Just while you reckon you’ve visible all of it, chinese language audio specialist Fiio comes up with a ‘hello-fi keyboard’ and for me, changes the sport.
It may appear to be a fairly not unusual gamer-particular keyboard, but turning into one of the first-rate gaming keyboards isn’t always its aim. No, this compact keyboard’s USP is the audio chops you get out of it, in preference to something you might key in.
Hook the kb3 up on your Mac or computer through USB and it can obtain and supply hi-res audio files as much as 32bit/384khz, plus audiophile-pleasant dsd256 (which has a pattern charge that’s 256 times as excessive as an everyday CD).
How? By bypassing the lowly digital-to-analog-converter or DAC to your PC monitor (see our fine transportable dacs manual for more data) and alternatively heading for its own onboard twin ‘high-performance and green’ cs43131 dacs, its two ‘low-noise’ amps and on for your choice of the pleasant stressed headphones. Sure, the keyboard consists of 3.5mm or four.4mm balanced headphone outputs – tune to my ears.
Does the fiio kb3 appear to be a hi-fi separate? No. Does it look like something I want to own earlier than I bone up on the info? Additionally no. However the ones audio credentials are not possible to ignore – and keep in mind, that is the agency that in 2023 by myself has released the five-star fiio ft3 headphones, the superb wi-fi btr7 dac, and the diminutive m15s musical powerhouse, for starters.
The ones key caps are both swappable and transparent (fiio has long gone with Gateron g seasoned three.0 switches here, which can be fairly appeared for his or her sturdiness and reliability) and the organization tells us there are a couple of presets for the RGB lighting – which I am hoping can also be turned off entirely to remove noise inside the audio sign course. I am now not here for its lights and whistles, I want its sound.
The kb3 additionally sports an integrated, step-less volume control; it is that matte red factor at the top proper edge. Is Fiio seeking to emulate Astell & kern’s trademark top-right-for-quantity rotary knobs right here? Maybe, although it’s hardly ever as elegant or brutalist as the one on a&okay’s a&norma sr25 mkii, for instance.
Look, as a non-gamer I am no longer 100% sold on the classy, but it’s a keyboard in the end. It’s what’s squirreled away beneath the one’s keys (and set up at the side, for my four.4mm terminated cans) I am into.
And Fiio has had a bumper year in 2023; see the September-difficulty portable ka13 and k11 days for yet extra promising releases. I think the company is onto something right here, you already know. The gaming marketplace is undeniably booming and audiophile-curious – see the July-Difficulty very last Fable 14 turntables for starters. Should a singular, hello-fi grade keyboard open up fresh sales streams (and convert dyed-in-the-wool gamers to budding audiophiles as well), so much the better. After all, in September PS sold hi-fi maestro Audeze, in advance of the year Razer launched inexpensive thx-certified stressed in-ears – and that is earlier than we even get to the PS Pulse Explore earbuds.
The fit kb3 is available in either ‘middle of the night black’ or ‘morning silver’ finishes, and at simply $149 / £139 (so around au$265) my interest is properly and truly piqued. Will it sound like an absolute enterprise? If Santa does not get the memo this year (he is a hectic guy, it is cool), I just may treat myself, you realize…
