FiiO Industrial Park/Factory Tour + Interview with Founder

[VSG]

FiiO is one of the largest audio brands in the world and operates out of a 15,000 sq.meter industrial park in Guangzhou, China. We visited FiiO to know more about how the company works, including going through its assembly and packaging lines, and then had an online interview with the brand's founder too.

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[Dr. Dro]

Amazing! Very insightful and informative, also looks like it was a fun trip. Hope to see more of this in the future

 

[VSG]

Amazing! Very insightful and informative, also looks like it was a fun trip. Hope to see more of this in the future

Problem is cost of visa + flights + accommodation, else of course I'd be up to do more.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Problem is cost of visa + flights + accommodation, else of course I'd be up to do more.

I wouldn't worry too much - as more and more companies recognize your work, they should extend the invitation and cover the costs in their advertisement/promotional budget

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Great article! Interesting stuff. I've always liked FiiO as they are one of the few very solid ChiFi companies. I hope you get to do more of these and get more traffic.

 

[dick_cheney]

Fantastic work, thank you for showing us another aspect of technology and audio specifically!

 

[Fungi]

I just got their FT1 so I was surprised to see TPU have this kind of coverage. Very nice.

 

[JasBC]

Especially interesting coverage, seeing the inner workings of these companies is always so neat.

 

[Onasi]

No idea if you brought it up during the visit, but all my love for FiiO products notwithstanding there IS one thing I think they should be kicked for - replacement parts availability. Nothing drastic even, but why, oh why, are the earpads for their full cans nowhere to be found on their store? They are offered at a couple of EU partner stores, but not at your OWN Ali page? Really?
They have been on a roll lately, though. The FT1 is shockingly good for the price and the JT1 are what Joker wanted to be. Hopefully, this will finally kill off the M50x meme. God I hate seeing that piece of shit still being recommended.

 

[VSG]

No idea if you brought it up during the visit, but all my love for FiiO products notwithstanding there IS one thing I think they should be kicked for - replacement parts availability. Nothing drastic even, but why, oh why, are the earpads for their full cans nowhere to be found on their store? They are offered at a couple of EU partner stores, but not at your OWN Ali page? Really?
They have been on a roll lately, though. The FT1 is shockingly good for the price and the JT1 are what Joker wanted to be. Hopefully, this will finally kill off the M50x meme. God I hate seeing that piece of shit still being recommended.

Spare ear pads didn't come up during the visit, but I will definitely mention it over email.

 

[Onasi]

@VSG
Yeah, it’s just weird. With how absolutely tanky the build quality is (even the JT1 feels like a 300 bucks can) I would think that investing in longevity would make sense for them. I can absolutely see people keeping their headphones for a loooong time.
Just point out to them that Sivga/Sendy sells the pads for their cans, so surely they can too, lol.

 

[Space Lynx]

@VSG My best friend I stay with just got a Fiio K19 in the mail last week, their TOTL amp/dac as far as I am aware. It's pretty impressive.

@W1zzard this is freaking awesome tour!!! content like this is epic

 

[Han44]

I also like FiiO, I have several devices from them and I am satisfied.

 

[Space Lynx]

I also like FiiO, I have several devices from them and I am satisfied.

i own this for my portable dac/amp needs, fiio k1, it actually pairs really with a couple of my headphones, but is by no means a universal use case - it does the job though considering how cheap it was

 

[Onasi]

I also like how the owner has a stance of “we are focusing on value and what our customers want, not chasing the high end”. Sure, they have some TOTL devices, like the K19, but they also routinely release banger value stuff that is in reality absolutely enough for 99% of cases and users. This democratizes the “good sound” market. I honestly feel that the traditional big name players just don’t feel the pinch yet, but they will. I think @VSG has an upcoming review of the HD 490, for example, which I listened to at my audio shop. It’s a good can, arguably a small improvement over the 560S in some areas. But it absolutely isn’t 450 euros good (what it was at said shop at the moment), not really. I guess they are banking on the Pro market and are aiming it at that audience, which is fair enough, but for the consumer side of things it’s just poor value. I absolutely would rather hand over FiiO the money for the, say, FT5 or even FT3 if I wanted to save cash.

 

[Timbaloo]

Spare ear pads didn't come up during the visit, but I will definitely mention it over email.

While you're at it: Mind asking why most DAC/AMPs (I got the E10K for example) don't come with basic (digital) audio processing like a parametric EQ? I'm willing to write the code if that's where they're lacking

 

[VSG]

While you're at it: Mind asking why most DAC/AMPs (I got the E10K for example) don't come with basic (digital) audio processing like a parametric EQ? I'm willing to write the code if that's where they're lacking

Newer ones are coming with that feature now, included the KA15, KA17, BTR13, BTR15, BTR17 etc. Some of them even have a desktop SDK, but they don't seem to know what to do with it yet.

 

[Timbaloo]

Newer ones are coming with that feature now, included the KA15, KA17, BTR13, BTR15, BTR17 etc. Some of them even have a desktop SDK, but they don't seem to know what to do with it yet.

Cheers, that's good to know they got this on their radar. Tired of having to rely on unreliable software solutions (like EqualizerAPO, even though that's Windows' fault, ...) on the OS level.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

If we are lobbing complaints/ideas as some have... /me cracks knuckles.

That turntable is made of fail and bad. Bluetooh? For vinyl? Yeah... oh hell no. Not only is blue tooth bad why are you taking an analogue device, converting it to digital, and then converting it back to analogue? Automatic? Fucking heresy on a level that a 40k inquisitor needs to go there and start capping heads. It's got a metal shell it looks like so where on gods blue earth is the speed adjuster? I get the say "button" but that's bullshit. Buttons are for 45/33/78 adjustments. You also need a slider unless it is a dedicated belt drive for the motor (this is not that) and it's locked to one speed. Those are rare and cost $$$$$. There's RGB LEDs on this? PC gaming is ruining audio now it seems. Get rid of that.

