FiiO - BTR7

The main factor in me getting this was the portability. The bluetooth pairing is effortless and I'm getting high audio quality even in bluetooth mode. It can also be connected via usb but I'm getting issues when connected to my phone. The software is sometimes buggy and it usually takes 2-3 attempts to fix something. Other than that soundwise it's amazing. I could tell a huge difference between this and my previous dongle. The battery backup is decent. Lasts about 6 hours on a full charge. The cable provided with it couldve been a bit better. It provides more than enough power for my iems. Overall, a worthy purchase at this price range even though there are a few software issues now and then.

BTR7, I love this Dac for it’s portability and sound quality

Fiio IEM products have been impressive, and this is my first Bluetooth DAC from FIIO. The BTR7 is probably the affordable product with good range to work seamlessly via both wireless and wired connections. Would have been a great feature if the DAC could have paired to 2 - 3 devices simultaneously. Yet to experience the battery backup and car play capabilities.

This is my first entry level DAC. I have tested it with and without.
General Remaks: Difference can be felt. You can listen to lows mids and highs of you music. All the notes can be differentiated.

Features:
LDAC, AAC, PCM with different frequency is tested. All give you different feel when to listen. Lossless sound were tried and that takes the sound to next level.
Yet to try MQ and DSD, so searching the player which plays in the same.
Car Mode is one feature which i like the most. Now my Car speakers are being used at full capacity.

Cons:
Connecting this to windows PC would be bit challenging.
Sometimes Bluetooth connection are not stable.
Battery backup is nearly around 6-7 hours. Bit less but you can keep listening while charging this device is a plus point.

Fiio-Btr7 seems to be agood bluetooth DAC/AMP for its price. I also own the Btr-5 and if technically speaking, in paper, this Btr-7 have more power, ., and i felt the sound stage and seperation is better in Btr-7 than older version Btr-5.

I checked this Btr-7 with:

1) KZ -AS 16,
2) 1 MORE - TRIPLE DRIVER,
3) SOUND MAGIC - E50,
5) SONY - MDR-7506( Headphone)

The KZ AS 16 performed very well, however 1 felt the sound stage width is little bit less with fiio Btr-7, than hearing it connecting directly with source., but i can hear more clearly with Btr 7 where vocals and mid sections became more prominent and pronounced.

With 1 More- Triple driver, i got less treble details, but got good low end and mid section( triple driver is a dynamic iem and KZ AS 16 is a full BA iem)

With sound magic, also i got good response with overall boost in entire spectrum, with somewhat less sparkly treble.

No such difference i felt with Sony MDR other than increased overall loudness.

I will be checking this fiio Btr 7 with Audio-Technica Ath M50x and other iems soon and can know further how it performs with those drivers.

I felt the loudness and Punch is more in all drivers in Bluetooth mode. In wired mode, more details were there with less bass and less pronounciation., dont know why it is tho!

CONCLUSION:

The thing is Fiio Btr -7 seems to hav a little bit warm - neutral sound reproduction and for my thinking and liking, it may go well with bright sounding iems or headphones rather than with warm sounding iems or headphones.

The sound floor is too silent, there isn't any noise or hissing even using with sensitive iems., however a crackling sound occurs when we pause/play and changing tracks.

And this fiio Btr 7 doesn't seems to alter the sound signature that much., so it relies entirely on sound composition of track and your driver capabilities.

The battery life is horrible. I am getting only 3~4 hours whether in Bluetooth mode or wired mode using 3.5 mm connection. For me, its less and that's against their advertised 8~9 hours.

If you don't have enough money for Fiio -Btr 7.Then, Fiio Btr 5 also is a good choice which almost is good as Btr-7., but with a bit less sound stage and power .( but you won't be needing that much power if you r not using high impedance iems or headphones)

This is an amazing DAC which might be small in size but packs a very powerful performance and does its job very perfectly in delivering high quality audio. The device is easy to use & setup with a simple user interface. Performs beautifully when paired with hi-res headphones/IEMs. I use Fiio FD5 which gives me a wonderful high quality audio experience. The in-built battery is helpful for driving power for amplification when required. The ESS Sabre chip & dual THX amplifiers make the audio significantly impactful when using any speakers/headphones. The input connectivities are good enough for the size of this DAC.
The delivery time was beyond expectation and the packaging of the product was safe & perfect. The accessories from Fiio are also very good and convenient.
Will definitely recommend this DAC for its performance & portability.
Thank You, Headphone Zone for this product.

