Introduction

I am quickly running out of ways to tell you how active FiiO is in releasing products, so much so that I had only just finished testing the innovative R7 network streamer/DAC/headphone amplifier and theQ11 battery-operated portable DAC/amp that a few more showed up. These included FiiO’s first open-back headphones in the form of the impressively tuned FT3 as well as some cool new entries we’ll be covering soon enough. Amidst all these, I had also received a portable DAC/amp which is both a FiiO product as much as it is from its budget-friendly sister brand Jade Audio.

FiiO refers to its KAx line of products as USB dongles, although some of these are portable DAC/amps to me given they do not have a fixed cable as with the likes of the MOONDROP Dawn we saw before. This lineup includes the KA1, which is a true dongle that comes in either Type-C or Lighting connector options and has a single 3.5 mm output. The next step up is the KA2—another dongle that offers a single 4.4 mm output and uses Cirrus Logic DACs instead of the ESS DAC in the KA1. It’s when you get to the KA3 that we see a portable DAC/amp with both 3.5 mm SE and 4.4 mm balanced outputs fed off an ESS DAC, so you could be wondering what the newer, more expensive KA5 brings to the table. A quick look at the image above confirms there is an integrated display on board and the positioning suggests this has a few more tricks up its sleeve too. Let’s thank FiiO for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp as we aim to find out more about the KA5 in this quick look article beginning with a look at the product specifications below. Be sure to click the image twice to fully open it and go through all the details.

Packaging and Accessories

The FiiO KA5 ships in a relatively simple looking box by the company’s own standards. It uses a glossy finish applied in black and gold colors to a thin cardboard box that has the new FiiO logo on the front in addition to the product name, a render of the KA5, and salient features in addition to the expected Hi-Res Audio logo. The Jade Audio logo shows up on the back along with contact information for the company. On the side is an authentication sticker for those paranoid about getting a fake product somehow and the inner box slides out the top or bottom as seen above to reveal an open cardboard container that has a multi-language quick start guide (online copy here) immediately. I highly recommend going through this given the extensive onboard functionality on offer with the FiiO KA5.

The KA5 portable DAC/amp comes placed safely in a thick foam sheet for added protection with the other accessories seen in the compartment to the bottom in a separate cardboard box. I also appreciated the cutout in the foam sheet to easily use your fingers to pry out the KA5—a simple move others tend to ignore. We get a support note in addition to a nice set of soft sleeved short USB Type-C to Type-C and Type-C to Lightning cables allowing users to pair the KA5 with various mobile devices. There is also a Type-C to Type-A adapter for use with a laptop/PC to complete the set.

Closer Look and User Experience

At 56 x 22 x 12 mm and weighing under 20 g, the FiiO KA5 is easily one of the more pocketable sources on the market today and certainly a portable one that you can take along. It’s also small enough to fit inside many medium-to-large sized IEM carry cases too, especially those with a separate compartment on the inner side of the lid. The chassis is made of CNC-machined aluminium given a black anodized finish and the top surface has a glass layer in the middle that helps cover the FiiO and Hi-Res Audio logos on either side of an integrated OLED display which immediately helps differentiate the KA5 from the vast majority of other such portable DAC/amps in the market. The aluminium chassis also gets a deliberate design that comes off as attractive without being gaudy and also provides enough room for you to easily hold on to the device in your hands. The bottom surface has a similar glass panel but this is mostly decorative to allow further branding—Jade Audio this time—in addition to a subtle geometric pattern design for aesthetics. The product name, certification logos, and rated playback capabilities are also seen here. One of the longer sides is bare whereas the other has two buttons in the form of a hexagon-shaped multifunction button that does play/pause for media playback in addition to menu activation and exit. The longer button helps with volume controls as well as previous/next track selection and menu option selection.

The shorter sides have the I/O in the form of a Type-C port on the bottom whereas the outputs are seen at the top. FiiO has gone with a 3.5 mm single-ended headphone output in addition to a 4.4 mm balanced connector. The 3.5 mm output is also special in offering SPDIF out in addition to headphones out, although here you will need a special adapter cable headed to a device that supports SPDIF input for transmitting digital audio signals. I wish the two ports were aligned better but it’s a pet peeve more than a dealbreaker. It would also have been nice to see line-out for those wanting to just use the DAC portion of the Q11 but I suppose this is feature segmentation done to hit the final price point and not cannibalize sales from the higher end models from FiiO, especially having realized there is a KA7 due to be released later this year.

Head-Fi community member jjxaker shared some photos of the KA5’s internals, which shows the OLED display on the side with all the I/O, with the audio circuitry and primary components on the other side of the 6-layer gold-immersed PCB. These include a ComTrue 7601 USB audio bridge in favor of the usual XMOS suspects, the dual Cirrus Logic CS43198 DACs—one per channel—and associated SGMicro SGM8261-5 high performance ultra-low noise op-amps in the amplification stage. The KA5 is able to put out up to 32-bit/768 kHz PCM playback as well as DSD256 decoding to where I am not missing the XMOS encoder and the lack of any MQA support does not feel like an issue either given the ongoing issues with the company behind the divisive technology.

Given the KA5 only supports wired inputs via the USB Type-C connector, setup is as simple as using the cable of your choice with the client of your choice. In this case I’ve paired it with my phone so you can get a better idea of the size of the thing. It’s at this point where we see the display light up automatically as the device turns on. There is no integrated battery here as with the Q11 we saw before so the KA5 relies on a wired connection for power and data alike. The display also replaces indicator LEDs on other such products by easily showing off the relevant information including current volume, gain level, digital filter, UAC version, SPDIF state (if enabled), button control mode, and playback format/sampling rates.

