[Hardware] FiiO BTR17 Portable Bluetooth DAC and Headphones Amplifier Review

[TheWild ™]

 

With IEMs and more portable headphones releasing every day, the market for portable sources has never been bigger. There's so much competition now, be it from wired-only DAC/amps to wireless ones to even standalone music players (DAPs). These come in a variety of sizes too, with some going large to have more room for specialized features, such as the xDuoo XD05T DAC with tube amplifiers we recently saw, or even the FiiO Q7 and Q15 that offer flagship desktop-class DACs in your hands. Most portable sources are much smaller though, and several have gone the Bluetooth route to allow a wireless connection to your phone or PC. FiiO has been involved in this from the beginning, with the BTR5 from a few years ago being a stepping stone for what was to come later. Today we take a closer look at the FiiO BTR17, which follows FiiO's new product naming scheme—it's the direct replacement for the older BTR7, and the next generation version will be called the BTR27 to help clarify things. I first saw this tiny thing at FiiO's booth in the Shenzhen International Audio Show this past September, before having the opportunity to spend more time with it when I visited FiiO's industrial park a few days later. The BTR17 comes in two color options—black and blue—with both being identical otherwise. It's a pocketable DAC/amp with several key features, including connecting to your phone wirelessly, having a desktop mode with more output power when powered simultaneously during use, the ability to use as a USB DAC/amp as needed, built-in EQ with the option to have custom EQ modes stored, and fantastic PEQ customization both via FiiO's mobile app and a recently developed desktop EQ configurator too. The BTR17 does feel quite feature-rich, so let's see how it fares in our review which begins with a look at the product specifications below, so be sure to click the images twice to fully open it and go through all the details. Thanks to FiiO for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp!

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/fiio-btr17-portable-bluetooth-dac-and-headphones-amplifier/