the point of r2r is not to have total clarity. it is old school. like old cd players with burr brown and phillips 151 chips fused to an r2r interface. i use this as a dac alone with preamp and speakers. it will give you in nos an analog vinyl type of sound. best if used with tube amp or preamp. great video.
I've had mine for about a month and gathered various information online to find the best sound. These are my settings and possible recommendations. Use as a DAC only and output to RCA with a fixed output. I wasn't impressed with the headphone outputs nor the USB digital input. Disable RGB display (eye candy, etc). I feel the FiiO sounds best in over-sampling mode, a bit clearer and cleaner in the treble with bass similar in NOS mode. I am also using iFi iPower X 12V power supply instead of the stock unit. I find it easier on the ears and yet musical compared to the Schiit Modius.
I have the modius right now that i use as dac for my bigger speaker because it sounds good. Will the dac mode on this fiio be able to top it or just equal in sounds?
hi from the UK, i don't own the Fio but i had the popping & dropout issue with my laptop running windows 10 into my amp's (Mission 778x) dac, i checked out the problem on various forums with various causes & what was flagged up most of the time was it happens when playing tracks with different sampling rates whilst streaming which is about right in my case as it was worse at the beginning of each track & intermittingly during streaming, i've since replaced the laptop with one running Win11 & have no more issues with streaming music. this at least confirmed to me that the laptop was the cause & not the dac so i'd say the Fio is not the problem plus your mac & phone also showed the same results, hope this helps.
I have this. It delivers on the promise of R2R tonality at a surprisingly low price. I've heard DSM dacs at similar prices with better technicalities but they sound more digital. If you remember what really good CD players from the late 90s sounded like, this is it. It's fantastic for a bedroom or relaxed living room system. And if you use HQPlayer to send it upsampled PCM (while the K11 is in NOS mode), the performance goes much higher. It sounds like a different tier product then. This is with the line out. Headphone amp is okay, but not mind blowing.
Hart audio cables exist for this reason. You can use any connection to any headphone with interchangeable connections or item at a very affordable price. Nice review, very comprehensive!
I like Hart's approach and their quality in the budget space as well. But even though they are affordable, they are going to add a minimum of $50 to most headphones to be able to use Fiio's 4.4mm output. That must be figured into the value question IMO.
@@wavetheorysound Very true! The value question is answered by how many other amps / sources you will be plugging into. If this is the only one, not worth it. Have a dongle, a couple of DAC/amps, couple of headphones to share the 4.4mm, then it makes sense.
I love the approach and own Hart but that's what pains me to say, I notice some kind of loss of soul compared to (admittedly) much more expensive $150 cables. Your mileage may vary, pairings and so on, but I just can't do it. I even found the HiFiman "catheter" cables sound better so, just my limited experience sharing it.
I have one of these, I am more impressed with the RCA line out than the headphone outs. It feeds my integrated amp and my Xduoo MT-602. This replaced my Modi3 and I do prefer the sound of both the Xduoo and the integrated headphone amp when connected to the K11 over the modi, I also prefer those headphones outputs over the headphones amp in the K11. It feels more like a good DAC that happens to have a headphone Jack rather than a headphone amp with an integrated DAC.
Awesome review, I've had this for about 2 weeks and it sounds beautiful and runs flawlessly. The issue you're having might be related to the data transfer being lower than the required data read. Aside from the firmware for the R2R, this might be from the actual cable itself or the USB driver you're using on your motherboard.
Detailed review. However, the Fiio K11 R2R has dual functions: headphone amp and dac. You say the unit sounds pretty good but what are you referring to? The headphone amp or the dac? I am only interested in the dac and would like to know how that sounds as a stand alone function through the rca outputs. Also, please note the link posted to Amazon is for another product, the Fiio K11 not the Fiio K11 R2R.
I'm currently using it as DAC only and run it to a tube amp and it sounds great. The built in amp in this unit is holding it back, but understandably since it's pretty cheap unit. Can't have everything lol.
I watched a bunch of reviews on this and absolutely no one covers the DAC only in proper detail. Every reviewer is fixated on the headphone output. He spoke of the dac portion being better when using the RCA outs to another better amplifier but did not go into detail on the imaging or resolution improvements during that part of the testing.
