[Drakester]

Volume wheel feels alright - knob seems to be metal and doesn't wobble. Also it's not turning continuously and there is a slight feedback on every step - there are 120 steps and my guess is that they are all 0,5 dB increments.

I can't properly test either channel balance or noise floor as I don't own any IEMs (I don't really like IEMs at all). Easiest to drive headphones I have are Beyerdynamic T5.3 and Focal Stellia (both dynamic, around 30 ohm and very sensitive), but they can't really compare to sensitive IEMs.

Just for the sake of it, I tried connecting T5s in, setting gain to ultra (highest), lower the volume to 12 (lowest I could go and still hear reasonably well) and listen any channel imbalance. If there is any channel imbalance, I couldn't hear any. Same with noise floor - I left the gain on ultra, set volume to 120 and tried to listen, but I could hear any noise whatsoever - it was perfectly silent.

RME has a special gain setting for IEM (it has low power, high power and IEM; IEM setting behaves weirdly with full sized headphones so there's definitely something going on in this mode), but given the fact that Fiio has 5 gain settings available, I think it should have a working setting for most, if not all IEMs.

How do you feel the K19 works with your Focal Stellias?
I pulled the trigger on those last week when they were discounted and waiting for delivery, I have the K19 and also own the HEKse .

 

[streets112]

How do you feel the K19 works with your Focal Stellias?
I pulled the trigger on those last week when they were discounted and waiting for delivery, I have the K19 and also own the HEKse .

I might be biased here as I think Utopia 22 is the best sounding headphone and Stellia is the second best.

Stellia is for sure is the best sounding headphone I own. It's the exact sound signature I like and I never heard is sound poorly out of anything I tried (desktop, dap, dongle - amazing all the time, it sounded great out my old DX160 or even E30/L30 stack), which is really good, otherwise I would have thrown it away long ago. It is one of the worst build headphones out the and terribly designed (heavy, not enough adjustments, barely enough padding, cheap construction that literally squeaks ... in terms of build, its a disaster).

Out of K19 it sounds really bassy - it was fine for me, but I can imagine it might be too much for some people. I've not tried it yet, but I suppose you could EQ it, if it's too much.

 

[grainjar]

Volume wheel feels alright - knob seems to be metal and doesn't wobble. Also it's not turning continuously and there is a slight feedback on every step - there are 120 steps and my guess is that they are all 0,5 dB increments.

I can't properly test either channel balance or noise floor as I don't own any IEMs (I don't really like IEMs at all). Easiest to drive headphones I have are Beyerdynamic T5.3 and Focal Stellia (both dynamic, around 30 ohm and very sensitive), but they can't really compare to sensitive IEMs.

Just for the sake of it, I tried connecting T5s in, setting gain to ultra (highest), lower the volume to 12 (lowest I could go and still hear reasonably well) and listen any channel imbalance. If there is any channel imbalance, I couldn't hear any. Same with noise floor - I left the gain on ultra, set volume to 120 and tried to listen, but I could hear any noise whatsoever - it was perfectly silent.

RME has a special gain setting for IEM (it has low power, high power and IEM; IEM setting behaves weirdly with full sized headphones so there's definitely something going on in this mode), but given the fact that Fiio has 5 gain settings available, I think it should have a working setting for most, if not all IEMs.

Yes, a big part of what appealed to me about RME Adi 2, is how the company boldly proclaims that their IEM mode offers a "pitch black" background for IEM users. I've always wanted to experience a "pitch black" background for IEMs

Thanks a lot for testing the K19's IEM noise floor and volume wheel for channel imbalance The K19 is high on my list, because it checks off a lot of boxes for me. I also love the vertical footprint with honeycomb venting on the sides.

 

[AmadisDeGaula]

ADI 2/4 Pro SE has crazy amount of functions, which is most likely the reason it is so expensive, but based on my impressions, in the music playback alone Fiio matches RME. They sound extremely similar to my ears. I could possibly tell them apart by listening to specific songs, looking for those subtle differences (e. g. in the song Spell by Uriah Heep, Ken Hensley voice in the 3rd and 6th verse comes across much harsher on HE1000se with RME than with Fiio - it's a tiny difference, but Fiio is a bit smoother), but if I was blindfolded and you played a random song, I would be just guessing. In my opinion Fiio is a great alternative to RME - if you don't need additional functions, you can have pretty much the same sound while saving roughly 1000 euros.

