FiiO KA15 Portable DAC and Headphone Amplifier (Black)

This thing is sweet. It's like an Onix Alpha Xi1 (look it up!) except it's• smaller,• cheaper,• more durable,• and more fun to useSonically, it more or less matches the Onix which is to say it sounds fantastic. With full-size headphones I found the Onix to be a bit punchier with a wider soundstage and the KA15 to have tighter bass.But the smaller size and braided cable make it way better than the Onix for daily use. The Onix swung outside my pocket like a wrecking ball and its USB cable eventually failed. The KA15 is half the weight and the cable is twice as strong so I feel like, FOUR TIMES more confident about the USB connection I use it on-the-go.The volume controls on the KA15 also feel better than the Onix - when the device is awake it responds to quick, repeated volume presses. Like, all of them. The Onix, instead, waits until the "volume change animation" finishes before you can change the volume with a single tap again, which makes me sad.My one caveat with the KA15 is that it seems to have a firmware issue - when it's asleep, you have to let it completely wake up with a single volume press before you can change the volume further with single taps. If you press the volume buttons repeatedly while it's sleeping - it won't do anything. Neither change the volume nor wake up. But I imagine they'll fix that with a firmware update, and I usually change the volume with my phone so it's not a dealbreaker.Overall I love this device. Thanks Fiio!

Do you need high quality audio out from an electronic device via usb? This is a great model at a very good price. I use this with a pair of AKG K702 headphones, and the sound is just FANTASTIC. The device is small, but fully featured. I love the ten band parametric EQ. Make any set of headphones sound their best... change the EQ based on the music you're listening to. It's easy to connect to your phone and set. It's more of a pain using a computer... it's hit or miss depending on your OS and browser, but the phone works fine.

All right so this thing sounds really nice, sounds a little smoother and a little more high Fidelity than your average basic DAC dongle, but I don't think the cable is going to last you long I mean you put it in your pocket and that thing just bends in half and they didn't really give it any type of support so I think that cable is going to wear out pretty quickly. Now if you want to use the EQ or the parabolic EQ you can download the app, it's a little slow in a little laggy but once you get your EQ set up it's perfect, if you're not needing to use the EQ then there's no point to download the app as you can do everything else from the buttons right on the unit. It's nice to be able to tune your own headphones with the EQ because well, not every set of iems or headphones is going to be what sounds right for you so the option to EQ them is great especially when you can adjust the q of the EQ and the exact frequency when you go into the advanced EQ settings. It sounds very clean and clear and it's a nice little dac, it's really easy to use you just plug it in to your device with the USB cable in plug your headphones in and it's working, there's no battery, there's no Bluetooth which is awesome, and it it should be compatible with a large amount of devices.

I use this to connect an iPhone or laptop to my IEM, or headphones. I like to use Apple Music lossless or hi res. This dac has a display and controls to adjust the sound. Small, easy to use after I got used to the menu setup. It doesn’t draw too much power from my phone in regular mode. Great sound at an affordable price.

This is best the DAC/AMP combo I have heard from Fiio. I have had the BRT3, 3k, 5, and 15. I have also owned the ifi Go bar and the KA15 sounds better than the OG Go Bar. This one sounds the best our of all the dongles I have tried. It has so many features. You can even config the EQ and update the firmware via a web browser on any PC now! My only real negative is that the names of the three custom EQ profiles on the KA15 can't be changed. You are stuck to the three Fiio IEM names on the device. I am sure that they will fix that in a future firmware update, but still being able to change the EQ profile on the device is amazing and much easier than using the qudelix.

I kept holding off ordering. it sounds really good with native EQ. Wide, a bit warm sounding, excellent instrument separation. from HD6 series, Aune AR5000, a billion different IEMs. Drives everything just great. I don't know how that's possible with such a small form factor. It's a yes.

I am in love, this is amazing for my better headphones. It does get warm if you're listening for a while, or using it with a computer to power a stereo. Build quality is top notch, and the blue color is super cute.

This is a fairly unique product, in that it has a decently small form factor, various options, and controls. One of the more valuable properties is that it has PEQ controls. Unfortunately, there seems to be some easily fixable bugs. It seems like the user is allowed to store only 3 custom EQs. They have very weird names, like FFH, FH3, I don't even remember. I wish these were named better CU1 CU2 CU3 would have been better, but I don't know what FFF is supposed to mean? Then, there is a the web based UI, and it doesn't show the same preset names. I can even rename them on the web gui, but the names do not seem to save to the dongle itself. Another natural question is, why does it have 100 custom presets no one who buys such a device will actually ever use? Do you know any "audio equipment" fans that uses some pre-made Rock preset? Really? Make it three, Bass, Treble and V-shape, make the rest user customizable. Anyway, for the price and ability to do any custom PEQ at all, while there are almost no alternatives, I think it's a 4/5.