Well, to put it bluntly, Radiohead is so not my music ;)   But thanks for the suggestion and for reading that one. I always think that no one reads the 'music' articles (the numbers confirms my impression).

  Yeah, I know what noise shaping is and that DACs have used it for quite some time. I can still remember all the talk about several noise shaping methods when 1 bit converters were introduced in the early '90s. I just wanted to know if that noise shaping feature is included in the IEC standard...

  Sorry for derailing the thread with my questions to saratoga. And in fact, I would buy the xDuoo X3 just to test it. But I don't, I want to get rid of all my FiiOs, too. A smartphone is a much better and way more convenient player ;)

  So the noise isn't dropped as I assumed it would, it's redistributed to frequency areas where it's less audible. Effectively, like SBM, UV22 or other ditherer used for CD mastering. Is this an idea by Rockbox or has it been standardized in the mp3 output specification?

You couldn't hear any noise with brickwall limited music, so I guess it was there but masked. But music with huge dynamic range? Yes, audible. And yes, they fixed it.     With noise shaping alone you can get below -96 dB? That is indeed sufficient. One other question: what happens to the...

  Have to chime in here. Yes, you told me years ago. Very obviously, I don't know how to measure the quantization error. I'm well aware that RMAA is a poor solution to perform meaningful tests when it comes to lossy codecs. My goal was a different one, I´ll return to this point later.   What...

  No idea. And I don´t care.

  Hehe... I´m not doing it anymore, I´ve cured myself from this nonsense. To reflect this I edited the quoted article accordingly in 2014 and wrote: "Almost two years have passed since I wrote this article and something has happened... well, I make it simple: I´ve stopped coating the edges of...

  I have roughly 48 MB/s write and 60 MB/s read on a Sandisk Extreme and 19 MB/s write / 48 MB/s read on a 'normal' MicroSD. Frankly, I never expected how much high speed - especially the first card - would improve convenience. So the purchase of the RDF 5 was one of the best things I ever did.

  The X1 is more than strong enough for the K550.   And just a slight suggestion: you already bought a pretty balanced headphone, you don´t need to correct perceived frequency errors. I myself didn´t buy it in the end because my ears started to sweat after 5 minutes of wearing them and...

First of all, save your money and don´t buy the E11K as the X1 is perfectly capable of driving your K550 (actually a good match since the slightly muffled X1 balances out the slightly glaring treble of the K550).   But invest it in a card reader. I´ve made good experiences with a Transcend RDF...

  Are the files perhaps 88.2 / 96 / 176.4 / 192? The EQ doesn´t seem to work with those samplerates (but I didn´t test it thoroughly).

So far, this has been a well working firmware for me. A Thank You to the FiiO Team!   I will be very soft now: Joe... did the firmware guys change the sound again? Perhaps even back to one of the first "signatures"? It´s more `in-your-face`, as if someone boosted the mono-material inside a file.

  Oh, I don´t object to the pausing at all, I just wanted to describe what happened in detail because I know that is what the FiiO guys like ;)   And yes, I use both of them regularly. The HO with headphones of course, the LO for the home stereo. I have always been too lazy to remove the...

Just discovered an issue with 3.30: line out and headphone out play simultaneously. The X3 didn´t do that before (at least not that I can remember). It´s not irritating, just surprising. I can repeat it all the time.   Example: listening through the line out, the moment I plug in a headphone...

  I still haven´t eliminated the possibility of a placebo on my part but I think nonetheless that there´s a distinct difference in stage and overall precision. But treble won´t be more sparkly, I seem to remember that FiiO deliberately engineered the X1 to sound this way.   But that´s it: if...

Playing through folders is indeed the best new feature. Didn´t know that I missed it until I´ve heard what it does and that even very old players like my Sony NW-HD 5 do it. BTW, did the firmware guys change something about the sound? I might suffer from a placebo but it seems as if overall...

  Yes, it´s the same technology from your stereo receiver. You don´t need to worry, I think. My X3 also clicks fairly loud; so did the touring-X5 I had for a week half a year ago.

The X5 and X3 use a relay to mute or unmute any analogue output. Meaning: when you unplug your headphone/line out cable, the relay mutes either output. These relays are mechanical, so you hear a click when unplugging. You should also have these clicks when you switch your X5 on or off. You...

  Your X3 must be a strange unit. For me, every firmware, starting with 3.0, has been much closer to the original sound of any file than any firmware before.

  Same regression here, gapless playback doesn´t work anymore. Using 24/88.2 FLAC and 48 kHz MP3.

Haven´t heard the line-out with 3.20 yet... but if it´s true that FiiO changed the sonic signature of the line-out... then that isn´t a good thing as it was extremely balanced before on all firmwares.   Regarding the headphone out, it now actually sounds more balanced. I´ve always said that...

  True. I´d even extend the dislike: if I´d be a recording engineer, I´d take PCM anytime.

  Sorry to interrupt: redbook layer doesn´t sound like the SACD layer (assuming that both were mastered the same). The SACD layer sounds a bit more airy with improved staging. However, the difference is very, very small. And yes, I did a DBT.   On the other hand, a true, high resolution DSD...

  Fair.