FiiO BTR3k Balanced HiFi Bluetooth Amp

Product Information

Throughout the entire frequency range, there is nothing to fault - even the bass is nearly perfect in both quantity and quality, only being very slightly improved by adding O2 amp. The first difference between the Earstudio ES100 and the FiiO BTR3K is the quality of the material that is used. The FiiO BTR3K is by far superior in terms of build quality with a combination of metal and glass versus all plastic. Thanks to it’s CSR8675 chip, dual independent crystal oscillators and supported by a two high-performance AK4377A DAC chips, the FiiO BTR3K can grant 24-bit transmission and lossless wireless audio codecs that can adapt to any audiophile’s needs.

The BTR3K is the updated version of the original BTR3 which is a Hi-Res Bluetooth receiver with a very compact size that features 2x AK4377A DAC Chips, one for the 3.5mm TRS and one for the 2.5mm balanced TRSS output. It sports also Qualcomm’s CSR8675 BT 5.0 SoC which supports lossless Bluetooth codes such like LDAC and aptX HD and can be used also as USB DAC with your PC, Tablet of Smartphone. The ultimate point I’m trying to make with regard to the sound of these 4 is that I would likely have a pretty tough time determining which is which if I were blindfolded.Whenever I connect to a device I get the connection chime, then I get another connection chime immediately after the first, then I can't get audio from the device I'm pairing with While hi-res wireless is advertised, you need to make sure that your smartphone allows LDAC and that you can manually set it to the highest rate to achieve this. At its absolute maximum, you can configure LDAC to reliably send and receive a 909kbps 16bit / 44100 signal, which is ideally equal to a Redbook flac file. I say ideally because most of the time there's some difference, and even with a perfect Bluetooth receiver there is some data loss sometimes, and I don't want to mislead and tell you to expect a stable 96kHz connection from Bluetooth LDAC. That's also achievable in theory, but none of my smartphones can achieve it. The only disadvantage in BTR3K is losing NFC, but I have never considered that feature important - you only use it once to connect to a transmitter (and not all of them support NFC anyway). The best part is that all of this adjustments are stored into the BTR3K memory permanently and then can be used without the need of the FiiO app running. So far I been enjoying the BTR5 2021, The app is very useful as so driver less mode. The only thing that's a minor issue with me is not being able to get access to those settings in the app from my PC, since you can't access the settings unless you unplug it from your PC. So it be handy to either have a PC version of the app or include all of those settings in the drivers.

The Foreign Exchange’s “Come Around”, a song I’m very familiar with, sounds more lively during the intro. Among the technical specifications directly related to audio that might interest audiophiles, the FiiO BTR3K offers a SNR of 122dB with 118dB of crosstalk and a noise floor of 2uV. LED Status Light: The front glass of the FiiO BTR3K, actually, hides a “FiiO” logo that will illuminate and change color according to the Bluetooth codec being used – it will also serve as a status indicator. By and large, the BTR3K bears many of the same similarities as its older brothers: E10K, K3, and K5 Pro.It should be noted that I have absolutely no affiliation with FiiO. I’d like to thank FiiO for providing the sample for this review. This review reflects my personal experience with FiiO BTR3K. Every opinion expressed is mine and I stand by it, the purpose of this review is to help those interested in FiiO BTR3K find their next music companion. On the front of the device shining through the glass pane is the FiiO logo that lights up various colours when the BTR3K is powered up, advising you which codec is being used. Not only that, but BTR3K even sounds better standalone than SMSL Idea/Sabaj DA2, which sound a bit too dry without O2.

If there are multiple players connected as DAC at the same time, you can only choose one of them as output device. But you can easily switch between the devices through the sound panel or through the settings of the music player application (no need to reconnect the player). The ASIO driver can only work with one device at a time, so by default it will choose the player that's connected first as ASIO output device.The BTR3K adopts the Type-C connector, which is easier to use than older Micro USB connectors; this allows you to insert the cable in either way. The FiiO BTR3K supports also the USB DAC functionality without the need to install any driver, just simply plug and play! With two high-performance AK4377A DACs, the power output has increased by 50% compared to the AK4376 used in the BTR3 as well as greatly improved measurements and actual sound.