Introduction

While it may have been a couple of months since our previous FiiO product review, the famous audio brand has not remained still by any means. In fact, I have here a collection of FiiO products being tested and you can take a look at the company's plans for this year to see exactly how many new products are being released. This year also coincides with the new FiiO product naming scheme which can be somewhat confusing since there are still products following the older methodology, and it has led to the likes of the more budget-friendly Q11 portable DAC/amp having a higher number (logically) than the flagship Q7 portable source. Today is another such example and back to the realm of portable DAC/amps we go, but on the even smaller footprint with devices that do not have Bluetooth and/or an internal battery. Thanks to FiiO for providing review samples to TechPowerUp.


I recommend going through the quick look article featuring the FiiO KA5 for some context since the newer KA13 is positioned next to it—below the tier list but with some features that actually best the more expensive KA5. If you were to go by FiiO's new product naming, the KA13 is an improvement to the KA3 portable DAC/amp which itself has been extremely popular since launch. There are two colors to choose from this time round and we also get a desktop mode inspired by the likes of the FiiO Q7 as well as the M15S/M17 DAPs. This means the KA13 can output more power than most such devices in its class and there is a potential use case for it to be easily hidden on/under your desk and powering headphones and IEMs similar to larger desktop-class equipment. We'll explore this, and more, in this quick look article which begins with a look the product specifications below. Be sure to click the image twice to fully open it and go through all the details.

Packaging and Accessories

The FiiO KA13 ships in a reasonably sized box compared to the usual large boxes used by the company. It uses a mix of matte and glossy finishes applied in blue with different accent colors and renders to draw your eyes if you were to see this in a retail store perhaps. On the front is the company logo and product name, a render of the KA13 in both colors, and salient features in addition to the expected Hi-Res Audio logo. The Jade Audio logo shows up on the back to confirm this is co-branded with FiiO's more affordable sister brand, and we also get contact information for the company. On the side is an authentication sticker for those paranoid about getting a fake product somehow and the inner box slides out the top or bottom as seen above.


The inner box is an open cardboard container that has a multi-language quick start guide right at the top. I recommend going through this so you don't miss out on any features supported by the device. The KA13 portable DAC/amp comes placed safely in a thick foam sheet for added protection with the other accessories seen in the compartment to the bottom in a separate cardboard box. I also appreciated the cutouts at the top and bottom allowing you to easily pry out the various items—a simple move others tend to ignore. The accessories include a support note in addition to a nice set of soft sleeved short USB Type-C to Type-C and Type-C to Lightning cables, allowing users to pair the KA13 with various mobile devices. There is also a Type-C to Type-A adapter for use with a laptop/PC to complete the set. If you were so inclined, FiiO is separately selling a protective leather (maybe protein leather) case in two colors for $5.

Closer Look and User Experience

At 56 x 22 x 10.5 mm and weighing under 20 g, the FiiO KA13 is one of the more pocketable sources on the market today and certainly a portable one that you can take along—it's also small enough to fit inside many medium-to-large sized IEM carry cases too. The chassis is made of CNC-machined aluminium given a "midnight black" or "dawn silver" finish depending on which color version you go with. I am personally biased towards the dawn silver version although I have photos of both here allowing you to get a better idea of what you may end up preferring. On the top is the FiiO logo and slogan to the left and then a plastic see-through window at the right giving a sneak peek at the internals inside. Note how the black version has an uninterrupted window making it more functional also for the indicator LED we'll see soon.


The bottom surface has a glass panel but this is mostly decorative to allow further branding—Jade Audio this time—in addition to a subtle geometric pattern design for aesthetics. The product name, certification logos, and rated playback capabilities are also seen here. One of the longer sides is bare whereas the other has a long rocker button for volume control which also doubles up as previous/next track selection if you press and hold it down. This does mean there is no way to change volume in larger chunks and you are left with single increment steps. Also, the volume control is not independent from the connected device. These can be potential deal breakers to be aware of, especially compared to other such devices that allow more control. There is a separate button you can toggle between on (a red section comes exposed for easier visualization) and off which pertains to the desktop mode offered by the KA13. This basically increases the max power output of the device which also means more power being consumed from the connected device.