Popping and crackling noise most likely comes from UAC1 and UAC2 options just change it and it may fix the problem for windows10 or 11 you have to use UAC2.
have the unit and besides foobars asio bugs i do not have any issues with asio or wasapi. when using roon it works perfectly. also works perfectly connected to a roopieee
Thank you for this review. I have ordered this primarily as headphone amp for my desktop Windows gaming and hope, based on other reviews, this will sound reasonable. I'm interested to see if I experience the USB issues you mentioned. I believe the SMSL SP200 is also R2R architecture and roughly the same price as this unit, but rates slightly higher in reviews and measurements. Thank you for your time, efforts, and for sharing this with us all.
Thanks a lot for the tremendous review of Fiio K11 R2R. There are two things about this dac/amp that I'm confusing. First part is about the headphone connections, I see there are two different headphone connection ports in the front which are 6.35mm S.E. and 4.4mm BAL respectively, therefore I can use either headphone ports, unless I had made a mistake on this. The other part is about LO, wondering the two front headphone connection ports can also have the option for selecting LO? Thanks again for the great review !!
I was watching this on my HD58X and perked up when I heard my exact headphone recommended to pair with this haha. Just put in an order, hopefully that USB connection issue is just the one unit as I do plan on using this with a Windows PC.
58X's sound best on old school analogue, just my limited experience. But what's weird is the cheaper cringey 558's sound even better on such things (as long as it's not a bass-centric track.). Sennheiser + analogue = soul, even if you can tell you're losing in other areas.
lots of info thanks....newbie question time.......to use the 4.4m balanced input do you need a specific balanced cable or will an adaptor to the 3.5mm jack using the existing cable work?.....I suspect the answer is no but if anyone could let me know that would be great ?
I'm sure it does, but that's getting up to a price where one should think about a Mojo 2, dac1421, upgraded Geshelli J2S, or Musician Draco is just a little bit more. I'd go that route personally.
Hey there, I also have this issue that you have with the USB connection. I connect the usb to the back of my motherboard which is a B650e-f AMD platform and have followed every suggested windows 11 and BIOS modification in order to isolate the issue. I also tried Fiio's beta firmware that I recieved from their support desk and it did not address the issue.
This fiio r2r dac has an RCA output port and a headphone output port. I want to listen to music, connect the jack wire to the RCA port down to the amplifiers, sing karaoke at the headphone output port, connect the jack wire to the mixer then connect it down to the amplifiers, is this setup ok?
Hey mate been a long time sub and about to pull the trigger on the 490 Pros! My main use will be gaming and FPS games like call of duty. If you had to pick from there DAC/AMPS which would you choose? where I am there all about the same price. I have fallen on either Topping DX3 Pro+, FiiO K11 or the Zen dac v3 appreciate any advice :)
@@Mark-fs7ok More expensive should equal better sound but it's not a given. Does one sound 6 times better than the other? Will it last 6 times longer? "Better" should include value and overall satisfaction. The amount you spend and resulting expectations have a huge impact on perceived sound quality .
I can't hear any difference between this fiio K11 R2R and my mobo audio (Gigabyte amp-up audio ALC1200 chip) using my Fidelio's XH2R. Here's what I've tried: streaming audio, FLAC files, some movies through streaming platform, different cables: crap cables vs SKW cable, washing ears. It's either me, headphones or fiio K11 R2R. Am I expecting too much?
For $160 bucks? Yea, you're expecting a little to much. Good entry into r2r on a budget is something like the schiit modi multibit 2 or a hifiman ef400
which do u recommend, k11 r2r or hifiman ef 400, given the former one is $100 cheaper than the hifiman? i'm gonna pair either of these dac/amp with ananda nano. thanks
Actually I'll be more interested in comparing with the EF499, because at price wise and the parts that they use on EF500 are way more better than that of K11 R2R in every aspect, thus I've no doubt the EF500 wouldn't be the better one. However the EF499 is priced much lower than any other Hifiman's dac/amp products and doesn't use their own award winning Himalaya dac chip, therefore, I personally is very curios about the performance and sound quality could be, especially with the dac chip which being used is an older model from Philips. I hear someone that own the EF499 saying the EF499 is too lay back and warm which make it lack of any dynamic performance, so that I would like to hear a professional's real opinion.
I got a Lightening to type c on Amazon. I got it to use with the Tone 2 Pro headphone/amp/ DAC. Only drawback is no power supply. Yes i have 4 other 3rd party camera adapters. I stopped using them when I bought my Streamer.