I guess that explains the utterly bottom end Audio Technica stylus/cartridge. Audio Technica makes some good products but any stylus/cartridge under 200 bucks is going to be pretty poor. Nice ones are going to start at 1000 for moving magnets. Moving coils are obviously more. Regardless that specific stylus is the bottom of the barrel cheapest thing you can get without "it might screw things up". It's 35 bucks. If you are going to go with AT bump up to the green which is like 90. It's also what AT ships with their entry level tables. A red or orange can be had for about 120-150 and those are a good step up from the green. Remote control? Get wrecked none of that.

This thing better be sub 200 bucks... it's 300 euros?

None of this is terrible, it's just clearly a turntable for people who know nothing about turn tables. Which is odd as turntables are edge use cases already. Nobody who is into vynil is going to touch this. It's clearly for people who think vynil looks cool but know nothing about it. Also why is the phono stage not swappable? Is the motor swappable? Because stylus, carts, stage, and motors are what breaks. It is assumed you will be swapping these. It also looks to me like you cannot sweap the headshell on this. So no carts or head shells just swapping the stylus? Again, no no no no no no no no no. This is utterly unaceptable. What if the wires inside it break? I'm sorry if you can swap it but looking at it you can't. And if you can why are there no screw holes on the head shell?

IMHO I'll let the LEDs, Bluetooth, and remote control because stupid idiots are gonna stupid idiot and think these are good things and whatever. But put a slider on that sucker. Upgrade the stylus. Make the phono swappable, confirm you can swap the motor and the headshell. At that point it will be a fairly OKish solid alu plinth to move with for someone testing the waters in the market. And please tell me the counter weight on the tone arm isn't fused/soldered to it!!! Because it looks like it is and that's another disaster in the making.

I could be horribly wrong about a few things. But at a glance this is a hot mess. It's going to get ripped to pieces in audio circles in it's current state.

 

[VSG]

If we are lobbing complaints/ideas as some have... /me cracks knuckles.

That turntable is made of fail and bad. Bluetooh? For vinyl? Yeah... oh hell no. Not only is blue tooth bad why are you taking an analogue device, converting it to digital, and then converting it back to analogue? Automatic? Fucking heresy on a level that a 40k inquisitor needs to go there and start capping heads. It's got a metal shell it looks like so where on gods blue earth is the speed adjuster? I get the say "button" but that's bullshit. Buttons are for 45/33/78 adjustments. You also need a slider unless it is a dedicated belt drive for the motor (this is not that) and it's locked to one speed. Those are rare and cost $$$$$. There's RGB LEDs on this? PC gaming is ruining audio now it seems. Get rid of that.

I guess that explains the utterly bottom end Audio Technica stylus/cartridge. Audio Technica makes some good products but any stylus/cartridge under 200 bucks is going to be pretty poor. Nice ones are going to start at 1000 for moving magnets. Moving coils are obviously more. Regardless that specific stylus is the bottom of the barrel cheapest thing you can get without "it might screw things up". It's 35 bucks. If you are going to go with AT bump up to the green which is like 90. It's also what AT ships with their entry level tables. A red or orange can be had for about 120-150 and those are a good step up from the green. Remote control? Get wrecked none of that.

This thing better be sub 200 bucks... it's 300 euros?

None of this is terrible, it's just clearly a turntable for people who know nothing about turn tables. Which is odd as turntables are edge use cases already. Nobody who is into vynil is going to touch this. It's clearly for people who think vynil looks cool but know nothing about it. Also why is the phono stage not swappable? Is the motor swappable? Because stylus, carts, stage, and motors are what breaks. It is assumed you will be swapping these. It also looks to me like you cannot sweap the headshell on this. So no carts or head shells just swapping the stylus? Again, no no no no no no no no no. This is utterly unaceptable. What if the wires inside it break? I'm sorry if you can swap it but looking at it you can't. And if you can why are there no screw holes on the head shell?

IMHO I'll let the LEDs, Bluetooth, and remote control because stupid idiots are gonna stupid idiot and think these are good things and whatever. But put a slider on that sucker. Upgrade the stylus. Make the phono swappable, confirm you can swap the motor and the headshell. At that point it will be a fairly OKish solid alu plinth to move with for someone testing the waters in the market. And please tell me the counter weight on the tone arm isn't fused/soldered to it!!! Because it looks like it is and that's another disaster in the making.

I could be horribly wrong about a few things. But at a glance this is a hot mess. It's going to get ripped to pieces in audio circles in it's current state.

I am just glad I don't have any cassette tapes, CDs, or vinyl records on hand to do reviews of those players now.

 

[THU31]

I always like seeing factory tours. Enjoying my FiiO DAC as well, I'll definitely keep this brand in mind when I'm looking for a new audio product.

 

[Ferrum Master]

No ventilation for extracting soldering fumes. Poor people, hello cancer, if not then being impotent in your 40ties is your second best chance.

 

[VSG]

No ventilation for extracting soldering fumes. Poor people, hello cancer, if not then being impotent in your 40ties is your second best chance.

There are multiple high suction chimneys above and the entire area felt like it had some form of laminar air flow, I didn't notice any fumes lingering.

 

[Fungi]

I don't think leaded solder is even still legal in China...

 

[Timbaloo]

I don't think leaded solder is even still legal in China...

Does not matter. Since they want to export their products, they need to use non-leaded solder for those anyway. And using different solder depending on destination market sounds like a stupid idea.