FiiO X5 (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

I bought this about a year ago and it's still going strong. Love this thing.This is 5 stars to me personally because it's everything I want, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.Pros:So much storage: two micro SD cards means up to half a TB of music, I'm just about full on my 200 GB SD card, still have a whole 128 GB SD card free.Simple: As a person who wants nothing but my music, this is perfect for me. The device does one job, plays music, and it does it well. No matter what you're doing on the device while music is playing, it will make sure that your music isn't interrupted, lags, or anything, even when the menu lags (see Cons).Rewards those who put time into their collection: If you put the time in, you can do a lot with playlists and folder organization that helps you get to the music you want.Pretty sturdy: I wouldn't say it's a brick, it's not like some phones today where the screen will crack by you looking at it wrong. Mine is pretty beat up as you can see in the pictures, dropped it a few times, haven't had any issues.Cons: (there may be a lot of these, but for me, they don't bother me much, but you may see it differently depending)Difficult to use: The menus are very slow once you get into the 100 GB range. If you're using the "Categories" section, expect 15-30 seconds delays after choosing an option. To speed things up, I use the folders section since I already organized my folders by artist/album.Playlists hard to make: you have to create playlists in foobar2000 on your laptop, then export the playlist, edit the file to be Linux file locations, then move them over. Sounds annoying, I found it pretty fun and knowing how the playlists work makes it versatile. Of course, many will just find it annoying.It's a high quality player, meaning it can run and hot and have lower than expected battery life: I've never run out of battery in a single day, but I've have music players that last weeks before needing to be charged, so that may come unexpected to some. I worst I charge it overnight, some times I don't have to charge it for a few days. And yes, you can expect the device to be a bit warm as times.Overall: It's perfect for a minimalist who just wants a dedicated music device that's high quality, and has a ton of storage. If you're spoiled by music apps on your smart phone and are expecting something at that level, you'll be very disappointed. It's not easy to use. But, as I said, it rewards those that put time into their music collection.Tips: (If you do plan on getting it, here's some quick things I found helpful) Organize your music by artist/album so you can use the Folders section most of the time. Get foobar2000 for playlists. Get FreeFileSync to make it easy to sync your files from your computer to your FiiO. Turn on Gapless Playback in the Settings. For the album nerds who hate gaps between their songs. The left headphone jack is LOUD. It uses max volume from the device at all times. Perfect if you don't want to control two volume controls. I use this when playing music in the car. Right headphone jack for regular volume control. If you like to shuffle all songs, and you just turned on your device from full reboot, choose the Now Playing section, it will default to showing all songs, then you can choose one, then set it to shuffle from there. Found this to be handy. Patience. Enjoy!

