Doing reviews for good sounding headphones is easy-peasy they said, just hype them as much as you can and all will be good they said, roses are red violets are blue they said. What a bunch on non-sense! Actually, doing reviews for expensive and top-notch headphones is much, much harder to do since you need to carefully pick your words, not to mention excessive amounts of listening tests, comparisons, measurements and leaving plain subjective opinions. The moment Hifiman Arya arrived at my door my mood was really low, spirits were not kind to me this past few days, don’t know why. I started casually listening to them with a slight headache and sincerely I was so low on inspiration that my expectance level was even lower, I didn’t think they can surpass my all-time-favorite Quad Era-1 headphones. About 5 minutes passed and I already started doubting my thoughts, another 5 minutes passed and I was already sweating, 5 more and I was angry that they just might sound better. I started bargaining and added more music to my playlist. After a painful one hour of switching back and forth my depression left me and I accepted the fact that Arya is just in completely another league. Yes, my friends they are sounding better on almost all aspects, all of that in due time.
The days are getting shorter, leaves are changing color, pumpkin spice lattes are showing up on menus, and retail shoppers are anxious for when they can’t escape Mariah Carey on repeat: oh yes, Autumn is well upon us! September and October have been very busy months for Apos, as we have been working hard to prepare for the upcoming holiday rush while making sure we are still providing top notch service and support to all of you with existing orders and making sure we’re nearby to answer your questions. We are happy to say that it’s been a productive season for us thus far, as we added some stellar new products for you to buy, increased our customer support hours, and we are excited to say Apos has grown internationally into a new market!
Apos is pleased to announce that the Illumination In Ear Monitors (IEMs) — the new flagship product from Moondrop — are now available for sale at $799 USD. As always, Apos is providing Free Priority Shipping, an Extended 2-Year Warranty, Free Returns, and a 30-Day Lowest Price Match (which, for the 2020 holiday season, is extended).
Apos Audio is very happy to announce that, due to overwhelming community requests, we partnered with HIFIMAN and are now an authorized seller for the brand! The HIFIMAN collection is available now on Apos for you to purchase, including popular headphones like the Arya, Ananda, and the HE1000v2. In addition to HIFIMAN’s own warranties and guarantees, Apos is providing Free Priority Shipping, an Extended 2-Year Warranty, Free Returns, and a 30-Day Lowest Price Match (which, for the 2020 holiday season, is extended).
If you’re seeking end-game planar magnetic headphones, HiFiMAN should be high on your list. We’ve made a comparison chart for the HiFiMAN HE1000se and the HiFiMAN Susvara, two of the company’s premiere offerings. Both headphones are available right here on Apos, so if you have any questions about either feel free to reach out to our Support Team.
Up until now, Apos Audio has only been serving customers within the United States, but thanks to the incredible demand coming from would-be customers up in Canada, Apos has launched a pilot program and now sells to our neighbors up north! It’s aboot time! Like all purchases made on Apos, our friends in the Great White North are eligible for our exclusive Extended 2-Year Warranty, Free Shipping, and our 30-Day Lowest Price Match guarantee (which will now last until the end of the year, to meet our 2020 Holiday Season Extension).
As our existing customers know, Apos offers a 30-Day Lowest Price Match Guarantee, ensuring that Apos always offers the best pricing that you can find for our products. With this year’s holiday season upon us — and the various deals that will be coming up throughout it — we want to offer you the peace of mind knowing that Apos will match all deals from right now until 2021. That means you can enjoy worry-free shopping with us, because if you find a better deal from an authorized seller from now until the first of January 2021, Apos will refund the difference.
FiiO never ceases to amaze me, when they enter a new market, they don’t do it for the sake of it, they are not just testing the waters but are bringing their full arsenal. Two years ago, they entered the portable Bluetooth market with the announcement of the BTR1 which I really liked at that time. Soon after FiiO released not one, but three additional products in the same range: μBTR, BTR1K and their highest performance BTR3 that was the first portable Bluetooth adapter to adopt the newest and best Bluetooth chip, the Qualcomm CSR8675. What was really unexpected about BTR3 is that it could be even used as a dedicated DAC for your smartphone or for your PC.
Disclaimer: FiiO K5 PRO was sent to us free of charge in exchange for our honest opinion. We thank team FiiO for this opportunity. I am an old-school guy and I like the simplest DAC/Amp units, especially desktop ones that can be wall-powered. Sadly, for the past years FiiO forget about this segment and sincerely they never had a powerful desktop solution. You might think that K3 or Q5/Q5S could be that device but they both are not really capable of driving power-hungry headphones. I still remember when K5 was released and I was impressed by its design but was a bit underwhelmed by its performance, especially with IEMs.
One of the most advanced, if not The most advanced portable DAC and headphone amp that could be connected wired or wireless to a smartphone was FiiO Q5 released about one year ago – a marvelous piece of equipment that worked with PCs/Laptops and with Android or iOS devices alike, FiiO even developed an App for it so you can unleash its maximum potential. It looked good, it sounded great, the biggest drawback it had was in terms of wireless capabilities. FiiO was already too deep into development with it and didn’t had time to implement the newest Bluetooth chip from Qualcomm, so Bluetooth 5.0, LDAC and HWA were dropped. Wireless tech was good but not great. It of course was just a matter of time when FiiO would announce a successor for it, slightly better on few things but much better on others. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, please meet the FiiO Q5S.