FiiO LINK TWS (UTWS17) True Wireless Bluetooth Amplifier for IEMs

The FiiO LINK TWS, also sold as the UTWS17, turns a pair of wired in-ear monitors into true wireless earphones. Each ear hook carries its own Bluetooth receiver, DAC and headphone amplifier, so you keep the sound of the IEMs you already own and lose the cable. Both MMCX and 0.78mm 2-pin connector adapters are included and swap over without tools, so one pair of hooks covers the two most common detachable-cable standards. It is the flagship of FiiO's ear-hook range, sitting above the UTWS5 2025 and UTWS3.

Dual DACs and a built-in amplifier

Each ear hook pairs a Qualcomm QCC5181 Bluetooth chip with a dedicated 32-bit AK4333 DAC, one per channel. The AK4333 includes its own amplification stage, and the bridged layout delivers at least 85mW into 32 ohms and 55mW into 16 ohms, with an output impedance below 0.9 ohms. FiiO quotes a signal-to-noise ratio of 111dB or better, a noise floor of 4.9µV or less and distortion under 0.002%. Adaptive impedance detection covers earphones from 8 to 100 ohms, and the signal reaches the IEM through silver-plated monocrystalline copper wiring.

Bluetooth 6.0 and lossless codecs

The QCC5181 runs Bluetooth 6.0 and supports aptX Lossless, LDAC, LHDC V5 at up to 192kHz/24-bit, aptX Adaptive at up to 96kHz/24-bit, aptX, LC3 and SBC, with wireless bit rates of up to 1.2Mbps for CD-quality lossless playback from a compatible phone. Snapdragon Sound is supported on compatible devices, and multipoint lets the LINK TWS hold connections to two sources at once. A game mode on aptX Adaptive cuts latency to as low as 74.6ms for video and gaming.

Calls, controls and app

Each hook has two microphones with CVC noise cancellation and 32kHz aptX Voice for wideband calls. A large physical button on each hook handles play, pause, volume and track skipping. The FiiO Control app adds a 10-band parametric EQ, channel balance in 0.5dB steps, multipoint settings, HiFi or Game mode switching and over-the-air firmware updates, and PEQ profiles can be imported, exported and shared.

Charging case with display

The ear hooks charge contactlessly in the case, with no exposed charging contacts to oxidise or clog, and they power on when lifted out and off when returned. The case has an OLED dot-matrix display showing pairing status and the battery level of the case and each hook. FiiO quotes more than 7 hours per charge with the SBC codec, and the case recharges the hooks twice over; both the hooks and the case refill in around 2 hours over USB-C. The case is sized to accept a wider range of IEM shell sizes. Each hook weighs about 8g, wears a food-grade nano coating on the skin-contact surfaces and is rated IPX4 against sweat and splashes.