You have the value proposition narrative backwards. The high end headphones without double ended cables, are a flawed value proposition. Pay $1,000 or more and you are stuck with single ended? That's a bad deal. All my IEMs have pentacon plugs, so do my headphones. I don't buy them if they don't have it or have compatibility issues with after market double ended cables. Bt w, at that price, if you even have imaging and layering and texture of any sort, it's already good. I think I will wait till the specs are a little better on cheap r2rs, like 0.01% variance, at least, in the resistors. This one is 0.1% 😂
if you want better sound, open the dac, and add one more dc input , digital- and analog. use regenerative power for analog,use better streamer like innuos, and the sound just more amazing!!! thats all!!!
Man you have covered this one extensively, thank you. I was looking to purchase the k11 r2r.
the point of r2r is not to have total clarity. it is old school. like old cd players with burr brown and phillips 151 chips fused to an r2r interface. i use this as a dac alone with preamp and speakers. it will give you in nos an analog vinyl type of sound. best if used with tube amp or preamp. great video.
With a tube amp.. Good idea!
what's a good budget R2R tube dac/amp?
how do you compare it to Schist Gungnir? the most vinyl-ish sounding of all DACs until we stopped giving a crown for that category a few years ago?
Can confirm sounds great with a tube amp lol.
I've had mine for about a month and gathered various information online to find the best sound. These are my settings and possible recommendations. Use as a DAC only and output to RCA with a fixed output. I wasn't impressed with the headphone outputs nor the USB digital input. Disable RGB display (eye candy, etc). I feel the FiiO sounds best in over-sampling mode, a bit clearer and cleaner in the treble with bass similar in NOS mode. I am also using iFi iPower X 12V power supply instead of the stock unit. I find it easier on the ears and yet musical compared to the Schiit Modius.
I have the modius right now that i use as dac for my bigger speaker because it sounds good. Will the dac mode on this fiio be able to top it or just equal in sounds?
DAC hunting is like mushroom hunting, so dubious and uncertain.
@@Äpple-pie-5k stick with tried and true in other words highly rated DAC’s to get into the ballpark of what you may seek.
Then why switch, lol
You should look at stepping up like a Denafrips or the Schitt Bifrost@@renatoforteza1969
Can i use an RCA to USB cable to connect the K11 to my Notebook?
hi from the UK, i don't own the Fio but i had the popping & dropout issue with my laptop running windows 10 into my amp's (Mission 778x) dac, i checked out the problem on various forums with various causes & what was flagged up most of the time was it happens when playing tracks with different sampling rates whilst streaming which is about right in my case as it was worse at the beginning of each track & intermittingly during streaming, i've since replaced the laptop with one running Win11 & have no more issues with streaming music. this at least confirmed to me that the laptop was the cause & not the dac so i'd say the Fio is not the problem plus your mac & phone also showed the same results, hope this helps.
My Fiio R2r feed by Sotm SPS 500-and 6 pcs lt 3045 . Sound just AMAZING!!!!More holographic, better microdetails, sound stages......My preamp are using regenerative power.Great Job Fiio!!!!!!!!!
Just ordered my balanced headphone cable for the HD598's I have been using for 10 years.. Thanks.
I have this. It delivers on the promise of R2R tonality at a surprisingly low price. I've heard DSM dacs at similar prices with better technicalities but they sound more digital. If you remember what really good CD players from the late 90s sounded like, this is it. It's fantastic for a bedroom or relaxed living room system. And if you use HQPlayer to send it upsampled PCM (while the K11 is in NOS mode), the performance goes much higher. It sounds like a different tier product then. This is with the line out. Headphone amp is okay, but not mind blowing.
Hart audio cables exist for this reason. You can use any connection to any headphone with interchangeable connections or item at a very affordable price. Nice review, very comprehensive!
I like Hart's approach and their quality in the budget space as well. But even though they are affordable, they are going to add a minimum of $50 to most headphones to be able to use Fiio's 4.4mm output. That must be figured into the value question IMO.
@@wavetheorysound Very true! The value question is answered by how many other amps / sources you will be plugging into. If this is the only one, not worth it. Have a dongle, a couple of DAC/amps, couple of headphones to share the 4.4mm, then it makes sense.
I love the approach and own Hart but that's what pains me to say, I notice some kind of loss of soul compared to (admittedly) much more expensive $150 cables. Your mileage may vary, pairings and so on, but I just can't do it. I even found the HiFiman "catheter" cables sound better so, just my limited experience sharing it.
For better detail and separation, depth of sound stage get the non R2R K11
Use better power supply for the R2R!!!
I will
I have one of these, I am more impressed with the RCA line out than the headphone outs. It feeds my integrated amp and my Xduoo MT-602. This replaced my Modi3 and I do prefer the sound of both the Xduoo and the integrated headphone amp when connected to the K11 over the modi, I also prefer those headphones outputs over the headphones amp in the K11. It feels more like a good DAC that happens to have a headphone Jack rather than a headphone amp with an integrated DAC.