At the outset I'd like to say that I don't consider myself an audiophile, and i can only hear frequencies upto about 17.6khz. However, i do have extremely-sensitive hearing (can hear faint sounds from afar), and i was looking for a device that would be both modern enough while also being somewhat portable. I had initially decided to purchase BTR5 but perked up to Ifi GoBlu, eventually leaning on BTR7, as i preferred a screen.

i am currently using it with an ATH-M50x with the 3.5mm out.

Overall i am satisfied with the device - it is well thought out and the update to 1.95 firmware has ironed out its earlier kinks. I really like the feature wherein there is a passthrough low power mode for calls with its separate volume setting.

The main reason I bought this device is I wanted something wherein I can swap the battery instead of having to discard the device entirely once the battery died - which is what happens with wireless earphones. This also allows greater diversity as I can use my headphones at home on the line-out of the AC powered amp.

I have tried using the same headphones using an Abigail pro type C converter - there is discernible difference in the crispness of the audio especially with respect to the high-gain mode on BTR7, although again for an average customer it may not matter as a lot depends on the audio file quality. I'd say the difference is minute but worthwhile across the spectrum of files, codecs, etc. In wireless mode though this is a true winner (LDAC 600+ kbps, AptX HD response is also fine), especially if you prefer balanced audio response across frequencies rather than a punchy base. I felt the lyrics were much clearer.

The high gain mode is a battery hog unfortunately. To be fair they do advertise that the longer battery life is with low gain, and that makes sense - high gain not only increases the volume but opens up a lot of otherwise drowned out low-decibel sounds.

In terms of self-repair and modding capability - which is important for an electronics hobbyist like myself - BTR5 might be a better choice. The glass body can be harder to work on and has more potential for damage.

Overall, I was able to rediscover my love for some of my favourite songs but being a non-audiophile I thought the price was steep. Not the that product is overpriced (which is hard to judge, really), but whether or not for a non-audiophile a splurge like this was a good idea.

Full marks to the device though, and it's definitely better than buying an overpriced pair of sunglasses any day.

Was completely impressed with the excellent sound quality paired with Sennheiser IE200 IEM’s and Sony DAP NW A306.
What a partnership, this DAC beautifully overrides the Sony DAC and takes the sound to the next level, which includes both amplification and sound detailing.

Overall build quality and form factor are top notch. The only let down was the FIIO Control app for the Android. Although my device is paired, it still does not show up in the App. Hence 4Stars. Otherwise an excellent purchase. The white one looks awesome 😎

Don't judge its SQ and ability to drive looking at its price and size.

I have used it with Monarch MK2, IE900, Ananda, Arya V2, Arya SE and Final E5000. It paired so well with everything and had enough juice even for Arya V2 and E5000(which is very hard to drive).

Fiio surprisingly engineered it to sound the best out of AAC compared to wired. It can definitely go against a $1000 DAP(I have owned a Shanling M7 earlier) and compared BTR7 against Shanling H7(it was coming close to H7 for IEMs and it was better than H7 with Arya SE).

Best pairing with Monarch MK2(to my ears) so far. It surprisingly sounds the best out of AAC compared to the wired option.

Other pairings that I have tried: Shanling M7, Shanling H7, AK SP2000T, iBasso Dx320(stock amp), Sony 707, iDSD Signature and Fiio M17.

The best part is its size, transparent sound while being musical, dark background, good synergy with almost everything(I was surprised that I liked IE900), excellent refinement for the price and also technical performance.

I am still surprised to see such performance at this price, one can easily use this as their main source for IEMs and as a portable source for HPs(at least planars till Arya segment).

Great job Fiio with the pricing.

Awesome DAC Amp. Clarity is out of the world for a BT DAC. THX AAA-28 Amp is the star here. Implementation shows how important is Amp compared to DAC chip. Well done Fiio.
Sound is very clean details and layering all are TOTL.
Reviewed on 4.4 bal and on LDAC from LG v30 Thinq

This thing has amazing sound and is a gorgeous little device with decent battery life but the software is a dealbreaker. This is my first FiiO product and I am not impressed. Right out of the box there were problems. The app kept crashing every time it connected to the device. That randomly went away thankfully after an hour. The next thing I did was update to the latest software (1.88).