If some of those things on the screen did not make sense to you then don’t worry. You see, where the KA5 further helps justify its price point is by the adoption of a local operating system allowing complete onboard functionality. The OLED screen coupled with the hardware buttons allow you to pull up the menu where there are 13 submenus with their own options to choose from. These include changing the gain level from low or high, choosing between one of five digital filters—there’s not really a tangible difference between them but you are welcome to try—as well as the volume level control from a max of 120 steps or a max of 60 steps. Be aware that, at least as of the time I write this article, there is no way for you to hold down the volume button to have larger volume steps. You can’t even press and hold it to get the volume going up/down quickly, meaning you have to actually press the button several times for each increment. This can be annoying if you are trying out different IEMs/headphones of varying impedance and sensitivity levels so I do want to see FiiO allow for faster volume changes on top of providing the extra volume increments.

The menu settings also have the ability to change the DAC output mode between Class AB and Class H amplification which is quite neat given the latter takes up less idle current, and hence also less power. Then there’s the part where you can select to enable SPDIF or not, adjust for any channel imbalance, change the dimmer settings to prevent any OLED burn-in, rotate the entire display by 180° if you wish to have the hardware buttons on the other side, choose when the display turns off in use, and also change the button control mode. All these depend on variations of short presses and holding for a few seconds so you do need to spend some time getting used to navigating the menu and getting out of it lest you get annoyed. The good thing is there is no on/off switch here to further complicate things as with the likes of the FiiO BTR5 and BTR7. The KA5 also supports UAC 1 for console use in addition to UAC 2 for us PC users, making it a fairly versatile solution.

The FiiO KA5 is also supported by the FiiO Control mobile app available for both Android and iOS. I’ve used it in conjunction with the FiiO Music app on my phone for a good user experience, and note how you basically get most of the onboard functionality and customization options here in a more user-friendly manner. There are helpful notes informing you what each setting does before you change anything and I recommend using the app to get the KA5 set up to your desire before then using the hardware buttons for just volume control and media playback itself. This makes the entire user experience much simpler and potentially less frustrating for new users whereas others can always take advantage of the onboard OS for everything.

Using the FiiO KA5 with a Windows 10 or 11 PC doesn’t require any additional drivers, with Windows recognizing the device automatically. We see that the default firmware provides PCM playback options up to 32-bit, 384 kHz in addition to DSD256. The USB decoder comes in handy here, and all your favorite players will recognize the device in WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) mode accordingly. FiiO also has specific USB audio drivers for the KA5 available here, although it doesn’t do anything but enable your system to recognize the device in case it did not before. You do not get ASIO support or a control panel with it and this is mostly because the KA5 doesn’t go with the more established XMOS USB audio bridge. The FiiO KA5 alsosupports firmware updates over USB and there was a recent update which solved an occasional bug I had with the display not showing the playbacks sample rate when my PC was in sleep mode and then woken up.

Between the dual CS43198 DACs, the op-amp amplification stage, and the dedicated USB bridge, the FiiO KA5 provides a good experience even outside of all the customization options we just saw. I’ve found it to work exceptionally well not only for sensitive IEMs such as the FiiO FH7S, but also more demanding higher impedance dynamic driver headphones such as the FiiO FT3. More current-hungry planar magnetic headphones are contingent on how sensitive they are, with the likes of the HIFIMAN Ananda and HE1000se being easy enough to get plenty loud here whereas the MOONDROP Venus and HIFIMAN Susvara are a different story entirely—not that most people will really pair expensive headphones with the KA5 anyway! As far as pure power output goes, the KA5 is rated to put out as much as 136/154 mW per channel at 16 Ω off the 3.5/4.4 mm outputs, respectively, which scales well enough to 122/265 mW at 32 Ω and 13.5/54 mW at 300 Ω off the same outputs. This makes the FiiO KA5 one of the more capable portable DAC/amps, especially when you realize it does not use a battery to boost the power output. If you do require more power then you will have to go with a larger form factor such as the FiiO Q11 we saw before. I would say it’s best used with IEMs given the portable nature of the KA5 and IEMs alike, which can make for a highly compelling personal audio solution on the go.

FiiO also rates the KA5 highly when it comes to ultra low distortion and high dynamic range, with the rated specifications seen above as well as on the product page itself. To no surprise, the KA5 measures quite flat across the entire 20 Hz to 20 kHz range and provides a clean and precise sound. I have very little complaints about the KA5, especially considering how the dual CS43198 system is able to put out a sound signature that I’ve come to appreciate over the usual ESS Sabre implementations seen these days when it comes to not sounding lean in the higher frequencies. This does make me compare the KA5 to the likes of the Truthear SHIO which uses a similar dual CS43198 setup although I do think the KA5 sounds more engaging and detailed, and perhaps part of this is the amplification stage used here. Indeed, the same could be said comparing the KA5 to the Q11 with a single CS43198 DAC with the Q11 capable of more power but once again sounding ever so slightly leaner. It may well be placebo though so I am not going to use these for further validation in the absence of a proper audio analyzer which is also extremely expensive unfortunately. The KA5’s primary USP is with the integrated display and the onboard functionality, with the mobile app helping further. This is useful because both the SHIO and Q11 cost less, and yet the KA5 can be compared favorably to the likes of the Questyle M15 in terms of offering excellent sound and capable power while besting the M15 in features. The FiiO KA5 sells for $129.99 from the FiiO Aliexpress store where it currently has an ongoing sale for $116.99, and the same from authorized vendors. There is no battery to worry about degrading and also no Bluetooth connectivity; FiiO would rather you look at its BTR line there. In return, you get a well-built source that puts out a decent amount of power for the size and good, engaging sound too. It’s certainly an interesting solution, albeit one that you need to be more sure about choosing compared to the other options discussed here and see whether the feature set appeals to you.