I used this dac for a month, sounded amazing
Awesome review, I've had this for about 2 weeks and it sounds beautiful and runs flawlessly. The issue you're having might be related to the data transfer being lower than the required data read. Aside from the firmware for the R2R, this might be from the actual cable itself or the USB driver you're using on your motherboard.
Detailed review. However, the Fiio K11 R2R has dual functions: headphone amp and dac. You say the unit sounds pretty good but what are you referring to? The headphone amp or the dac? I am only interested in the dac and would like to know how that sounds as a stand alone function through the rca outputs. Also, please note the link posted to Amazon is for another product, the Fiio K11 not the Fiio K11 R2R.
Agreed. 41 minutes and we don’t know. 😢
He said the DAC is good and amp is the weaker of the two. Not in those words. Rewatch around 33 min mark.
I'm currently using it as DAC only and run it to a tube amp and it sounds great. The built in amp in this unit is holding it back, but understandably since it's pretty cheap unit. Can't have everything lol.
I watched a bunch of reviews on this and absolutely no one covers the DAC only in proper detail. Every reviewer is fixated on the headphone output. He spoke of the dac portion being better when using the RCA outs to another better amplifier but did not go into detail on the imaging or resolution improvements during that part of the testing.
sennheiser 660S2 comes with both 6.35 and 4.35bal cables
Popping and crackling noise most likely comes from UAC1 and UAC2 options just change it and it may fix the problem for windows10 or 11 you have to use UAC2.
Just sell the kid to buy gear, problem solved 😇 just kidding, he might be expensive to maintain but he is a hell of a spokesperson already 👍😎
Professor, thank you for another headphone amplifier review! 👌
I have three FiiO DAC-amps. ✔️
Reverend Dr. Thomas,
✝️ The Vegan Vicar 🌱
Another GREAT review!....THANK YOU!👍
have the unit and besides foobars asio bugs i do not have any issues with asio or wasapi. when using roon it works perfectly. also works perfectly connected to a roopieee
Thank you for this review. I have ordered this primarily as headphone amp for my desktop Windows gaming and hope, based on other reviews, this will sound reasonable. I'm interested to see if I experience the USB issues you mentioned. I believe the SMSL SP200 is also R2R architecture and roughly the same price as this unit, but rates slightly higher in reviews and measurements. Thank you for your time, efforts, and for sharing this with us all.
Thanks a lot for the tremendous review of Fiio K11 R2R. There are two things about this dac/amp that I'm confusing. First part is about the headphone connections, I see there are two different headphone connection ports in the front which are 6.35mm S.E. and 4.4mm BAL respectively, therefore I can use either headphone ports, unless I had made a mistake on this. The other part is about LO, wondering the two front headphone connection ports can also have the option for selecting LO? Thanks again for the great review !!
Thanks for info..............
I was watching this on my HD58X and perked up when I heard my exact headphone recommended to pair with this haha. Just put in an order, hopefully that USB connection issue is just the one unit as I do plan on using this with a Windows PC.
58X's sound best on old school analogue, just my limited experience. But what's weird is the cheaper cringey 558's sound even better on such things (as long as it's not a bass-centric track.). Sennheiser + analogue = soul, even if you can tell you're losing in other areas.
lots of info thanks....newbie question time.......to use the 4.4m balanced input do you need a specific balanced cable or will an adaptor to the 3.5mm jack using the existing cable work?.....I suspect the answer is no but if anyone could let me know that would be great ?
If you pair it with an Intona galvanic isolator, that USB connection might actually work well.
I'm sure it does, but that's getting up to a price where one should think about a Mojo 2, dac1421, upgraded Geshelli J2S, or Musician Draco is just a little bit more. I'd go that route personally.
Thoughts on using R2R as dac and using a Magni Unity just amp connected to it? would be running the edition XS
Hey there, I also have this issue that you have with the USB connection. I connect the usb to the back of my motherboard which is a B650e-f AMD platform and have followed every suggested windows 11 and BIOS modification in order to isolate the issue. I also tried Fiio's beta firmware that I recieved from their support desk and it did not address the issue.
This fiio r2r dac has an RCA output port and a headphone output port. I want to listen to music, connect the jack wire to the RCA port down to the amplifiers, sing karaoke at the headphone output port, connect the jack wire to the mixer then connect it down to the amplifiers, is this setup ok?
