[Sale/Trade] FiiO - K5 Pro ESS (Latest Version) Desktop DAC & Headphone Amplifier

[SavvyGeoduck]

Happy to trade for a dac of similar value.

Item: FiiO - K5 Pro ESS (Latest Version) Desktop DAC & Headphone Amplifier + EU plug and FiiO LD-TC1 - USB Type B to Type C Adapter.
Age: 28 April 2023.
Price: R2000
Payment Method Accepted: EFT
Warranty: Yes, although through previous owner.
Warranty Holder: C-plan
Packaging: Yes, full.
Condition: Perfect.
Location: Durban
Reason: ESS ships have issues with LG OLED tv's, specifically with optical out which is a shame. Miss my samsung lol.
Shipping: Sure, your cost and risk. Can do pudo for R60.
Collection: Of course.
Link:

K5PRO ESS

The K5 Pro ESS employs the flagship portable ESS DAC, the ES9038Q2M with more outstanding performance and richer audio details. Compared to the last gen, the distortion has reduced by 50%, the crosstalk for LO has increased by 6dB with greater channel separation, and the dynamic range has...

www.fiio.com

FYI
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[Dr. Kraken]

Curious, are dropouts your issue?

 

[SavvyGeoduck]

Curious, are dropouts your issue?

Yeah, exactly that. Audio drops out every few seconds with optical. Found a few reddit posts mentioning that exact problem happening with ESS based dac chips on LG tv's. My samsung and pc worked perfectly.

If you've got any advice on a fix, I'd really appreciate it

 

[Dr. Kraken]

Yeah, exactly that. Audio drops out every few seconds with optical. Found a few reddit posts mentioning that exact problem happening with ESS based dac chips on LG tv's. My samsung and pc worked perfectly.

If you've got any advice on a fix, I'd really appreciate it

Is the DPLL setting adjustable? You can make it more aggressive to try and reduce the dropouts

 

[SavvyGeoduck]

Is the DPLL setting adjustable? You can make it more aggressive to try and reduce the dropouts

Ok, so dpll is not directly adjustable on the k5 pro, but while researching that, I actually came across a fix.

So it turns out that the k5 pro has a particular quirk, where turning the volume knob past 3 o clock can introduce audio dropouts on certain devices, like my tv.

What I've done is left it at 12 o clock and turned the gain up to lvl 2, which so far seems to be working.

I'm gonna test some more tomorrow night to make sure. If all is working properly, I'll probably close this thread. If anyone in the future was interested my k5 pro. You can thank this Legend above for his help in fixing my problem.

Thanks @Dr. Kraken really appreciate it

 

[SavvyGeoduck]

Changing this thread to trade only.
If anyone has a dac or AV receiver of similar value that is not ESS based, and is looking to trade, just message me.

I had some free time yesterday to do some testing/research.
Unfortunately, the above fix I mentioned didn't last and the occasional audio dropout still occurs from time to time. The issue is with LG's noisy optical implementation. Here is a quick quoted summary of the problem. "The default jitter rejection values used by ESS based DACs recognize the extreme noise as signal errors, so the DAC automatically disconnects and reconnects in attempt to achieve a more stable lock of the incoming S/PDIF signal".

As Dr Kraken mentioned, the solution is to adjust the DPLL to compensate for the tvs noisy optical but unfortunately this can't be adjusted on fiio dac's. I'll leave a link to a good discussion about this below if anyone runs into the same situation in the future, hopefully saving someone the time hassle of this issue.

it's a bummer, but I guess I'll just stick to usb and and RCA.

Discussion link:

Noisy digital audio on LG TVs

Dear audio science enthusiasts, I recently got one of those popular LG C1 TVs. Since I only have a stereo system, but several HDMI sources plus using the TV's apps, I went the easiest audio route for my setup: (source) -> TV -> optical out (PCM) -> DAC -> analog Preamp As I realized only after...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[SavvyGeoduck]

Changing thread to sale.

Might want to try a fully wireless solution.

 

[SavvyGeoduck]

Price drop to a flat R2000.
Not neg.