FiiO Q5 DAC/Amplifier Review
Conceptualised in May 2015 as the company’s flagship Portable DAC/Amplifier, the FiiO Q5 was originally named FiiO E19 to reflect its positioning over the FiiO E17. Eventually named FiiO Q5, the device is the company’s third offering of the Q series of DAC/Amplifier after Q1 and Q1 Mark II.
The device was launched during the FiiO Autumn Launch Event on the 4th of November in 2017, 918 days or 2 years, 6 months, 3 days since its conceptualisation. This event was particularly meaningful for Porta-Fi as this was the first time, we were covering a launch event in China since our founding on the 1st of September 2017.
For Q5 to be the company’s Flagship Portable DAC/Amplifier, it has to be comprehensive and this was when things got a little obscure as there was no parallel offering in the market. At the point of conceptualisation, the Digital Audio Players (DAPs) offered by FiiO was only capable of decoding up to 24-bit/192 kHz. FiiO wanted Q5 to be its first dual offering, capable of decoding up to 32-bit/384 kHz, the ability to support the interchangeable Amplifier Modules first introduced on the FiiO X7 as well as supporting multiple inputs which included coaxial, optical, line-in and Bluetooth.
FiiO eventually went public on the project on the 21st of June 2015 and feedbacks from the online community contributed to the realignment of the project which added MFi and mobile device compatibility as one of the key functionalities as well as an added emphasis on interchangeable Amplifier Modules and Bluetooth.
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Author: Goh Beng Yeow; From: Porta-fi.com
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