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FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier

The FiiO BTR Series is basically very well positioned, so that the right solution is available for almost any need in the form of a mobile headphone amplifier with Bluetooth. However, a few requirements were identified that the existing product range could not meet, so the decision was made to go one better with the new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier.


The Chinese company FiiO Electronics Technology Co. Ltd. has been a proven specialist for personal audio devices such as headphones, portable hi-fi audio players and portable headphone amplifiers, especially solutions that use Bluetooth to contact the source device, a smartphone, for years. The company’s flagship product is the FiiO BTR Series, a range of first-class Bluetooth receivers with integrated headphones that offer impeccable quality at a surprisingly attractive price.

The FiiO BTR Series includes a number of solutions and has already received numerous updates, the latest of which was an interesting decision. A new product was planned at the top of the range, to be called FiiO BTR5 according to the usual nomenclature of the range. However, during its development it was decided to drastically expand its functionality by adding an integrated Hi-res audio player. This meant that the operating concept had to be adapted, a display had to be implemented first and foremost, and the form factor had to be different from that of the previous FiiO BTR Series solutions, so the decision was made to assign the new Bluetooth receiver to the FiiO M Range rather than the FiiO BTR Series.

But now a new, “old” strategy was considered, and there it is, the new addition to the FiiO BTR Series, and of course it is at the top of the range in the form of the FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier.

Although it was initially decided not to develop a FiiO BTR5, but instead to introduce the FiiO M5 Hi-res Lossless Music Player, a new flagship product is now available at the top of the FiiO BTR Series, the FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier. This solution comes with all the features one could wish for in this product group, offering once again outstanding quality at a very attractive price.

The new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier is of course in the familiar FiiO BTR Series form, which means it is designed as a compact solution measuring no more than 72 x 32 x 11.1 mm and weighing only 43.7 g. The extremely robust housing, made of aluminium, is worthy of special mention. The top and bottom sides are made of glass with curved sides, giving it a particularly refined feel. The design of the new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier is supposed to be the mobile companion for these smartphones.

The new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier now also features a display, although it is a very discreet OLED display that provides the most essential information. It is an OLED with 64 x 32 pixels.

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The operation is deliberately kept simple and straightforward, a multi-function button is essentially sufficient, although separate buttons are of course also available for controlling the volume. The multi-function button can be used to couple the device with the source, to control the playback, and to activate the voice control via Apple Siri or Google Assistant.

The new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier uses fully balanced signal processing for the first time, starting with the D/A converters, as two ESS Sabre ES9218P are used. Dual Crystal Oscillators also provide the clock, with the 6W1NZ-LV1 FPGA providing 45.1584 MHz or 49.152 MHz depending on the signal, to guarantee particularly precise operation.

The primary source is, of course, smartphones that are integrated via Bluetooth, whereby Bluetooth 5.0 in the form of a Qualcomm CSR8675 is used. The FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier also supports aptX, aptX HD, aptX LL and LDAC, and thus all relevant codecs for signal transmission with the best quality. For easy pairing, this solution is equipped with NFC, which should not be forgotten to mention.

By the way, USB is also available, in the form of USB C, so that the new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier can also be connected by cable to a smartphone, tablet or notebook and used as a portable D/A converter. This is not “just any” USB interface, but rather relies on the finest components in the form of an XMOS XUF208.

The new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier is able to reach its full potential via USB, and can process data in Linear PCM format with up to 32 bits and 384 kHz, and native DS with up to DSD256.

The new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier offers all relevant output options, including a 3.5 mm stereo mini jack plug for unbalanced headphones and a 2.5 mm 4-pin plug for connecting balanced headphones.

The volume control is partly on digital and partly on analogue level, but according to the manufacturer’s promises it is extremely accurate and sensitive and without loss of fine detail and dynamics.

Unbalanced, two 80 mW are available here, balanced two 240 mW, each measured at an impedance of 32 ohms. This is easily sufficient to operate almost any headphone without any problems.

One detail must not remain unmentioned, namely the integrated microphone, which we mentioned rather casually before. Here, too, we rely on a high-quality solution to guarantee the best possible speech quality, namely two microphones with cVc 8.0 noise cancelling. By the way, headsets that are used via the 3.5 mm CTIA connection also benefit from this active noise cancelling.

As you know, FiiO Electronics Technology Co. Ltd. now offers a separate app for the FiiO BTR Series, the FiiO Control App, which is also available for the FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier. This allows you to access all parameters via your smartphone, whether it’s Apple iOS or Google Android, so you can also use a 10-band equalizer and select four different filters of the DAC.

The integrated 550 mAh lithium-ion battery of the new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier is said to provide up to nine hours of play time when used with unbalanced headphones alone. If you use the balanced output stage, it is still enough for up to 7.5 hours.

The new FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier is available immediately at a suggested retail price of € 119,- in black and titanium. Included in delivery is a matching transport case, as well as a clip to fix this portable headphone amplifier to your clothes.

Getting to the point

Although it was initially decided not to develop the FiiO BTR5, but instead to introduce the FiiO M5 Hi-res Lossless Music Player, a new flagship product is now available at the top of the FiiO BTR Series, and it is the FiiO BTR5 Flagship Portable High-Fidelity Bluetooth Amplifier. This solution comes with all the features one could wish for in this product group, offering once again outstanding quality at a very attractive price.

Manufacturer:FiiO Electronics Technology Co Ltd.
Distribution:NT-Global Distribution GmbH
Price:€ 119,-
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Michael Holzinger

Michael Holzinger, founder and editor-in-chief of HiFi BLOG and sempre-audio.at, has been working for years as a journalist in the fields of IT, photography, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

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