FiiO D3 (D03K) Digital to Analog Converter

I’m not a trained audiophile, but I’ve been around high-quality audio gear enough to know great HiFi from not. Both my systems are driven by “old school” 2-channel analog integrated amps. Back in the day we called them “stereos”, and they remain the go-to for modern day audiophiles to get the best music reproduction possible. For years now, TVs have lacked the required analog output to connect to traditional stereo receivers. You were expected to choose between a soundbar or beefy surround-sound receiver that included HDMI or digital inputs to get better sound. So what are the rest of us analog geeks to do? Your HDTV is probably capable of processing better-than-CD quality sound, so why would you run that through a soundbar if you could do better?

While I have a high-quality “audiophile grade” DAC on my main system to solve this problem, I didn’t want to spend that kind of dough on my basement system and assumed I was, therefore, out of luck enjoying a movie in all its soundtrack glory down there.

Then I stumbled on the FiiO D3. It sells itself (no more and no less) as the exact solution to my problem: take that digital audio – or TOSLINK – output that’s included on most TVs and often your only option outside of HDMI, and turn it into a left/right analog line-out for your amp/receiver. But can something in the $35 (CDN) ballpark actually sound any good?

Yes, it really does. For context, my downstairs system is no slouch. I have an Arcam FMJ A19 integrated amp driving a set of Paradigm floorstander speakers. I tested the FiiO using both CD (via Blu-ray player) and Apple TV music and movie sources and was impressed by its full soundstage, crisp highs and deep lows. I didn’t detect any untoward noise or harshness.

One of my favourite perks (which it shares with its closest rivals) is it’s USB-powered. While some competitors are even cheaper, they lack a power supply while the FiiO D3 includes a small “wall wart” AC adapter. However, if you are like me and loath plugging yet another power-sucking wall wart into your home, you can most likely power the FiiO directly from an available USB port on your TV – another common feature on all but the cheapest sets.

I plugged my FiiO directly into my Panasonic plasma’s USB port, which is actually rated a slightly lower amperage than the included AC adapter, connected a TOSLINK optical cable to the TV’s digital out, and powered-up the TV. The FiiO came right up and displayed the red power and blue “lock” LEDs. The latter tells you that it’s getting a proper digital stream from the TV. Be sure to set your TV’s audio options to “PCM” or “Stereo”. The important part is avoiding any Dolby surround-sound enabled output because the FiiO won’t decode it. If your TV won’t let you do this, there’s a good chance you can disable Dolby surround at the source: i.e Apple TV, Blue-ray, or other devices will often have this option.

This little box isn’t built to take a beating. Its build-quality does not exceed its price. But in fairness, this is really a “set and forget” device that will sit behind your entertainment unit and do the one job it was born to do. And it does it very well.

With this dac i switched from the internal Sony tv dac to this small external dac. Its solid and looks good. The sound improved. No more clipping and the sound is more clear. I cannot hear the difference anymore on my hifi speakers between the chromecast audio dac and this one. I guess the quality is similar.

This FiiO D3 was the last of 5 different budget-range DAC’s that I purchased while setting up my new AV system…and the last one I’ll ever NEED to purchase. As I described in the reviews for the other DAC’s I bought, I had various issues ranging from bad interference through the speakers when the optical stream was turned off, to crackling during certain sound effects in games. I was getting frustrated because of these issues (especially as the problematic DAC’s had good reviews) until I bought this FiiO D3. Immediately out of the box, the quality difference was evident. Instead of having a simple bent piece of sheet metal with a single Phillips self tapping screw holding it on, like some of the other DAC’s, or a cheap molded plastic case, the FiiO has a nicely finished fully enclosed metal shell with end caps attached by machine screws, as well as flush-mounted status LED’s on the top.

Whether it looks like junk or not, however, is less important than whether or not it works correctly. I’m happy to report that the FiiO D3 works perfectly. There is no crackling, no interference, and no weird transient noises after the optical stream is turned off, like another of the DAC’s that I had which was otherwise fine: this indicates to me that the signal conversion circuit is well isolated from the power supply circuit. Also unlike one of the other DAC’s I bought, the R/L RCA outputs are not reversed, but actually output right and left stereo channels correctly.

Please note that, like just about all DAC’s in this price range, this device is only designed to handle conversion of a stereo signal. If you switch to 5.1, 7.1, Dolby DTS, or any other format besides stereo, you’ll get an atrocious noise from your speakers and nothing else (I learned this early on with previous DAC’s when my speakers happened to be turned up rather loud…it was not a good experience).

Basically, the FiiO D3 is THE DAC to purchase if you need to convert optical stereo to analog stereo. It costs a few dollars more than the wide range of random off the shelf DAC’s currently available on Amazon, but I find that a few extra dollars is more than worth it for a quality device that functions correctly.

This is the third version, with the gold connectors as in the description, and not the original or the in-between version. I’m just using it for isolating the analog signal from my computer’s electronics, but I believe that it’s a minor improvement over my computer’s default alc 892 audio chip (the effect might just be a placebo, though). It also looks and feels very high quality; it’s made out of metal painted black, and has clear, glossy plastic on the ends with the connectors that picks up fingerprints easily (but this probably doesn’t matter unless you pick up your DAC regularly for some reason). It’s also so small and light that, annoyingly, it tends to get flipped about by my thick cables when I move them.

I was surprised that this was so cheap, because FiiO also sells the E10, a DAC/amp combo, for $70, despite this being basically the same thing minus the amp and potentiometer. On top of that, the little built-in amp in this DAC (meant to power the line out) is sufficient to drive my low-impedance headphones, which means that I can just control the volume from my computer and forgo having an extra component between me and the music. I have to say, despite being considered a budget solution, FiiO’s E10 seems like kind of a rip-off compared to this thing, unless that amp is really worth an extra $50 over the one in this.

As mentioned in the description, it doesn’t require any driver support, but it is also worth mentioning that it doesn’t decode any fancy surround sound audio signals (like dolby digital); It’s just stereo. The 192.0 kHz mode is supported, though, which is pretty fantastic for a $20 DAC, especially considering that the $70 E10 is restricted to a step down at the 96 kHz setting! I actually asked a question three days ago about the E10 on its amazon store page about why you’d buy it over the d3. No one’s answered it yet.

Edit: A day after starting to use this, I noticed a loud ringing sound coming from the power brick that was supplied to plug the usb cable into. Not a big deal, but it’s enough that I’ll be replacing it with a different power brick.