FiiO K9 Pro ESS Desktop DAC & Headphone Amplifier

Moves your human “core”, and not just by a little!

Inside the K9 Pro are 2 ES9038PRO DAC chips, specifically designed for maximum performance in desktop-grade equipment. One ES9038PRO chip, with all of its 8 parallel outputs, is used for each channel to achieve richly detailed sound with minimal distortion.

Pure clean sound, satisfying even demanding listeners

The THX AAA 788+ chips used in the K9 Pro provide exemplary details and dynamics no matter if you are using low or high-impedance headphones. The K9 Pro can produce an undistorted 1100mW* under a 300ohm load, and an undistorted 2100mW* under a 32ohm load, 50% higher than the original THXAAA 788 amplifier chips. *As tested in FiiO Labs under balanced out.

Precise Design – Fully differential, fully balanced design

Fully differential signals go through the DAC, volume adjustment, and amp for a truly balanced design. Such a design ensures minimal interference between different components in order to fully maintain all details and the large dynamic swings in music for unmatched sound quality.

Just pure sound, Isolated digital and analogue power delivery

The digital portions of the K9 Pro physically receive power separately from the analogue portions, for effective shielding against audio interference between the two circuits. This ensures pure and faithful reproduction of your music.

Immensely robust, Linear power supply

Electricity is the mother of sound, so special attention was paid to optimising the K9 Pro’s power supply to ensure excellent sound. The K9 Pro’s linear power supply, with its low-frequency transformer and 4 massive 4700uF capacitors, makes sure that the rest of the system gets abundant clean power.

Dual femtosecond clocks, Precise clock management

A dual-mode clock management design is utilised for the K9 Pro. Under USB and Bluetooth decoding dual asynchronous femtosecond clocks are used, while under optical and coaxial decoding automatic PLL clocks are employed. A more precise clock management system makes it easier to handle any kind of source and maintain the maximum quality possible.

Quality and quantity, LDOs for each circuit stage

Besides the special high-performance linear power supply, the power stabilisation and filtering within the audio circuit is also a big contributor to the K9 Pro’s excellent sound. Specifically, in each stage of the audio circuit ultra-low-noise LDOs are employed for voltage regulation.

Lossless MQA decoding

The K9 Pro supports the unfolding of MQA tracks, allowing you to listen to high-resolution audio files that are not only reasonably sized, but also retain master-level sound quality that bring you directly into the recording studio. *With an appropriate music player supporting MQA, K9 Pro supports up to 8x.

Fast and reliable hi-res Bluetooth

The K9 Pro employs the Qualcomm QCC5124 to handle Bluetooth duties, with support for formats such as LDAC, aptX HD and aptX Adaptive. This chip ensures that Bluetooth connections are both reliable and quick, satisfying both the low latency needs for games/videos and the high bitrate necessary for high resolution audio. * Bluetooth format support: AAC/SBC/aptX/aptX LL/aptX HD/LDAC/aptx Adaptive.

RGB indicator lights

RGB indicator lights hidden around the knob can light up different colours according to different sampling rates of sound sources or different Bluetooth coding formats.

Dial it in with three gain levels

Choose between high, medium, and low gain with a physical switch to fit exactly your needs when listening to your particular pair of headphones. Thanks to the pure hardware gain circuit, even when listening at low gain with high-sensitivity headphones both dynamic range and musical fidelity remain uncompromised.

Refreshingly modern, Custom stand

The included custom stand not only reduces the amount of space the K9 Pro takes on your desktop, it also allows for more efficient dissipation of heat through convection – making the stand a true example of both form and function.