Quick Look: FiiO K5 Pro ESS Desktop DAC/Amplifier

[SOAREVERSOR]

The apple one doesn't break constantly - I have mine for 2 years now and it shows no signs of any breaking.

The DAC in the apple dongle is very good, why would I want to save a couple dollars and go with the monolith with an inferior dac? Makes no sense. And yes it can drive high end IEM easily and even my 250ohm DT 770 Pro.

No offence but it sound like you're just repeating what you're read on the net and don't actually own one.

None taken! Here's what's sitting with me on my work desk right now. This is the junk/meh stuff. The schiit and the hili are good, and the monoprice is just a durable apple dac of the same quality. The apple dongle is the worst of even this lot and out of the three apple gave me with phones I got all of which died this one was just given to me at the store. I only use it when I can't find one of the others.

The AD is interesting, but the USBC one is much better. There's more crap around here I just can't be assed to go get it!

I put your name in the pic!

 

[cellar door]

None taken! Here's what's sitting with me on my work desk right now. This is the junk/meh stuff. The schiit and the hili are good, and the monoprice is just a durable apple dac of the same quality. The apple dongle is the worst of even this lot and out of the three apple gave me with phones I got all of which died this one was just given to me at the store. I only use it when I can't find one of the others.

The AD is interesting, but the USBC one is much better. There's more crap around here I just can't be assed to go get it!

I put your name in the pic!

Well - that's great that you have one, from what I can see it looks like it's in mint shape. AKA not broken

Have you seen the measurement for the monolith? There is a reason why the apple one gets the overall community budget recommendation. Anyways, in my opinion it's a good product.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Well - that's great that you have one, from what I can see it looks like it's in mint shape. AKA not broken

Have you seen the measurement for the monolith? There is a reason why the apple one gets the overall community budget recommendation. Anyways, in my opinion it's a good product.

The others all broke. I got one with my iPhoneX, one with the SO's iPhoneX, and then the same thing with our 11 Pros. All broken. That one only exists because they gave me a new phone when I broke a phone so one is remaining out of 5!

The apple will beat the monoprice because one is 10 bucks retail and comes free with your phone and the other is 18 retail, but you're not going to pay retail for either of these. But as it's reinforced she/we haven't been able to break one yet. I use that with my Shure's for running.

Really of all those the one that stands out is the hilidac but that's a whole different animal at a much higer price point!

 

[celloh]

There's a USB3 to Lightning Camera Adapter that you need and it's a very clunky setup. And adapting USB-C to lightning for other DACs doesn't really get you the higher bit rate despite what they are claiming. Will get you the amp though!

Does this also work with the type-c dongle? My type-c apple dongle only goes tup to 48khz 24-bits

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Does this also work with the type-c dongle? My type-c apple dongle only goes tup to 48khz 24-bits

what apple device what dongle?

 

[celloh]

what apple device what dongle?

no apple device. type c apple dongle (the one that doesn't have volt limit)

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

no apple device. type c apple dongle (the one that doesn't have volt limit)

Really no. There are two stages to this. The first is that the camera adapter has a single usb 3.0 A port and a lightning port (charge while you are loading photos off the iphone) so even to connect a USBC device you'd have to dongle it again to USB A. I'm also not sure of the specs on the USB C device. If it's hardware is limited to 24/48 (as seems to be the case with all the stuff apple makes) adapting it isn't going to change that.

The DACs that do better than that once adapted are much more sophisticated than apples products. The Dragonflys are 32bit DACs that are limited down internally to 24/96 which is what most people are using with the camera adapter and these range from 100-300. You'll find other items in the sub 200 range that go up to 32/768 and come with their own adaptors.

 

[Alarchemn]

I purchased the FiiO New K3 a few months ago (which I've really enjoyed) and it's sent me down the rabbit hole of looking for "better" headphones and amps/DACs. I initially went with the K3 since it was reasonably priced at $109 with no power brick and my headphones weren't anything special (ATH-M30, the old ones.... and KSC75). Now I'm looking at some harder to drive cans in the 250 ohm range and find it really hard to resist buying the Topping DX3 Pro+ after a few beers.

did you buy it? I think I'm in the same situation haha.

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

did you buy it? I think I'm in the same situation haha.

I ended up sticking with the K3 and a set of Sony MDR-7506. Maybe I'm just lucky or I just don't have the experience (and therefore spoiled) with even better cans to know what I'm missing with this setup but I really enjoy this combo. I even bought an identical setup (another K3 and MDR-7506) so I have one for work and one for home.

 

[Sawlid]

So I'm trying to get the "enhancments" tab in speaker properties for the k5 pro but I can't figure out how to get it. I've tried updating Realtek audio drivers and downloaded the Fiio USB DAC drivers. Can anyone help me?

 

[VSG]

So I'm trying to get the "enhancments" tab in speaker properties for the k5 pro but I can't figure out how to get it. I've tried updating Realtek audio drivers and downloaded the Fiio USB DAC drivers. Can anyone help me?

You shouldn't need the FiiO drivers for that, if anything that may complicate things since Windows may see it as a different source. If you never saw it when you first plugged it in, then I'd say contact FiiO and see if they have a firmware update for you.

 

[Footman]

@VSG I realize that this is an older review, but I was flicking through and something caught my eye that you wrote...

Quote I also deliberately choose the ASIO driver as the output to show its options, but of course went back to the FiiO Q series output to have the K5 Pro ESS running properly in USB DAC mode. Quote.

I was interested in better understanding your comment as I just re-installed Windows 11 on my main PC and was having a few issues with both the Topping ASIO drivers for my DX3 Pro + and ASIO drivers for my Fiio K5 Pro ESS. The problem I experienced was random noise that sounded like intermittent clicks when playing music or other sound files either directly Musicbee or streaming (Spotify). Extremely annoying.

Anyhow, it took me a few days to fix the issue, which was removing the ASIO drivers and just using the bog standard Windows drivers for both DAC/AMP's and WSAPI exclusive in Musicbee and whatever Spotify uses. Now everything is running perfectly again.

I don't recall this being an issue with my old installation of Windows. Just curious regarding your statement is all....

TIA.

 

[VSG]

@VSG I realize that this is an older review, but I was flicking through and something caught my eye that you wrote...

Quote I also deliberately choose the ASIO driver as the output to show its options, but of course went back to the FiiO Q series output to have the K5 Pro ESS running properly in USB DAC mode. Quote.

I was interested in better understanding your comment as I just re-installed Windows 11 on my main PC and was having a few issues with both the Topping ASIO drivers for my DX3 Pro + and ASIO drivers for my Fiio K5 Pro ESS. The problem I experienced was random noise that sounded like intermittent clicks when playing music or other sound files either directly Musicbee or streaming (Spotify). Extremely annoying.

Anyhow, it took me a few days to fix the issue, which was removing the ASIO drivers and just using the bog standard Windows drivers for both DAC/AMP's and WSAPI exclusive in Musicbee and whatever Spotify uses. Now everything is running perfectly again.

I don't recall this being an issue with my old installation of Windows. Just curious regarding your statement is all....

TIA.

Windows 11 is an exception with random issues as you've experienced, I should mention it going forward. Windows 10 might also see this, but so far I've only consistently had it on 11.