I don't remember the last time i was so excited for an amazon shipment. After years of my ipod 160gb i finally decided to upgrade and was delighted to read all the great reviews on the x5 which at this point costs less than a used version of the ipod classic.first the good, which is exceptional: the sound quality. With a good pair of headphones (using Sennheiser HD600) they clarity is stunning. For the cost especially, i was blown away.That unfortunately, is mostly where it stops. Quick background: I have ~240GB and growing of music, big chunk in apple lossless, and i love to listen to playlists.With that, I chose the X5 over other products (e.g. X1) due to having 2 memory slots and a better amp to drive the senns (really don't want to have an external amp as i'll be using this both at home and work). the 2 slots is great and leads as 400 GB of storage (2 x 200 GB), however, i run into a big problem with my playlists: the playlists can only reference files from an individual card. So I can't just create a playlist and arbitrarily send half my music to one slot and half to the other as playlists won't work. To keep going on the playlist theme; so far they are a PITA to create. The x5 supports m3u files but they need to be meticulously syntaxed to reference right - the path needs to be perfect. Generally not that big of a deal if not for the next issue:The wheel/button control to move from one file to the next is painfully slow. There's no fast scrolling like with apple, so for someone with hundreds of artists/folders, this becomes nearly impossible to use. The solution here is to create for example folders A-B which has all artists A-B so its easier to reference. It's a pain to do, but once done it's all set. The problem here now becomes those m3u playlists again; you need the syntax to reflect that same folder structure. I manage my music library through itunes so this won't work; either way i'll need to now have an entirely sperate copy of all the music which is in this indexed structure. Perhaps can create a quick program using VBA or something to do this for me, but really becoming a hassle quickly + very inefficient use of my hardrive on my desktop but i guess a backup isn't end of the world. Another solution i may have for now is to have one disc full of "folders" which are really just playlists, and the other just having raw music. This means having another copy of each of the songs.So far, having some issues using this player in an intuitive manner. First, the "categories" aren't being populated; i can only browse music through folders and no by artist. This is probably what I would do anyway given the speed of scrolling, but still not sure why it's happening. On that note too, i loaded ~90 GB on the player so far and there's quite a bit of lag moving from one screen to the other.The manual, if you can call it that, isn't helping with any of these issues. It's "primitive" to say the least, but from what i can tell Fiio answers questions quickly on their forums.Other things IPOD can do that this can't:Play all music by one artist w/in a folder. For example i want to shuffle all of Adele as opposed to going album by album. However, for some reason, when i do choose a specific album, and it finishes playing the music, it moves on to the next folder available which is really weird. This may be a setting.Play by composer. This is a category i actually would use if it worked as i enjoy lots of classical music and keep my library maintained such that only classical music has the composer on itUpload music quickly; it takes a very long time to transfer these files. Given how much time i'll have to invest on re-organizing my library, looking forward, each time i add a new cd it sounds or playlist it's going to be painful.Memory of playing: say you do browse all the way down to your "T"s and are playing the three tenors. If you do go back to the main screen (some of quick buttons are nice for this) then go back to your folders, it starts all the way back at the top. Almost screamed when i saw this, though looks like going thorough "now playing" then hitting return can solve this.After all that...I'm likely going to keep this player. The music is awesome and though it will take a lot of time, the storage does out-do the Ipod after all is said in done (especially when 256GB cards become affordable). I hope i can find a way to make some of the big painpoints not so bad. I read lots of reviews saying that the UI isn't like the IPod and takes getting used, but the amount of functionality I have to give away is hard to get over - some of the things (play all songs in folder) seem like easy programming. 5 stars for sound quality; -3 stars for usability.UPDATE (1 week)I have resolved a few of the issues, continue to love the sound, and have a couple of the other gripes.Generally speaking, the management of the music folders just takes a lot more effort. But a lot more effort over ITunes is sitll not that much effort and a worthwhile investment. The play through folders was a setting issue. Turns out to have the categories work you need to click on "update library" in the player everytime music is added/changed. This process takes up to 5-10 minutes and then categories show up. From here, you can play all music by an artist if that's imperative. I built a excel spreadsheed w/ some VBA coding to convert the m3u playlists to suit the player and that works fine (like i said, it's more than no effort on ITunes, but still not that much). Moving by music into folders A, B, etc. wasn't terribly difficult and shouldn't be that hard to manage. Makes the UI much more reasonable.One other thing the IPod does that this doesn't: automatically sort bands with "The". for example "The Eagles" would show up under E in the IPod. I ended up making a separate folder called "The" and will have to remember which bands truly have a "The" in front of their name. This ends up being the biggest folder i have but manageable.A nice feature between the two memory cards is you can create on-the go playlists that combine data from both cards. Not sure then why we can't get the m3us to cross between the two cards. If it could, this would be a 4 star player. Upgrading to 3 star however.Update: 1 YearI use my FIIO daily and love it. Really don't even think twice about my gripes above anymore. Once the folders are sorted, adding is really easy. Love it. Upgrading to 4 stars. Looks like price came down quite a bit -- would highly recommend this.

I really liked this product. Its design is clean, and the interface buttons are easy to use. The software interface is different from that used in iPod , but it is still easy to use and intuitive. The FiiO X5 II is bigger and heavier than the FiiO X3 II, but not too much, which makes it quite portable. The use of removable memory cards that can be directly managed is very convenient, since I personally do not like to have to use software like iTunes to manage my files. You can easily create folders, rename files and change their attributes using Windows. Besides that, FiiO X5 II supports two memory cards, and you can have as many memory cards as you want and change them easily. The sound quality is awesome! It is very clear and balanced. It is better than the sound of FiiO X3, which I think is already very good. FiiO X5 II is not very cheap, but is much cheaper than many high resolution audio players available today. In my opinion, it is a very good product for the price.

Excellent player, but the interface needs a lot of work. You have to step through layers of menus to do anything. You should be able to go directly to the menu item you want. Other reviewers have provided detail on this, so scan other reviews for details.One negative is that you can't create a playlist on your computer that mixes songs that are on the two different SDC cards. That's a disappointment. I haven't tried to create a playlist directly using the interface on the player. The interface is just too cumbersome to work with.The sound is great, but there are a lot things regarding the interface, etc. that shouldn't be here for what is otherwise a sophisticated player.

