Mastodawn

Fiio dropped one of the most unusual and high value products I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to wrap your head around how much this does. It’s a CD Player, it’s a usb CD drive that rips CDs to your computer, it rips CDs to a usb drive, it’s got a DAC and a headphone amp that plays digital audio from usb. It plays CDs digital to an external DAC. It does even more but I only have 500 characters.
#WeirdAudioMastodon

My use case is pretty simple. I can drop my CD player and put this on top of my Mac mini server and use it to rip CDs to my computer or stream CDs directly to my DAC. the funny thing is I wouldn’t even use a third of its features. I wanted something like this soooo bad five years ago and couldn’t believe no one has made one. I guess the day has arrived. It’s a nice piece of kit for $150. This could be your entire desktop headphone setup.

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark I bought a fiio that sends wireless lossless audio. The sending end is essentially a USB sound card. We've had it nearly 10 years and it is still kicking along

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark seems like they're still making good stuff

@chilort they’re one of the best chifi brands for entry level gear. I have a DAP they made a decade ago that I love for its sweet sound. The newer stuff doesn’t sound as good to me. They aparently came out with a DAC/headphone amp combo that uses an R2R DAC for under $200. People say it’s very good for the money but nothing that dethrones the entry level $650ish R2R DACs. I think it’s mostly held back by its output stage which is expected at the price.

@chilort a lot of those high end Bluetooth codecs are lossy. A cheap rpi WiFi streamer can give you piece of mind. Do you know what codec it uses?

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark no clue

@chilort I think LDAC came out in 2015. It was billed as high res but it’s not actually lossless. It’s annoying because it has enough bitrate to support a lossless CD quality stream. If this is for your nice Klipsch system with that really nice tube amp this could be an inexpensive bottleneck in your chain. Only because you have a *crazy* nice setup.

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark oh, no. We use the fiio to send music outside when I've got that system set up (parts have been in the garage for painting purposes). My current dac is built into the MiniDSP SHD (never used DiracLive before and, um, I can do a better job with REW). I can't hardly wait to build the sub I'm going to build to go with the Belles (similar to LilMike's LilWrecker but more for music than movies)

@chilort I’ve read that Dirac really is the best. What it does that’s bigger than just fixing tonality and timing errors is that it creates a larger sweat spot in a stereo. REW can sound as good as Dirac in one seat but the Dirac system might sound good in 2-4 seats.
The super high end RR, Bentley, and Volvo systems all use extremely complex custom Dirac software. In the Volvo it has a setting that optimizes sound for JUST the driver and one that sounds good for everyone.

I don’t remember if I made this post but a year or so ago I wanted to do a thread on Dirac and how much of a game changer it is. When you add your horn loaded subs it will help a Lot with bass integration. With mini dsp you can even do quad subs in the entire space and tune them to have a good even sound in the entire listening space.

If you use Dirac with Roon you can actually use it streaming in a car if you use a vpn. Dirac can’t stop you from using your license to stream to your car.

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark I've got some other things I need to work on with 40 year old crossovers that are considered the worst crossover used in the Belles (Volti should be coming to the rescue). DiracLive is trying to work on things where it isn't very good

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark this is the most informative link I could find about the old fiio I've got: https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonicelectronix.com%2Fitem-73889-FiiO-W1-W1T1-W1R1.html&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl2%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

@chilort this is definitely not lossless but fine for an outdoor audio system. I can’t find the manual for it so it’s old. There are some Pretty affordable setups that will let you do lossless multi room with outside and inside if you want to throw sprawling parties. It’s cheaper than Bluetooth was ten years ago. Just in the last several years there was a very very low cost off the shelf option to come out that changed the game.

chilort Nov 11, 2024

@Mark funny that they sure advertised it as lossless. A little translation issue

Gregg Alley Nov 11, 2024

@Mark I’ve been hearing about this bad boy, for a while. Here’s the product page: https://www.fiio.com/dm13

Guangzhou FiiO Electronics Technology Co., Ltd.-DM13

Guangzhou FiiO Electronics Technology Co., Ltd.

@Galley it’s kind of ridiculous that it has dual mono DACs. Like the thing holding back the sound is not using one DAC chip.