy enough to identify. The Blue LED looks really nice, but it would be nice to be able to disable this light, as it is always on and will fade in and out during charging. (***NOTE: This has been discussed and us testers have been informed this is to be added with a later software update) The device can get warm when playing, especially with the aid of Wifi or Bluetooth. But it’s not anywhere near hot. Otherwise, I find the device to be very slick looking with a very durable feel.
HARDWARE:
As the X7 is an android based device, many of us know what to expect for minimum specs. While the X7 uses a very conservative set of hardware in terms of general phone parts. It is powered by a quad-core Cortex A9 processor (1.4GHz) and 1 GB of ram. Many of us high end users may worry about the device’s ability to keep up in a resource intensive OS like android, but due to the stripped down version of Android 4.4.4 (At the time of writing) I have no fears this will power the device. I was able to use the FiiO music app flawlessly, as well as Spotify or Tidal streaming at highest qualities. During my testing I was only able to make the device have some lag when playing both Tidal and Spotify streaming, as well as FiiO music playing at the same time, which hopefully no one plans on doing.
You may ask what you’re paying for when you drop your wallet on this device only to find the mediocre processor and ram. The bulk of your money goes to the audio equipment, as it should. The DAC is a Sabre ES9018s. The Sabre is able to play PCM at up to 32/384 and DSD up to 127, it also sports 8 output channels. As a downside, FiiO has recognized that this is a primary battery drainer. Regardless of this, the device is still able to maintain about 9 hours of battery life. In my testing I was able to get roughly 8.5 hours of actual listening with the screen off using FiiO music. Spotify streaming yielded about 6.5 hours.
INTERFACE:
Because the FiiO X7 uses Android at its core for most of the OS, it’s worth noting that most things here are pretty common of Android. Because of this I won’t dive too much into the Android side of things. Most people these days have decided whether they like Android or not. There is a pretty good chance your at least considering the OS if your reading this review.
*Please Note: These experiences are based on the X7 version 1.0, which was the current version at the time of review*
Initial bootup of the device takes about 25 seconds. Once powered on the device can begin playing music in a matter of seconds. This boot time is pretty good for a smartphone based UI. By default, the device will simply boot to the Android home screen with a few basic icons on the screen. Absent from the device will be most of the common android applications, leaving just bare necessities such as the browser and calculator. But we didn’t buy this device to check our e-mail, did we?
FiiO music is located right on the main menu in the lower left by default. Clicking on the icon will open the default player. FiiO music seems to me that it is still a work in progress. Sure, it plays, and you can select music by song, artist, album, genre, or playlists. But my issue is that the app feels young. I give some leniency as the device is brand new, but as of writing the help files do not come in English, meaning we must use our intelligence and click and learn mentality to use the program.
After spending some time with the program, it is relatively intuitive, there is a settings menu accessible by swiping from left to right, here you will find your gain and balance settings, ect. The folder icon in the middle accesses music folders, to the left is the current playlist icon, and to the right is apparently a DLNA icon according to research, although this does not function as of writing. There is also a search icon in the upper right that will let you hone in on a song without having to surf the menus.
Some things about the application do bug me, for example, in the pictures you can see that the artist is shown, with an album art, and a play icon to the right. The very small play icon can be difficult to hit to play the artist, and clicking on the album art does nothing. You can go into the artist only by selecting the name. The same goes for album or genre selection. This can be a bit of a pain to use. I feel the play icon could be bigger, or at least less transparent. Maybe make clicking on the album art also take you into the next level as well.
One thing I did like is that FiiO has made this device an obviously flexible device. Originally, the X7 required an app be in the “Whitelist” to be used. After some mulling over, they have withdrawn this and can now allow any app to be installed on the device. This has a bit of a positive and negative effect. As it allows us to choose apps that may not be on the whitelist, but also means that the apps aren’t tested for compatibility or negative side effects.
