Review: FiiO Q7

Right after I sold my FiiO Q3S, I happened to see the announcement for the FiiO Q7, and there was a launch discount, so I got carried away and bought it.

Then I barely listened to the thing before hastily selling it off. Maybe I just didn’t like it. Or maybe I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

I remember the Q7 arriving around October 14, 2022. As FiiO’s new-generation flagship DAC, the Q7’s packaging can only be described as “lavish,” and its spec sheet as “extravagant.”

• 3.5/4.4/2.5 balanced outputs
• Dual DAC chips
• Independent amp stage
• Large battery
• Supports bypassing the battery to run on wall power
• Works as a desktop unit or as a portable DAC/amp combo
• A display in the middle showing the current status

It also came with a pile of accessories: a genuine leather case, a screen protector already applied, and even a cooling stand so you can use it as a desktop unit.

After it arrived I excitedly listened to a few songs. Honestly, my first impression was just okay. Maybe it’s because what really determines the sound is the headphones themselves, not the DAC. Maybe my laptop didn’t have any high-end source material at the time either. Still, I felt it was worth the money, because the hardware was stacked so aggressively—classic FiiO style.

Then the weekend came, and then Monday, when I was diagnosed positive for COVID and hauled off to a quarantine facility. And the FiiO Q7 just sat in my locker at work the whole time.

By the time I got back to work and saw the DAC again, nearly three months had passed. I suddenly didn’t feel like listening anymore. Maybe it’s stacked with hardware, sounds great, and has high technical performance, but it’s too big and too heavy. As a desktop unit it’s a bit underpowered, and as something “portable” it’s seriously heavy. I get what FiiO was going for—a perfect high-end product that does everything at once—but the final result feels like a Frankenstein’s monster.

FiiO even set up a dedicated customer service WeChat group for Q7 users, with one-on-one support, and they hand out new firmware builds in the group. I upgraded to a later version and found that FiiO really was seriously improving some of the operating logic. That alone puts them well above most crappy domestic manufacturers.

I tried using the Q7 a few more times and found its performance rather “neither fish nor fowl.” As a portable it’s way too heavy, and as a desktop unit, its sound is decent by desktop standards, but the price advantage disappears.

Audio DACs have been iterating for so many years that FiiO has basically run out of new tricks in the DAC+AMP design. As I see it, it’s just swapping chips at this point, and one unavoidable problem with this design is power consumption. Making sure it’s “fully fed” with power means battery life can’t improve. Even with the Q7’s massive body, its battery life is still under ten hours—a real shame.

In the end I sold the Q7, which I’d used only a few times, on Xianyu at a loss of nearly 1000 yuan. Honestly, I can’t find much wrong with the Q7—what I said above is nitpicking. The Q7 already does well enough under the “I want it all” premise, and it even has a screen and an RGB light strip, giving it an edge over competitors in looks.

But for some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to like the thing. Maybe it’s like a lot of compulsive buyers: once you get it and the excitement wears off, it’s just bland. If I had to give a convincing reason, it’s that a product designed as comprehensively as the FiiO Q7 loses its special strengths and character.