The shorter sides have the I/O in the form of a Type-C port on the bottom whereas the outputs are seen at the top. FiiO has gone with a 3.5 mm single-ended headphone output in addition to a 4.4 mm balanced connector. The 3.5 mm output is also special in offering SPDIF out in addition to headphones out, although here you will need a special adapter cable headed to a device that supports SPDIF input for transmitting digital audio signals in addition to turning the feature on in the mobile app. I am also glad to see the two ports are aligned better compared to the KA5 we saw before! More important would have been line-out support for those wanting to just use the DAC portion of the KA13 but I suppose this is feature segmentation done to hit the final price point and not cannibalize sales from the higher end models from FiiO. Either way, this is a simple plug-and-play device in that there is no battery or wireless connection. You use the provided cable to connect to the device of your choice and now we see the real purpose of that window allowing you to notice the indicator LED positioned on the PCB. This turns on light blue and remains so when the playback rate is in PCB =<48 kHz, yellow for higher PCM playback rates, and then green if you go all DSD.


I suspect most people will use the FiiO KA13 with mobile devices. But for those who want to use it with a more stationary client, it would be useful to know a Windows 10 or 11 PC doesn't require any additional drivers and the KA13 will be recognized automatically by the OS as well as your favorite media playback software. We see that the default firmware provides PCM playback options up to 32-bit, 384 kHz in addition to DSD256. The USB decoder comes in handy here, and all your favorite players will recognize the device in WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) mode accordingly. There should be equivalent drivers pre-configured in newer macOS builds too, but I am not familiar enough to speak on this front.


If you have a device that doesn't accept UAC 2.0, or even if you simply want to try other options, then the FiiO USB audio device drivers will be of interest to you. You can find the installer on this page and the latest version at the time of testing was v5.58.0. Installation is trivial as seen above, and these drivers now allow you to make the most of the FiiO KA13 within the Windows operating system.



What it then does is create a new output device in Windows as well as provide access to the FiiO USB Audio Control Panel. Just be sure to set the format to your desired level and choose the ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) buffer size that suits your latency requirements. With that done, go to your media player of choice. I demonstrated above with JRiver and Roon—which is seriously great, go for a free trial before dismissing it—again and set the audio player to the same output. At this point, you can implement further tweaks, but those are player dependent.


The FiiO KA13 is also supported by the FiiO Control mobile app available for both Android and iOS. I've used it in conjunction with the FiiO Music app on my phone for a good user experience, or you can do the same with the novel FiiO R7 as we saw before. Adding the KA13 is simple enough given the app detects it immediately and then you get further controls over turning on/off the SPDIF output, choosing whether or not to have the playback status indicator LEDs on or off, or opt for your preference of five low-pass filters, read the product guide on the app itself to make the most of the device.


I've used a few different portable DAC/amps using Cirrus Logic DACs recently, especially the CS43198. FiiO's own Q11 and KA5 go that route and the KA13 continues the Cirrus Logic love with dual CS4131 DACs which are decent for mobile sources. They aren't the most powerful though so this is where FiiO has implemented two SG Micro SMG8262 low-noise operational amplifiers. This in turn allows for FiiO to have the so-called desktop mode on the KA13 which can draw way more power from the connected device and feed it into the headphone outputs compared to most such portable sources in this form factor. I would have liked to see the rated specs for the KA13 in the non-desktop mode too but those lower numbers are not as good for marketing. As it turns out, you'd really want to turn desktop mode off to begin with—especially with mobile phones that may struggle to even power the KA13 in desktop mode (iPhones are especially bad at this). This also works best with IEMs and less demanding headphones with desktop mode best suited for high impedance and/or low sensitivity transducers. There you can get at least 290/500 mW at 16 Ω off the 3.5 / 4.4 mm, respectively, which scales well enough to 170/550 mW at 32 Ω and 19.5/78 mW at 300 Ω off the same outputs. This competes favorably against the much larger FiiO Q11 with its own battery and bests the higher priced KA5. But then it might actually be a case of too much power since the KA13 doesn't work as well with more sensitive IEMs. The output impedance is ~1.7-1.8 Ω for the two ports and I noticed the notorious Campfire Audio low impedance IEMs having a slight, persistent background hiss when paired with the KA13.

The FiiO KA13 is otherwise a very good source for the money, although I mostly recommend it for people who like the aesthetics and find themselves in need of the extra power that's best used with a desktop PC or laptop, lest you drain your phone battery very quickly. It is a neutral DAC/amp without any coloration to the sound, although treble extension could have been better if you care about that slight dip measured here—I didn't really perceive it in my ears. I will also mention that some people had the KA13 randomly jump to max volume rather than going up one increment. This feels like a bug that can be terrible in practice but I have not experienced this with either sample in all my testing and I can't dock points based on something that isn't proven to be repeatable. The feature set of the FiiO KA13 is otherwise fairly compelling albeit with its own set of compromises. If you are interested to purchase one, the FiiO KA13 sells for $79.99 from the FiiO Aliexpress store, and the same from authorized vendors when they get stock in—hopefully by the time this article goes live.