Most common audiophile apps work without issue. Among those tested, I was able to successfully use Spotify, Tidal, Amazon music, Slacker, and Pandora using the latest APK’s (android app installer files). The issue is that there is no easy way to download these files at this time. As the X7 does not have Google play installed on the device, you cannot download the app from the play store. You must obtain the installer’s from other sources which are not always reliable. Another thing to remember is that with the absence of the Google framework, many apps will not work. For example, YouTube, YouTube music, Google Music, and other apps that require Google framework do not work.
It is hard to hold these things against FiiO, as they just recently made this change and they do not test these additional apps. Perhaps with time the Google framework or even the store will be added. Some apps will conflict with each other. For example, one thing that bugged me to the point of uninstalling an app was Tidal. The app worked wonderfully, but sometimes I wanted to use Spotify or FiiO Music. When Tidal was on, even in the background, it took over the audio controls. This meant sometimes even when playing FiiO Music if I pressed track skip, FiiO Music would pause, Tidal (which was only on in the background) would skip to the next track and begin playing. This didn’t happen every time, but when it did, nothing short of a force stop would resolve this. Eventually this lead to me uninstalling the app. Once again, I can hardly blame FiiO for this, but it would be nice if FiiO can address this if it’s caused by their equipment.
Finally, it is important to note that while Wifi and Bluetooth are present (and working well) on the device, they will mark a considerable drain on the battery. Sometimes the additional apps installed and just the basic android processes could do a number on the device as well. FiiO has come up with a solution for this called “Pure Music Mode”. In Pure Music mode, the device strips down Android to the core and only runs the absolute basics to run just FiiO Music. This helps the battery considerably and makes avoiding other tasks running in the background a simple task. You can even set up the device to boot in pure Android mode as well. This setting can be changed at will with the device as well, so it can be toggled as needed. It is worth noting that Bluetooth and Wifi can still be turned on or off in pure music mode.
THE SOUND:
So, how does it sound? The FiiO X7 has so many ways to listen to music. With numerous streaming options, it’s own player, and even additional options for dedicated players. Over my 10 day period with the device I used the device primarily with FiiO Music, Spotify, and for some time Tidal. While other apps were tested, they were only to confirm working order.
For me, as well as several of the people on the head-fi forum, the sound that comes from the X7 is a very 3D sound. It seems as though all levels and frequencies are highlighted. Normally this would create a confused sound that will usually make me put down a device, but something about the way it played went really well together. I think it may have to do with the fact that while all frequencies were highlighted, they were still separated. Individual instruments were easy to pick out from even the most complex tracks. Voices stood out and clear. Treble was bright, but not to a point where a bass-head would be turned off, and vice versa.
I did find that while this sound quality was found from the several IEM’s tested. (RHA 750i, Shure Se 425 and 215, ect.) Some headphones simply did not make the cut. Attempting to use my Hifiman HE-400’s I could barely get to listening volume on Spotify or Tidal. While the volume was enough in FiiO music, I found that the sound fell flat for me. Treble was pulled back from the others, making the sound a bit more veiled and muddy. It should be noted that the only amp on hand was the IEM module, and as such I didn’t place much expectation on the sound. Perhaps a full sized headphone amp module would resolve this issue. Similar sound quality is obtained from the Mad Dog Alphas.
While I do not have any significantly hard to drive headphones (or IEM’s for that matter) many others have reported that even harder to drive IEM’s seem to do well with the current amp pairing. In pairing against the FiiO X7 I only had access to my smartphone collection and my FiiO X1, all of which I was able to pair with my Q1 amp. The X7 did more than well at decimating any sound quality from my smartphone. It also had the added benefit of being a separate device that didn’t interrupt my listening with badgering notifications.
Comparing between the FiiO X1/Q1 and the X7 the audio quality was noticeably better, however, not as much as I was initially expecting. With the X1 the Bass is nice and punchy, without being overly so. The treble is nice but not forward, and the mids make me melt. I preferred singer/songwriter genre’s out of my stack more than the x7. But with the X7, fast paced songs were more energetic. Sibilance was practically non-existent. The X7 also has the nice ability to access both my actual files and my streaming content in one device.
