REVIEW

though could sound rather more digital than I would like, depending on what I played.

Kraftwork’s “Autobahn” was an old favourite back in 1974 and quite unique at the time. Playing it now seemed inevitably dated and even the sound quality sounded harsher than from the top DACs I have used over the years. It sounded better on vinyl. No surprise there, I guess. On 44.1kHz WAV it just sounded a little less interesting and musical. I had to turn it right up to get any sense of enjoyment.

Let’s try more synthesisers combined with guitars and drums; Hawkwind’s Hall of the Mountain Grill. Again, the volume of this recording had to be raised midway for the HD650’s. The piano on the title track was accurate and the overall quality was excellent. The Fiio gave a startlingly good performance of this track, and again this was a very quiet running headphone amp at 129dB.

Turning to jazz and Herbie Hancock’s Crossing album and “Sleeping Giant” I was awakened immediately by the solo drum that starts the track. Transients were fast and accurate, and the music was quickly followed by electronics and an almost musique concrète idiom. This work might not have a melody you can sing along to, but it does have great rhythm if you want to dance. I didn’t bother doing that but listened to this very long track (it’s 24’ 48”!) with great interest. This Fiio was really growing on me, especially as this track was mp3. The sound quality was excellent and I didn’t feel perturbed by the compressed format. The HD650 might be an old headphone but it still does the job. Everything was there from the deepest bass guitar to the cymbals. The keyboard (Fender Rhodes) was beautifully tight and flowed beautifully.

Now turning to Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony for a breather. This lovely work starts at low volume and takes some three minutes before it wakes up. The Audio Technica ATH W1000 headphones are more efficient than the Sennheisers, but I still needed to turn up the volume to get enough welly. For more gusto I turned to Eugine Goosen’s 1959 rendition of Berlioz Symphony Fantastique. This is a truly powerful work and the 24bit/96kHz recording still had all the noises you’d expect from the original master tape recording plus the sounds of the instrumentalists breathing and turning pages. Even a few hums from the conductor added to this excellent audio. I had noticed so far in my listening that turning the volume control had a delayed reaction, and turning down the volume at speed resulted in a staggered decrescendo. This wasn’t something I was too concerned at, but worthy of note.

Turning to BT I decided to test that lower bass again with the Meze 99 Classic with Sting’s “Brand New Day”. This starts with an extremely low and loud ‘burble’ that sets the scene for the track. I felt the vibration clearly but it didn’t yell at me. It was too well controlled. Again with the top-end Campfire Solaris “Stellar Horizon” IEM the bass was again excellently controlled and the music flowed brilliantly. Top frequencies including cymbals were tight and gave a highly forensic analysis of the music. Only mid frequencies sometimes didn’t sound as musical as I would like. With Hotel California (Eagles 24/96 FLAC) whilst controlled and detailed the mid frequencies again just slightly lacked. So too, turning to Chopin Piano Concerto No1, (Ingrid Fliter, 24/192 Linn records) the mid-frequency violins lacked a little oomph, though I know Linn recordings have their own individual sound quality, so I somewhat expected it, but not quite as much. That said, the piano was detailed and very musical with starts of notes and decays extremely accurately. I didn’t want to stop listening.

Turning to DSD and “A Trace of Grace” (Michel Godard) this slow piece had excellent spread across the soundstage with violin, sax, and brass. This was very open and the K9 showed extreme care with the musical performance. The Fiio was honest and what i would consider to be very accurate, particularly with transients and detailed high frequencies. Bass was controlled and real. Finally, I tested out MQA on the K9 ESS, and Beagle Kick’s Miracle album. This album has excellent jazz piano, guitar, and drums. Whilst MQA might be having a somewhat uncertain future as I write this, the performance through the Fiio was anything but. I actually quite like the sound from MQA even if it is a bit marmite to some, and the Fiio gave an excellent rendition that was highly engrossing and very musical. Playing the Fiio as a preamp into my Synthesis valve amps added even further to my enjoyment of this music.

Conclusion

This is a really good attempt to produce a detailed and quick DAC with excellent amp stages and plenty of features. It even worked well as a pre amp. Everything was there in the music – warts and all at times – but that is the sign of a good product; it was very honest. Only the mid frequencies didn’t give me the sonic prowess to give it the very top marks but for a penny short of £700 this is an excellent, and very good looking, DAC/headphone amp.

At A Glance

Build Quality:

Excellent build quality

Sound Quality:

An exciting and transparent performance, with masses of detail particularly at high frequencies

Value For Money:

For £699.99 this is a very well-designed and full-featured DAC/Pre/headphone amp

An excellent product

We Loved: Transparency

Speed of performance

Control at lower frequencies

Lowest distortion and excellent S/N ratio

Excellent presentation

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Slightly digital presentation at top frequencies on a few pieces I played

Elevator Pitch Review: I have been a customer of Fiio in the past and have watched their product range turn from the average to a top-flight producer of DAPs, DACs, and headphone amps that they are today. Would this flagship hi-res desktop headphone amplifier/DAC fair even better than my expectations? You bet. Including the ES9038PRO DAC chip from ESS and the THX AAA 788+ amp chipset, this has a well-stocked PCB so should make a very decent sound for the price.

Price: £699.99