I use the BTR7 with an iPhone XS and 2 different windows computers. I have other DAC’s and audio devices such as a Dragonfly Red, a PCM2704 DAC board I built myself and Sony true wireless buds as well as Bluetooth speakers and what have you. The BTR7 is the only device where the Windows computer or the iPhone cannot adjust the main volume on. Like no matter what the default volume slider won’t control the main volume on the BTR7 which is stupid. Also on windows computers every time there is a bit of silence and audio starts the BTR7 does this stupid 1-2 second fade in thing making it useless for video calls on the PC or some YouTube videos because it keeps cutting off the first work everytime someone talks. The only solution is to switch it to UAC1.0 which only supports 16/44100 so I have to switch it back to UAC2.0 every time I want to play music. 16bit sucks on this thing if you plan to control the volume with windows meaning you would have to turn the volume on the BTR7 (since it isn’t controlled by windows) up and then you’re really hearing the noise floor of 16bit.

The equalizer is useless, the background on the curve is not a standard logarithmic audio scale and does not show the frequencies under the curve so you cannot precisely see what frequencies your curve is hitting and where. Also when you first turn it on, even if you have everything including the gain set to 0dB it has a big attenuation for whatever reason but if you wiggle the gain slider a little bit, it jumps up to where it should be, sometimes have to do this every-time. Also the eq just randomly doesn’t work sometimes and toggling it on and off does not fix the issue, you have to manually move all the set sliders a bit to get them to kick in. Also it the device will randomly delete your custom eq presets sometimes and there’s no way to recover them. Also when you’re adjusting in parametric mode and you go back out you cannot move the row of sliders back and forth to view all of them it is frozen have to completely exit eq and go back in. Also the eq doesn’t work with UAC2.0 and is only good for 44/16.
Also the built in mic is horrible and there’s no way to disable it.

The software on this device is unprofessional buggy, glitchy unreliable crap and has a different problem every day. I barely even use this device anymore it has a different problem every-time I hook it up. Just a waste of money I have tried resets and all the available firmwares same issues.

I am using the BTR7 with a pair of M50x and an iPhone XS. I always thought the lightning dongle was pretty good, decent timing and ok dynamics but sounds a bit flat with the M50x, they are decent but not a very musical sounding headphone tbh. The DF Red was my solution but wasn’t really one. I like the M50x because they’re inexpensive and can be driven by anything. The BTR7 did not sound much better when I first got it though a lot more power. I did a 100h burn in on the BTR7 and wow it sounds so lively and dynamic compared to the Apple dongle now with A+B testing. Timing is spot on from the start and after the break in period leaves the Apple dongle for dust in terms of liveliness and dynamics. I listen to my same music and I actually have fun now. It has a similar sound to the DF Red but the BTR7 gives a better sense of life and really throws itself into the music. Same fast timing as DF Red but more dynamic and more powerful. Also the BTR7 has cleaner and better extended highs than the DF. The best sound I’ve ever heard out of a headphone jack and even with AAC over Bluetooth it makes the M50x sing and punch like I’ve never heard them really do. The software on the BTR7 is pretty glitchy when it comes to the EQ. I don’t need it anyways. It has decent battery life and is a f gorgeous little gadget and Bluetooth is so far flawless.

I purchased btr 7 seine specifications and reviews but it's nothing special then btr5 , yes it's true because of thx two amplifier chip included so volume and quality of sound is incredibly improved. But I am happy to listen music on headphones for high quality sound.

So no doubt this is a solid product, however this is not a perfect one.

The tiny screen doesn't make any sense at all, they could have added some additional info in the front glass panel.
Second, it is a Bluetooth receiver, so you won't be able to connect Bluetooth earphones.
Third, the battery sucks .. it is not even giving a proper 5-6 hr on MQA USB connection.
The cables provides are small and of poor quality.
You can never turn off the Bluetooth. It will always try to pair as soon as you turn it, we could have saved a lot of battery consumption by disabling it.

You can connect maximum two bluetooth device again as it is just a receiver you can only use one device at a time.

The design is a finger magent and that cover is dust magnet.

Pros - wireless charging , very good MQA , PCM unfolding at 32 bits. Sound is vivid and not sharp. It doesn't add additional layer instead enhance the sound amazingly.

In short waste of money.