FiiO X1 Portable Player Preview

FiiO Has done it again, following the great success of the X5 to take it place in the audiophile communities as one of the leading high res players, FiiO came up with this great looking player to start competing with the with the affordable DAP’s. I was lucky to be one of the few to receive the pre launch edition from FiiO to test and review,so I’ll do a summarised preview here and later we’ll provide you with a more detailed and video review once we at samma3a finish testing it.

To be honest I was surprised when I first saw the FiiO X1 Portable Player , it is really compact and light weight, nicely detailed and finished with silver colour brushed aluminium, it has one headphone output which you can choose to use it as a line out while pairing the X1 with an Amp, or using it as a media source in a HIFi home system. The X1 has no built in memory, it has a single slot Micro SD that supports up to 128 GB so far and can be upgraded to higher capacities with future firmware upgrades. FiiO have utilized the latest Texas Instruments DAC Chips the PCM5142, in the X1 which allows it to support most of the High res audio formats except for the DSD and I’m not sure yet if they will do this in future upgrades as they did with the X3, but as of now the X1 supports APE, FLAC, WAV, WMA, ALAC up 192 kHz/ 24 bits. The operation system is really user friendly and responsive, I found it to be more optimised than the X5 while using the wheel, the wheel it self feels more comfortable and easier to use than the one installed in the X5. The FiiO X1 Portable Player has a built in 10 channel equaliser that you can set to your preference.

Sound quality was pretty impressive, details are really clear with almost no distortions and it can output enough power to drive most full sized headphones, It has a warm sound character highs are a little drowns back, and in comparison to the X5 it has a narrower sound stage, little lesser details and weaker bass other than these minor comments the X1 sounds amazing and for an untrained ear even these small differences are almost unnoticeable, and you can improve all that by pairing the FiiO X1 with the E11K the new matching Amp from FiiO.

After spending some time using the FiiO X1 I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great sound quality on a budget, it is a remarkable player for its price I think its one of the best out there.