Speaking of Fiio; do we have a release date for the new Fiio DM 13 cd player? Would this DAC work nicely with it?
Thank you so much.❤
did it manage to drive the dt880 through the balanced output?
I've had popping and crackling on dacs due to a defective USB cable. Try swapping it and see if it helps :)
Hey mate been a long time sub and about to pull the trigger on the 490 Pros! My main use will be gaming and FPS games like call of duty. If you had to pick from there DAC/AMPS which would you choose? where I am there all about the same price. I have fallen on either Topping DX3 Pro+, FiiO K11 or the Zen dac v3 appreciate any advice :)
How would it sound with linear power supply? That's what we want to know from a reviewer
much the same 😁😁
It’s better than Chord Mojo 2? This is my main question.
No. Mojo 2 is substantially better.
@@wavetheorysound, are they actually for different purposes?
I guess R2R is for laid back listening?
Somewhat like the OG Mojo.
Uh, is the $160 DAC/amp better than the $650 DAC/amp? Sheesh
There are a lot of such examples especially on audio market. @@Mark-fs7ok
@@Mark-fs7ok More expensive should equal better sound but it's not a given. Does one sound 6 times better than the other? Will it last 6 times longer? "Better" should include value and overall satisfaction. The amount you spend and resulting expectations have a huge impact on perceived sound quality .
could you please make a review of new Audio-GD R-28 mk3 r2r dac/amp??? 🫸🫷
I can't hear any difference between this fiio K11 R2R and my mobo audio (Gigabyte amp-up audio ALC1200 chip) using my Fidelio's XH2R.
Here's what I've tried: streaming audio, FLAC files, some movies through streaming platform, different cables: crap cables vs SKW cable, washing ears.
It's either me, headphones or fiio K11 R2R.
Am I expecting too much?
For $160 bucks? Yea, you're expecting a little to much. Good entry into r2r on a budget is something like the schiit modi multibit 2 or a hifiman ef400
which do u recommend, k11 r2r or hifiman ef 400, given the former one is $100 cheaper than the hifiman? i'm gonna pair either of these dac/amp with ananda nano. thanks
@wavetheorysound
Thanks for video, Can you compare Fiio K11 R2R with hifiman EF500 please? Thanks for answer.
Actually I'll be more interested in comparing with the EF499, because at price wise and the parts that they use on EF500 are way more better than that of K11 R2R in every aspect, thus I've no doubt the EF500 wouldn't be the better one. However the EF499 is priced much lower than any other Hifiman's dac/amp products and doesn't use their own award winning Himalaya dac chip, therefore, I personally is very curios about the performance and sound quality could be, especially with the dac chip which being used is an older model from Philips. I hear someone that own the EF499 saying the EF499 is too lay back and warm which make it lack of any dynamic performance, so that I would like to hear a professional's real opinion.
With my iPhone 13, I have to use the camera connector to send a signal to the r2r. I tried a few different cables before adding the camera connector.
I got a Lightening to type c on Amazon. I got it to use with the Tone 2 Pro headphone/amp/ DAC. Only drawback is no power supply. Yes i have 4 other 3rd party camera adapters. I stopped using them when I bought my Streamer.
I have a USB issue as well on Windows 11 - the sound has a delay - around 2 seconds. Quite annoying...
Now it goes closer to 200 USD / 180 Eur. Ordered one today, FOMO is real LOL
"Sent over to me directly from Fiio" ---- NOOOOO, Chinese QC is a wild one, it's always better to review a random one.
how does this compare to the hifiman ef500?
Plastic shell, I thought it was aluminum just like the og k11
It is aluminium / metal.
You have the value proposition narrative backwards. The high end headphones without double ended cables, are a flawed value proposition. Pay $1,000 or more and you are stuck with single ended? That's a bad deal. All my IEMs have pentacon plugs, so do my headphones. I don't buy them if they don't have it or have compatibility issues with after market double ended cables. Bt w, at that price, if you even have imaging and layering and texture of any sort, it's already good. I think I will wait till the specs are a little better on cheap r2rs, like 0.01% variance, at least, in the resistors. This one is 0.1% 😂
👌👍
No Bluetooth. I will buy SMSL.
if you want better sound, open the dac, and add one more dc input , digital- and analog. use regenerative power for analog,use better streamer like innuos, and the sound just more amazing!!! thats all!!!
36:38 bombshell
I am selling my Audionote and Accuphase..
For a better experience, choose something else. That interface 🤮
How does this compare to something like a schiit multibit 2 or a ef400 sonically?