Volume adjustment is independent from the source device, whether the BTR3K is connected via Bluetooth or USB. In both cases it keeps its own volume that’s distinct from that of the source; this is especially useful if your device does not have fine-grained volume levels.

With the second song it has a bass drum is really notice able but its over lapping any thing and isn’t out of control. It sounds exactly like a bass drum, in the low end, snare’s and hit hats sound like there suppose to as well as the drum kits I’m hearing. Even the mid end bass sounds good, as I hearing the different notes of mid bass. Every thing sounds like there suppose to sound. The voice echo’s sound good as it spreads out from the right top ish of me. I’m able to hear the synthesizer's and every thing separated from each other.The Foreign Exchange’s “Come Around”, a song I’m very familiar with, sounds more lively during the intro. If the player does not support DSD decoding, please set the Output mode to PCM and the driver application will automatically convert the DSD format to PCM.) Right off the bat, you’ll notice the obvious elephant in the room – the BTR5 has a lot more power than the 3K.

FiiO BTR3K vs EarStudio ES100: the ES100 is the de facto standard of this category of devices and for good reason. The competitors are catching up, as demonstrated by the BTR3K, but there are still some areas where the EarStudio device leads. Amongthose are power output (at a massive 300 mW), Bluetooth range, battery life (at an astounding 14 hours despite being even smaller than the BTR3K!) and configurability. Overall the ES100 offers more choice in terms of what one can drive with it, so it should be chosen if one wants to drive even hard-to-drive full-size headphones (e.g. planars). Nonetheless, the FiiO BTR3K has a significant redesign over it’s clip section, where the BTR3 was fixed and now the newer BTR3K offers the clip section as a detachable addon that comes bundled with the unit. This design decision allows the BTR3K to reach a much thinner profile when the clip is detached and, yet, not loosing it’s clip functionality. 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.The BTR3K upgrades to Bluetooth 5.0, which means faster pairing and more stable signal strength for a better overall experience. It fully supports AAC / SBC / aptX / aptXLL / aptX HD / LDAC audio formats that you’ll get the best sound quality possible from the BTR3K.

I’m not sure if this specific ESS chip is a bit different from the one present in the DragonFly, but the point is that I didn’t hear much in the way of sound difference between the 2. From female vocals to violins and pianos, the extension, emphasis and detail retrieval of the upper midrange are quite successful.

FiiO BTR3K Photos

Bluetooth The BTR3K uses Qualcomm's CSR8675 Bluetooth chip. Some benefits of this are low-power consumption, a 120 MHz DSP, and support for 24-bit transmission and processing among various high quality wireless codecs like SBC, AAC, aptX/X LL/HD, and LDAC. The "front panel indicator" on the BTR5 is colorful and bright, and the BTR3k lit up looks so darned cute sitting in its tiny plastic clip