FiiO BTR17 Portable Bluetooth DAC and Headphones Amplifier Review

Portable sources are increasingly common now, and we are seeing offerings from brands that never had any history with them even a year ago. Indeed, there are even new brands coming out of nowhere with their logo on a fairly generic slab using a cookie cutter formula of either ES9039 or CS43198 DACs and some equally ubiquitous op-amps. You'll see some offer Bluetooth connectivity too, although these are far fewer in number and end up costing more too. Bluetooth sources in 2024/25 are generally in three segments, with the first group being priced in the ~$150-250 range and being the smallest, the second group in the $500-1000 price range and using more desktop-class hardware while also being significantly larger, and finally true desktop sources which are generally without an internal battery and thus not portable. DAPs are a subset of the first two groups in not needing any client for the source signals, and generally run more expensive for the equivalent feature set as a result. Amidst all this competition, the ones losing out seem to be DAPs in the more budget price range and Bluetooth DAC/amps in the $500-1000 price range. The FiiO BTR17 is a very good example of a source that is explaining why both of these product segments are likely to see fewer entries going forward, and does so by also distinguishing itself from the overly similar sources aforementioned.

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Author:VSG ; From:techpowerup

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