It is a bit annoying with screen - it will eventually dim down (30 min. is the longest it can be set) and when it does, you can change the volume with the knob or the remote, but the screen won't light up, so you can never be sure what the volume is, unless the screen lights up. To light up the screen you need to click the volume knob or the specific button on the remote, which is can be annoying if you're someone who changes volume a lot - bear in mind that when it lights up, the screen will stay that way for 30 min. if you set it this way, so I wouldn't say it's terrible, just an inconvenience. I think RME has a better way of dimming screen - it's either on all the time or off all the time (after couple of seconds of inactivity), however, if it dims down it will immediately lights up if you do something, like change the volume for example - that way you always have confirmation of what you did and after a couple of second screen dims down again (if you set it this way of course).

The occasional lag is also not a deal breaker. I noticed it when connected to PC via usb. It usually happens when you first start the device and when the is no signal going in for a longer period of time. For example I was working from home on Friday, but a had to really focus on task for about roughly 40 min. so I turned off the music to keep the distraction out. After I it was done and I wanted to resume playback and there was about a half a second delay between pressing a button and hearing music. Occasionally I also hear a soft click with the delay. It's not a big deal for me, music doesn't lag, it works well for movies and gaming as well. I just thought I mention this as I have never experienced something like this any RME device. I never had any issues with any RME device. My old ADI-2 DAC I must have used for thousands of hours over the years, no lags, no delays, nothing. It was like a tank, ever-reliable.

The reason why I'm considering swapping to Fiio is convenience. It runs cooler, has 4pin XLR headphone output and it has more power available, if I would need it. I will test the EQ function next week and if it works well enough, I think I will replace ADI 2/4 Pro SE with it as my daily driver.

Soundstage is medium sized when it comes to width and height - meaning that you hear sounds just outside your head. With HE1000se it's a fair distance outside, with Expanse it was just outside. Depth is rather shallow, it's not a wall of sound, but far from holographic. It's pretty much the same as with ADI 2/4 Pro SE (bear in mind that ADI 2/4 Pro SE has a wider and slightly taller soundstage with balanced output than ADI-2 DAC and even ADI-2 Pro).

Imaging and separation is pretty good, I'd say one of its strengths - it is quite easily to identify individual sounds and position them in space, even with very busy parts of the songs. Again though, it's on par with ADI 2/4 Pro SE, they are both very good in this area.

hey man I am curious If you compared the fiio K19 with audio gd r28 or topping dx9, I have the R28 NOS at home now, but I am not 100% convinced about it, timbre and dynamics are rather good but imaging, separation and soundstage are not crazy, I am still breaking it in but I only have a few days if I want to send it back and choose another one.

 

[streets112]

hey man I am curious If you compared the fiio K19 with audio gd r28 or topping dx9, I have the R28 NOS at home now, but I am not 100% convinced about it, timbre and dynamics are rather good but imaging, separation and soundstage are not crazy, I am still breaking it in but I only have a few days if I want to send it back and choose another one.

I've not heard any AUDIO-GD device, not a single one. I've heard DX9 last year and I was very impressed with the sound. I thought it sounded a little bit better than RME ADI 2/4 Pro SE. I didn't do any ABing, but as I remember, it sounded very natural and had a good mid bass punch. In the end I didn't get it, because it was very large for my desk along with having headphone outputs on a different side as AC input, which was ergonomically terrible for me. It also didn't have built-in EQ and overall it felt like a downgrade compared to ADI 2/4 Pro SE.

 

[streets112]

I tested EQ functionality of K19 as wrote in my previous post, to complete my impressions of the device. Like the last time, I will compare it to RME ADI 2/4 Pro SE and like the the last time, I'm only comparing direct music playback through 4,4 mm headphone output.

- EQ on Fiio works only via designated app, you connect the device with usb cable to a PC - there is a special marked usb-c port for it, launch the app and it will sync
- in the app you can set up your EQ profile and save it to a device as one of the custom presets, once saved, it will remain on the device even when disconnected
- it's a slightly cumbersome system compared to RME, where you can do the whole setup on the device, including fine tuning your preset during listening to music; it's a little cumbersome at first, but once you get used to controls, it gets fast and easy
- Fiio has 31 bands available to use, RME has 5, but you can add low/high shelf for bass/treble, so its technically it's 7
- both Fiio and RME have limitation when setting up the curve (e. g. RME can use only 0,5 dB for gain adjustments, Fiio has weird steps for frequency and I never seem to be able to set the exact desired value and so on), overall RME allows for more customization in terms of gain/frequency/quality
- with Fiio you can't set a name to your presets, they all use "custom" and a number, so if you use a lot of presets, you might just have to write them down; RME allows for custom names which can be set in menu on the device

To test EQ, I used my Hifiman HE1000 Stealth - this is a headphone that is a little too hot for me, but with EQ sounds really good. With RME I used oratory1990 preset for ADI-2 DAC, which works excellent on ADI 2/4 Pro SE and turns this normally not very pleasant headphone into an excellent one. I tried the same preset for Fiio (couldn't match it exactly due to above mentioned limitations) and I also tried the standard 9 band preset. As far I can tell, everything works fine.

