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FIIO Q3 Headphone Amps Amplifier Portable High Resolution DAC DSD512 for Smartphones/PC/Laptop/Home/Car Audio Compatible with iOS/Android 2.5/3.5/4.4mm Output (Q3-MQA)

£69.995£139.99Clearance
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About this deal

On the phone side, iPhone users may want to buy a suitable cable, especially for Hip DAC 2, for it doesn’t provide the cable, but once you get the correct cable, they will work seamlessly too. We instantly prefer the FiiO because of its accessories, so you can hook the device regardless of whether you have an iPhone or Android phone. FiiO Q3 and iFi Hip DAC 2 Battery Life One of the best features of FiiO's Q line is the use of an analogue potentiometer volume knob that is very much to our liking. Perhaps these two beautifully designed pieces of FiiO equipment were voiced together, as they scaled exceptionally well, provided tight, prodigious bass, a beautiful midrange, increased transparency, and a smooth, sibilance free treble. There is nothing to complain about given the level of musical engagement and the technicalities that this combination provides.

Internally the Q3 is completely renovated with all components and circuit arrangement being brand new. Minimal bias current and highly efficient power management to optimize and extend device battery life.

At the other end of the device there is the data/charging usb type C port plus three extra buttons. Like most modern USB-DAC, the FiiO Q3 doesn’t need any driver on most computers. If you’re using a MAC, this is no surprise as Apple has made a mission to ensure that every device you’ll connect will work directly…ish. Obviously, with an MFi certification, it would have been a shame otherwise. If you think about it, every musical instrument has its birth, grows its shape, as it chooses its skin—metal, wood, glass, reeds—and develops its own unique tone / timbre. Though there are various families—woodwinds, brass, strings, keyboard, idiophones, friction instruments, and percussion—that share, within families, similar to overlapping voices. And there are literally hundreds of different instruments with unique voices. Perhaps, the various HiFi and headgear companies in world are much like musical instrument makers, in that they attempt to give a voice—warm, neutral, bright, detailed, Class A, transparent, a combination thereof—and a form—tubed, solid-state, reflex loaded, planar, etc.—to their various creations, recreations. Think of a company. Now think of its voice and its form. They all have voices, they all have forms. This brings us to a relatively new voice and form for me—FiiO.

Q3 is also Apple MFi (Made For iDevices) certified meaning that it will work exceptional with any of their portable or desktop units. It is USB-C certified too, meeting standard specifications to ensure a wider compatibility with Android smart devices. I tried a few options and all of Shanling/FiiO/ iBasso players that I received, worked like a charm. Sure, it doesn’t sound as good as the classic output if you use an M15, but it’s a nice option to have. DAC Connection The Q3’s 1800 mAh battery provides for up to 10 hours of continuous play, with a 2.5 hour charging time to fully refresh the FiiO Q3. The FiiO Q11 is extremely simple to use. Okay, not as much as the KA5, or the iBasso DC03Pro, but still, unless you’re completely dumb (or don’t read the manual, RTFM) you should be up and running in a matter of seconds. Overall sound profile is natural and pleasant with an even tonal balance and good extension just rolling off at the extremities of both ends.

The FiiO Series

Mids gave me no issues and everything came through super clear and detailed. Vocals were a pleasure to listen to as well. I never ran into sibilance with female vocals on brighter mid focused headphones. Short press the button to switch between low/high gain (light on for high gain, lights off for low gain) The FiiO's volumetric cube—sound stage—is quite large and, at times, holographic, in that it spans good depth and height and width and, yet, is intimate when called to be so. Positioning and layering are also quite good as is image solidity and there is very good transparency and thus detail retrieval. Though the best and the more expensive across this category would, no doubt, extract more detail, nuance, and microdynamics. The Q3 comes with the same XMOS XUF208 USB chip as found on FiiO’s flagship DAC/amplifier, allowing it to easily support decoding up to 768kHz/32bit PCM and DSD512. The FiiO Q3 has a 1,800mAH battery which the company says should last 10 hours or more, even under USB decoding. I found battery life fluctuated between 9 and 12 hours. It depends on how loud the music is and the signal being sent into the DAC. I think the battery life is acceptable, but maybe getting something more along the lines of 15-20 hours may be more acceptable to other users. Price/Value

So in most cases while on the go or at the office even relaxing at home we have listened to a lot of music of various genres without missing a lot. The rated power output of the Q3 is higher than the Q1 mkii with 160mW/32Ω and 300mW/32Ω from the balanced out. The FiiO Q3 has a pretty large stage for a precise and clear placement and separation of instrument and vocals. The neutral tonality and the wideness of the stage do help to make a quite spacious and airy atmosphere. The soundstage shows a good level of wideness, while the depth is on an average level. The FiiO Q3 offers a pretty detailed and natural midrange character, with a good level of airiness and clarity. The midrange is soft but also lively that doesn’t tire your ears.It has more options for balanced output, having a 2.2mm and a 4.4mm pentacom connectors, in addition to the 3.5mm unbalanced one Everything was going great with my tests, I started from the bottom and tested it with the Moondrop Quarks, Tanchjim Tanya, Hifiman HE-4XX and it worked flawlessly with all of them, with plenty of definition and power, even to drive the 4XX to hurtful levels.

Last but least, the FiiO Q3 is provided with a line input, where you can connect your own DAC or DAP. This way, you can bypass the DAC and just use the embedded amp, to pump up the power. The FiiO Q5S is the brand’s portable DAC/AMP flagship. It enjoys a dual AKM DAC, a full balanced circuit, the same swappable amp system, and a better Bluetooth connection. Like Apple, the S at the end of the name suggests that FiiO only added a few upgrades, instead of making a completely new device.Lows have a nice small boost that gives a little fun bump to low end on most headphones. Over ears or iems that sound lean in the low end won’t be fixed by the Q3. The bass boost can indeed help with lean sounding audio gear. The bass creeped into the lower mid range a little too much for my taste so I’d leave it alone if bass is adequate enough. The XMOS XU208 is a 32-bit multicore microcontroller that brings the low latency and timing determinism of the xCORE architecture to mainstream embedded applications. With a 2600mAh battery, I expected the Q11 to outperform the old FiiO Q3 by large. But in reality, both DAC/AMP achieves the same real life numbers, with a full day of listening, or 14h in my case. But, if you were to alternate phone and computer with your FiiO Q11, you shall never need to charge it more than once a week. Technically. In terms of power the Hip-DAC’s balanced headphone output (400mW) has an edge over the Q3 at 32Ω (300mW) and an edge at 600Ω with 66.15mW to the Q3’s 35mW, prior to “Gain” boost. The Gain boost, however, increases the Q3’s power to 100mW. The FiiO Q3 decodes to DSD512 and samples to 768kHz/32-bit, while the Hip-DAC decodes to DSD256 and samples to 384kHz/32-bit. Suffice to say, that either will play 100% of the Qobuz catalog. However, only the Hip-DAC will decode Tidal’s MQA files, while the FiiO Q3 will not and for some this may well be the differentiating factor. This is one of the tightest calls that I have yet to make on two pieces of equipment from the perspective of sound and technology and cost.

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