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.

A while back, for some reason I lost my mind and went back down the audiophile money-pit road. This time I was noticeably more broke about it: no four-figure new releases, no $199 AKG n5005, just a calm little DAC purchase. The reason was simple enough. I had some fairly specific requirements: The DAC has to support a 4.4 balanced output It also has to have a 3.5 headphone jack It has to be portable, suitable for laptop use It needs its own power, a battery, but also an option to toggle between “battery power” and “USB power” It has to be cheap. I know about the Mojo 2, I just can’t afford it Decoding specs shouldn’t be too low Eventually I found this magical thing, the “FiiO Q3S.” Magical because I have no idea when it came out, FiiO’s official store doesn’t sell it anymore, but you can definitely find traces of it on eBay and Mercari. It matched my decoder needs perfectly — everything I wanted was there, the price wasn’t bad either, just 850, and it even supported installment payments, so I got carried away and bought it.

After buying FiiO’s Bluetooth over-ear headphones last time and liking them, I’ve finally started buying FiiO earphones too. The reason I bought this was purely my hands acting on their own. By the time I came to my senses, the order was already placed. Of course, the main factor in that impulse was the discount being too big to resist. The first-batch preorder was 30 yuan cheaper, with six interest-free installments, plus a free cable if you posted a review. Basically 100 yuan off. The earphones arrived pretty fast, and unboxing them was full of that typical FiiO “pile on the extras” vibe. It came with a bunch of accessories — a case, a pouch, everything you’d expect. But what we care about is the earphones themselves. As a certified fat otaku, purple was the obvious choice.

I originally planned to write a 2019 eroge roundup, but my beloved Duan-ye nagged me on social media to post a shopping writeup, so that one gets pushed back. Honestly I like writing shopping posts too. They’re fast, simple, low-effort, and they still count as a post. Who wouldn’t? Esoteric audio stuff especially — you can bullshit freely with zero accountability, and apparently there are idiots who enjoy reading it. Perfect time for one, no? This time it’s about: the FiiO EH3 NC over-ear Bluetooth wireless headphones.

As someone who’s been out of the audiophile game for ages, I find the current enthusiast market kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time. Ever since I redirected the money I used to spend on headphones into buying music albums, I feel like my horizons have widened. “A ten-thousand-yuan IEM isn’t worth hearing ten thousand albums,” or something like that. At least I’m not like some grade-schooler on Reddit, buying insanely expensive IEMs just to listen to a music library that hasn’t been updated in years, flipping back and forth through the same dumb test tracks. Or running high-end gear to listen to doujin music produced in some low-end studio. That’s just unscientific. High-end audio gear really does work, sure. But for most people it’s useless, and for most audiophiles it’s also not much use — unless you’re a die-hard classical fan and love other large-ensemble music so much you refuse to listen to anything that isn’t a SACD from a famous studio. Then yes, high-end gear does work. But for most people like me, who listen to pop, occasionally some small-ensemble stuff, and just want to feel the charm of a melody — as long as the headphones don’t have that “boom-tss boom-tss” low-brow tuning and aren’t distorting or off-balance, that’s about enough. Yes, about enough. How do you know that the ten-thousand-yuan suit-and-tie stack you bought wasn’t used to listen to songs made by someone using a garbage 5-yuan USB cable? With that money you’re better off just listening to more music. So I’ve been increasingly abandoning wired gear and trying Bluetooth. The biggest advantage of Bluetooth is convenience. The biggest disadvantage is, naturally, sound quality. But with APTX and LDAC gradually opening up, Bluetooth has more or less reached the “listenable” stage. So I bought the FiiO BTR3 Bluetooth DAC/amp, two and a half months ago… Why did it take me this long to write up my impressions? That’s a long story.

I was using the FiiO X7 along with the Sony Walkman A35, but juggling two devices was a hassle, and the Sony WM1A was out of my budget. Then the ZX300 came along at a middle price point, with the China model being the ZX300A. I put in a pre-order, and after attending Sony’s listening event I felt it was acceptable, so I didn’t cancel. It finally arrived a while back, and I’ve been listening for two weeks now—mostly satisfied.

I bought this because after getting the AM2 last time I realized I’d been screwed over. Because right after I bought it, FiiO said: “Every X7 owner gets one chance to buy a module at half price.” So I said: “Well what about me, I already paid full price?” FiiO was very polite about it: “No problem, we’ll have other modules down the road, you can save it for next time.” ……………… So I finally used that chance.

I remember when I bought the FiiO X7, I raised a suggestion on their forum. “Could you make the screen stay on and support phone or car Bluetooth control without sound output? I always run AUX out to the car stereo.” FiiO’s official reply said they understood my need and knew that controlling a car stereo through AUX input was a real problem, and they’d find a way to solve it. So direct car control really did turn out to be difficult. FiiO instead released this little thing, a Bluetooth remote…

The FiiO EM3 is FiiO’s new pair of flat-head earbuds. Honestly, my goodwill toward FiiO has been climbing steadily lately. The accessories are minimal — just the buds themselves and a few foam covers. That’s it. Since it’s positioned under 100 yuan, this earbud’s strengths and weaknesses are equally obvious.

The FiiO X7 is a player I’ve grown to like more the longer I use it, but I still have to say it has one fatal flaw: the stock AM1 amp module is just crippled. On some tracks the X7 has a spiky, gritty treble, but when I run the X7’s LO output into my car stereo those treble spikes disappear. Think about it long enough and the only explanation is that crippled amp. Maybe FiiO did it on purpose, but at least they did release the official mid-tier AM2 amp, and swapping modules is easy — all you need is one hex screw.