Which one is better - hard to say. People claim that you can get away with 5+2 band EQ on most headphones, if you subscribe to this theory, RME is a better device due to better user interface and slightly more customization options. However, if you don't subscribe to above mentioned claim, Fiio is a better device. Overall I think it's draw, they both have some strengths and some weaknesses.

 

[Priyajeet]

Does the PEQ for Fiio work via the mobile app? Is it wirelessly controllable?

 

[PenguinHeadphoner]

Does the PEQ for Fiio work via the mobile app? Is it wirelessly controllable?

Hi,
Interested in this too...
I think fiio says on the website that you can adjust peq with the dedicated app.
So hope this is true
Regards

 

[streets112]

Does the PEQ for Fiio work via the mobile app? Is it wirelessly controllable?

No it doesn't - I also hoped it would work like that, but it doesn't. The only app I found is Fiio Control, which can connect to K19 and stream music via bluetooth. There is also and EQ you can setup, but it's not the 31 band hardware based PEQ on the device, it's software based on the app itself. The app that controls the PEQ functionality is called "Fiio Audio DSP". It's completely barebone and can't only setup your PEQ profiles.

You can check it out yourself.

That's where I got it from ^

 

[PenguinHeadphoner]

No it doesn't - I also hoped it would work like that, but it doesn't. The only app I found is Fiio Control, which can connect to K19 and stream music via bluetooth. There is also and EQ you can setup, but it's not the 31 band hardware based PEQ on the device, it's software based on the app itself. The app that controls the PEQ functionality is called "Fiio Audio DSP". It's completely barebone and can't only setup your PEQ profiles.

You can check it out yourself.

That's where I got it from ^

Hi,
Thanks a lot.
So for people like who are running Linux, we're basically screwed or doomed to use Mac or Windows.
I can use Windows in Virtual Machine... But will it recognize the K19 ? That remains to be determined

 

[streets112]

One more thing I'd like to mention in regard to Fiio K19 and my listening impressions. When I was testing EQ, I was using HE1000 Stealth exclusively and with this headphone, the differences between K19 and ADI 2/4 Pro SE are much more noticeable. I've mentioned before that Fiio comes across a bit smoother than RME, but I also mentioned that it would be difficult notice in a blind test. Well that is true for HE1000se or Expanse, but with HE1000 Stealth the difference is quite noticeable.

I can't listen to HE1000 Stealth on RME without EQ, it gets sharp in the treble and sibilant in the midrange way too often. I tried the same EQ on Fiio and the sound was very similar, it wasn't sharp or sibilant. However, on Fiio it wasn't sharp or sibilant even without EQ - it actually sounded pretty amazing. I went back and forth and in the end I decided to ditch the EQ on Fiio as it sounded more natural to me without it. So perhaps the differences between RME and Fiio could be more noticeable depending on the headphones. I still think that bottom line is the same, Fiio has a little bit more weight in bass and smoother upper mids and treble - to what degree depends on the headphone.

Also after listening to K19 and HE1000 Stealth for 2 days straight I can't praise this pairing enough. HE1000 Stealth is easily the best match for K19 out of all the headphones I own. Soundstage is wide and tall, solid bass with weighty rumble and punch, excellent imaging, realistic midrange and lots of sparkle and air in the treble without being sharp or sibilant. I shuffled through my entire library and it sounded amazing with anything I threw at it, couldn't help but to bob my head and tap my foot.

 

[FiiO]

Does the PEQ for Fiio work via the mobile app? Is it wirelessly controllable?

Dear friend,

Hi, PEQ could be adjusted by the FIIO Control app. And if you would like to use DSP function, you would need to set via the Windows computer or MAC. For more instruction, you could check this FAQ: https://www.fiio.com/newsinfo/926001.html

Best regards

 

[Drakester]

Hi @FiiO

You might want to correct the listing in Amazon, there's one image that mentions AKM flagship DAC combo in the K19.
https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-K19-ES9039SPRO-Desktop-31-Band/dp/B0D1Y9RHS5/

However the rest of the listing has the right data (ES9039SPRO).

 

[PenguinHeadphoner]

Hi @FiiO

You might want to correct the listing in Amazon, there's one image that mentions AKM flagship DAC combo in the K19.
https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-K19-ES9039SPRO-Desktop-31-Band/dp/B0D1Y9RHS5/

However the rest of the listing has the right data (ES9039SPRO).

Looks like it is already corrected as I do not see that on the link provided...

That was qucik