Fino ad ora il miglior DAP che abbia mai avuto, ha tutto quello che un lettore portatile deve avere: suono fantastico, pulito, neutrale, solido, rifinito benissimo, 2 slot per memorie sd (il che vuol dire poter arrivare a 256 gb + 256 gb) . Come ogni prodotto FiiO ha una dotazione ricchissima e completa, cavi, diversi salva schermo, bumper protettivo trasparente. Ho provato anche il 3rd gen che costa di più, ma non suona bene come il suo predecessore. Lo consiglio senza riserve

Excellent HiRes player

At first lot of thank to Amazon and Cloudtail for super first delivery as a Amazon prime customer. It take only two days reached to me. Previously I hear the Dolby Surround with HTC ONE ME and I also heard SONY XPERIA X HI-RES SOUND both are very good Quality of sound but as a mobile. FIIO X5 ONLY a music player It is not right to compare with them as I think. I did not hear the sound of FIIO X3. I do not know the sound Quality of X3. So I can say the only experience with the X5. I can say I heard something more in a song through it. That was more clear from my previous device. It deep bass and warm sound bring me another atmosphere. but it does not support all of the music format. Like DSD2, SACD DST ENCODE ETC. I think it deliver -320 kbps mp3- very goodFLAC, APE - so good, very very good I think it is a FLAC playerWAV (standered)- GOODDTS WAV-BADDSD -GOODSACD -GOOD

x3から、買い替えました。使っているヘッドホンはMade cd900st あんぶれらかんぱにーしようですx3よりも 音が、広まり、一つ一つがくっきりしたような感じがしました。ホールで例えるなら、座席の前から、指揮者の位置に移動したと言う感じかなぁ思い切って、購入して、良かったと思いました。改善点を挙げるとすれば、ファイルから、再生をした場合に、次のSDカードに 移動して、続けて再生してくれるようになればいいかなと思います私は目が見えないので、いつもファイルから再生をして、決まった順序で聞いているので、せっかく、2枚カードをさせても、今のままでは意味がありません。 Updateで、これができるようになれば 文句なしの機種になります。書き忘れてましたが、ウォークマンの、英30も、持っていたことがありますが、こちらの方が、良いですよ。ハイレゾも試しましたし、dsd 音源も、聞いてみた感想です。聞いている曲は、クラシックです。それから、ヘッドホンは、アンプを使わずに直ざしです。Btl900 も借りてはみたのですが、私はそこまで必要とは感じませんでした。この機会だけで、充分良い音でした。

Pros:- Sound Quality- Build (Materials) Quality- Intuitive UI- Plentiful Options- USB DAC Mode- Volume Range- Customizable "Max Volume" Limit- Mechanical Scroll Wheel- Native Lossless Files Support- Comes with 3 Screen Protectors & Vinyl Skins- Button LayoutCons:- Can get a bit warm when charging or in DAC mode- Poor Windows driver support- Benefits not noticeable with cheap headphones/earphones and bad quality music (lossy files)TL;DR - Very satisfied purchase. Noticeably more articulate & controlled than Android phone audio and on board PC/Mac audio. Surprising amount of settings. I have the Black colour and it looks incredible.Sound Quality (with different headphones/earphones & sources):Other Test Sources: LG G3, Xonar Essence STXSennheiser HD 650 - Very articulate and a wide separation between the instruments. I listened to a few Jazz tracks, Electronic, Alternative and Classical and it sounds much better than the Xonar Essence sound card. Bass is more pronounced but controlled, mids resonate nicely all while the highs sing without being overpowered. Your songs will sound more whole and fuller as a result. Being 300 ohm headphones, my phone had a hard time driving them, but the X5 it has no problem. It was almost unbearably loud at volume setting 80 and my desired volume at 60-65, but the X5's volume setting can go up to 120.MEE Audio M6 Pro - Likewise, very articulate and controlled. My ears get fatigued listening to music on my phone or off an iMac if I keep them on for too long, but I don't feel any kind of fatigue from the X5. No instrument over powers another and the X5 projects your songs in a tight, satisfying listening experience.Sennheiser HD8 DJ - Out of the 3 headphones/earphones I listened with, the difference was the least noticeable with these if at all. By no means am I saying it sounded bad, but it sounded great with my phone and pretty much the same as the Xonar Essence and the X5.