Product Comparison: Fiio X5-II vs iBasso DX90

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Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

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iBasso DX90 High Resolution Dual Sabre ES9018K2M DACs with Extreme Audio USB Charger & Coaxial Connection Kit

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General Specifications

Brand

Fiio

iBasso

Model

X5-II

DX90

About the Product

All new X5 2nd gen - native DSD decoding, more musical, more portable. One small step in your eyes, one giant leap for your ears.

The DX90 from iBasso is a high performance digital audio player that delivers mastering quality sound with support for up to 24-bit 192 kHz resolution. The player features dual ES9018K2M 24-bit DACs and works with a variety of supported formats, including APE, FLAC, WAV, WMA, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, OGG, MP3, and DSD.

Key Specs

Memory

0 GB

8 GB

Display

Yes

Integrated Speaker(s)

What customers say about "Key Specs"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Love how smooth the interface is, the display is clear, crisp, and easy to read.
The screen has nice color reproduction, good for those of you that love album art.
The large artwork screen.
The menus are sharp on the display.
The slight delay between displaying the artist list and the albums is shorter if you have a huge selection, thus saving on battery life a bit.
The display is small and uses a tiny font.

iBasso DX90 High Resolution Dual Sabre ES9018K2M DACs with Extreme Audio USB Charger & Coaxial Connection Kit

The three physical buttons are great if you like to pause and switch back and forth without looking at a screen.
Buttons feel very solid and the screen is more than adequate.
I would love to see improvements in are font size selection in the display.
My only complaint would be I wish any button press would wake up the screen ( instead of just the power button ) and the screen could be a tad brighter. I suspect the lower output of the screen backlight is a battery extending measure.
The touch screen is a bit hard to use.

Size & Weight

Color

Black

Height

4.3 in.

4 in.

Width

2.5 in.

Depth

0.6 in.

0.7 in.

Weight

5.8 oz.

4.9 oz.

What customers say about "Size & Weight"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

The build seems to be quality and I like the size/ weight.
Nothing compares to the quality of sound that comes out of this little machine, for its size and price.
It looks very similar to an iPod, to be honest, and the weight and size are also comparable.
it's beautiful, like all the other Fiio products I own. It's smaller and lighter than the Gen I, you can actually carry in jeans pocket.
I felt as if it were sturdy by the weight of it.

iBasso DX90 High Resolution Dual Sabre ES9018K2M DACs with Extreme Audio USB Charger & Coaxial Connection Kit

Well designed as to size and button placement.
The unit is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and feels solid and well built.
It has a very responsive buttons, good weight in a compact design which is very good for travellers!
The player look & feel is solid and has good weight.
Is difficult to use with large hands because of the small screen size.

Features

Supported Audio Formats

AAC, Protected AAC, HE-AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Lossy Files, PCM, DSD, WAV

AAC, WMA, WAV, FLAC

Memory Card Slot

Yes

Input(s)

3.5mm Jack

Voice Recorder

Video Playback

Bluetooth Enabled

Extras

Top shelf PCM1792A from Texas Instrument coupled with new OPA1652 gives great dynamic performance

Dual Soundplus OPAMP OPA1611 with dual high current output buffer BUF634 (by Texas Instrument)

Usability

2.4" IPS Capacitive Touch Screen

What customers say about "Features"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

A nice feature between the two memory cards is you can create on-the go playlists that combine data from both cards.
The use of removable memory cards that can be directly managed is very convenient, since I personally do not like to have to use software like iTunes to manage my files.
My favorite thing though is simply the versatility of file formats you can use, you aren't limited to the usual formats but you can use the FLAC format.
I like that this fiio device has 2 sd card slots cause I have loads of metal music in my collection and need extra storage space for it but I was hoping for better battery life it's not terrible but doesn't seem to be great either!
Difficult to use: The menus are very slow once you get into the 100 GB range. If you're using the "Categories" section, expect 15-30 seconds delays after choosing an option. To speed things up, I use the folders section since I already organized my folders by artist/album.
Great but it does take getting used to , some controls are a bit odd but over all great expandability and sound.

iBasso DX90 High Resolution Dual Sabre ES9018K2M DACs with Extreme Audio USB Charger & Coaxial Connection Kit

The DX90 plays FLAC, APE, MP3 and WAV files with equal facility.
Plays all lossless files except mpc, which in fact can be converted to wav or flac.
All music is playing from the 128Gb SD card I put in it, not the internal memory.
The DX90's sound can only be described as luscious and rich. The dual Sabre DACs produce a fullness and an elegance to music that makes lengthy listening sessions a pleasure if not an addiction.
Approximately 15 percent of my artwork will not even display and presents as a blank. My files are pretty evenly distributed between MP3, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, and Hi-Rez.

Power

Battery Life

10 hours

What customers say about "Power"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Plenty of space availability, and the battery life is great!
It takes three hours to charge and I clocked battery life at approximately eleven hours.
The battery life is specified at 10+ hours, which is conservative as I get 11 to 12 hours from its 3300 mAh battery, more if I'm using the Line output which powers off the headphone amp.
Terrible battery life, cumbersome to browse through files.
No indicator which says battery is fully charged.

iBasso DX90 High Resolution Dual Sabre ES9018K2M DACs with Extreme Audio USB Charger & Coaxial Connection Kit

The DX90 is a bit of a battery hog, with around 7-8 hours of usage at standard resolution and volume, 6-7 hours while playing high-resolution files at higher volume.
Battery Life: 4 out of 5 ( I have seen 6 hrs and up. Mini USB port is a big plus to have. I am using Android charger mostly in car. Very accessible to charge in the car and with a laptop)
Unfortunately comments on battery life are accurate (~6 hours for me), but to me wasn't enough of a downside not to love it.
Battery life is not as good as Ipod, but who cares? the battery is replaceable and cheap enough to have a couple of spares.
Also, battery life is pretty short at about 7 hours, which goes by quickly.

Warranty / Certifications

Certifications

FCC, CE