For obvious reasons, smartphones and the X7 sounded identical with Bluetooth headsets, This makes sense due to the way the Bluetooth audio is streamed. That being said, it is a nice, handy extra.
HOW DID IT FAIR?
If you’ve stuck with me this far you already know how well or not well it hit my checkboxes. But in case you wanted to skim, here is the short of it:Yes, absolutely. It feels like a solid device. Some style choices were questionable, such as the raised screen. But overall, the device is great!
A high build quality, something sleek and good looking, but also functional
9 hours is a fair deal, especially since I was very near this in actual testing. Less time came when using streaming. Would I like better battery life? Yes. But for what it is, I am pleased.
A decent battery life while understanding the limitations of the device’s extra features
It’s essentially Android, you may disagree, but I found it easy and intuitive. The FiiO music app could use some help here and there, but it’s still pre-production, and FiiO is constantly listening and updating.
A simple, easy to use interface
This was a tossup for me. It powered most of my gear, but left much to be desired from my HE-400 cans. A different amp module may fix this, but without being able to test this, it was a no for me. This may change however.
The ability to drive my gear, if possible with enough room to grow with my gear
32gb internal (something like 27gb useable) and supported 128GB additional, this is more than enough for me. Especially if the size is expanded in future updates.
Large, expandable memory
Micro USB. Yup, were good here
Charges with standard power cables (Please, no proprietary)
120 Steps, more than enough to fine tune. Although changing faster using hard buttons would be nice
Many power steps: since the device doesn’t use a physical volume knob, it needs to have enough volume steps to allow me to fine tune volume
Yes, Yes, and both work well!
Wifi/Bluetooth connections: Bluetooth for the occasional on the go setup, and Wifi for…
Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, Slacker, and Pandora all tested and working perfectly. So yes.
Streaming options! If you can use android, let us use the streaming options of our choice! Tidal, Spotify… Pick your poison.
Another tossup; the device feels solid and everything, but the top port for line out sometimes scares me. I’m also not a fan of the exposed micro SD card slot both due to moisture and the potential for accidental removal of the card.
Water ‘Resistant’: Can I use this without fear in mild Oregon weather. I don’t want to fear pulling the device out in the rain.
CONCLUSION:
The FiiO X7 is a solid device that is capable of delivering a solid bang for the buck. Sleek and stylish, the Aluminum body has a natural heft that makes it feel sturdy without being obtrusive. The symmetrical button design can be confusing at first, but is easy enough to get past.
Being that the device is Android based, it is very simple to navigate and will allow several apps to customize the experience for each owner. The FiiO app is still in its infancy, meaning it has room for improvement, but FiiO is listening and very receptive. With a bit of time, the preinstalled app can become something great. In the meantime it is more than usable, and if you disagree, you can always install a different app to manage your player.
The sound is well hammered out and sounds fantastic. The audio is well presented and layered. Sibilance is non-existent. And the nice thing is that, if nothing else, this is one of the few things that can’t easily be changed with software updates. To know this is great out of the pre-production box is fantastic!
Is the device worth the $650.00 USD price tag? This is a subjective question, but I feel that while I am not ready to put this money down yet, I can see this device being something to keep my eye on, as the Price to performance and versatility is worth every penny. If some of the promised changes appear soon, I may be adding a new device to my inventory!
EQUIPMENT USED:
Headphones – RHA 750, Shure SE 425, Shure SE 215, Bose IEM2, Beats studio wireless, Hifiman HE-400
DAP – FiiO X1, Lumia 1520, HTC One M8, Asus Zenfone 2
AMP/DAC – FiiO X1
Songs – Pentatonix: Standing By, Fleetwood Mac: Go Your Own Way, Foo Fighters: Saint Cecilia, Muse: Supermassive Black Hole, Matthew And The Atlas: Out of the Darkness
*All songs were tested using either Spotify Premium high quality, Tidal Hifi, or Red Book lossless, usually 16/44.1*
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