XDuoo X3—The Best Hi Res Audio Player At Affordable Price
[Note: According to Xduoo company official news, Xduoo X3 was stopped production since May, 2018. So, there will be limited stock on the market from that time.
If you are planning to buy Xduoo X3 these days, please ask the seller if it is the stock item, or the second-hand item.
You may go to check the upgraded version Xduoo X3 II,
Xduoo X3 II-Still the best budget audio player ]
One of the music lovers used to said “ audiophile is not complete without Xduoo X3”. Do you agree with that?
Normally, most people will listen to the music on their smartphones because they hate to carry another electronic device in their pocket.
However, for some music lover or audiophile, the sound quality from the smartphones cannot satisfy their ear. So they will look for a better quality sound from the hi resolution player, such as Xduoo X3 lossless music player.
Xduoo is a brand popular among many budget audiophiles, it gets a big successful starting from x2, and then x3, which is the milestone product for xduoo company. Even by now, these two products are still often discuss at the famous forum head-fi.
Some audiophiles will say that both design are already out of the date comparing with Fiio, but we have to admit that both of them deliver a high quality sound at a very budget price. Even now, it is still difficult to find a competitor to beat them at such price.
Well, without wasting anymore time, we are now going to take a look at this milestone product Xduoo x3 hifi music player.
Table of Contents
Main features of Xduoo X3
- Dual micro sd card slots, support 2*128g storage
- supports formats: DSD 64 (up to 2.8224MHZ) APE, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, ALAC (up to 192KHZ/ 24 Bit), OGG, ACC (Iphone, Ipod format), MP3
- Offers high quality lossless sound
- CNC aluminum casing
- Playback time of more than 8 hours
- Compact size of only 100g, convenient to carry out
- Budget price
Design
The Xduoo X3 lossless music player is designed with highly sophisticated and elegant aluminum casing. The entire body is using thick aluminum that is smoothly finished and properly assembled to create a master piece.
It comes with an OLED screen that is 1.3 inches in size. It is a nice addition to the product as it helps the user navigate through the collection and play the music of their choice.
The disappoint on the display screen is that it is not easy to read the information under the sunlight.
There are a few plastic buttons on the device to serve different purposes， like powering it on/off, volume control, play, pause, home, back, etc.
At the bottom side of the device, there are 3.5 mm headphones jack and the line out jack.
And those buttons are well placed, makes navigation much easier no matter you are at home or driving.
Want to know the best part of xduoo x3 design ?
On the right side of the product, there are two micro sd slots which supports 2 X 128GB micro SD/TF card, giving you lot of room for your music.
You may said that other brands’ music player also support 2*128GB storage. Yes, that is true.
But it is hard to see the budget price as xduoo x3.
User Interface ( UI)
The user interface of Xduoo x3 is simple but with a stable firmware. It would be more nice if the fonts and icons are in white color rather than blue, because of the black ground.
When you want to play the song, they provide 2 options,
- Select card 1 or card 2 and look inside the folders.
- List all the songs and select.
And Xduoo x3 is a CUE music player, which is great future for this item, and it is also a great tool for building playlist.
As to the advantage of the software, if you turn off the player when you are listing to a song, it will be remembered when you turn on it again.
This is similar as the music playback on the smartphones. The difference is, X3 will start the song from the beginning, while the smartphones will start the point where it was turned off.
There is no equalizer, no Bluetooth, no wifi, but considering on its price and the superior quality sound, we couldn’t ask more.
Sound
Why xduoo x3 is so popular among the music lovers /audiophile ?
It is not only because it has a budget price, but also it delivers a high quality sound.
And of course, it did its job.
X3 does well to reduce background noise to an almost non-existent level, and it plays DSD 64 perfectly and the sound is very good even with inexpensive earphones.
The sound is clean, accurate and transparent, and if you like, you also can easily change the bass response, treble levels, and other parameters .
In short, the XDUOO X3 offer a good, balanced sound and audio quality which is not common at this price range, comparing with other lossless music player.
Can xduoo x3 install rockbox ? Thanks to the effort of Xvortex team, you can install rockbox in x3. You can learn how to install the rockbox of x3 by clicking it here
Battery
The battery lasts long enough for a long plane flight, more than 8 hours, it can be recharges using micro usb cable.
√ Dual micro SD card slots for increased memory
√ Can install rockbox
√ Sophisticated build quality
√ Bug free firmware
√ Good synergy
√ Good synergy
√ Highly portable device
⊙ The layout of the buttons is not the best
⊙ The LED screen is incapable of delivering the right resolution in bright sunlight
⊙ The aluminum casing is a bit prone to scratches
Conclusion
There is phrase saying “you get what you pay for,” which would fits xduoo x3 nicely. With around 100 USD supporting DSD 64, it is not easy to find a competitor on the market.
Xduoo X3 is not the best lossless music player, because the best would cost you several times higher than this price.
But X3 offer you a good and balanced sound , which make you move from listening to your music on your smartphone to an high quality dedicated lossless music player. That is our goal, is it?
