Howlin Fester
500+ Head-Fier
Fiio M3. Yin and Yang. A story of love and hate.
Please realize that I have not yet had a chance to read this entire thread. I’m only up to Nov/Dec 2015 where they were just released, and Brooko is giving some initial impressions. (p50). So this experience is just me buying the M3 and rolling with it over the weekend.
Love:
I picked up the M3 last week. I needed to start staining my (huge) deck this weekend, and I needed a DAP that I could listen to without worrying if I got stain on it. My current portable setup is an iPod shuffle mounted on a Ray Samuels Predator amp. I also have an iBasso DX50. None of those I really want to carry around in a pocket while staining a deck in the summer.
I was going to pick up a Sansa Clip, because those have been talked about since I joined Head-Fi, and are supposed to be solid contenders. Unfortunately, my quick investigation lead me to believe that the current Clip Sport and other offerings aren’t up to what the legacy models were. So someone mentioned the M3 and Xdoo X2. Looked into these real quick, and decided to pick up the M3.
Got my M3 in 2 days, and plugged it in to charge. Friday night I popped in a 64G micro SD card full of 16/44 FLAC, picked the first folder that looked good to me, and hit play. Cry of Love – Brother was the album. And I listened to the whole thing. Sounded wonderful with my Trinity Delta, and I could tell that I was really going to love the sound of this thing. I expected the music to stop when the folder was done, but it rolled right through and started playing the next folder. Elton John – Goodbye Yellow brick road. Cool. Folder play-through. Never had a dap with that function. So I kinda liked it. It was after midnight. I turned it off and went to bed.
Early next morning I got up, put the M3 in a plastic ziplock with my iem cable sticking out. (I did want to protect it as much as I could from the stain.) I continued listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and started to stain. My folder ended and then the M3 proceeded into Madman Across the water.
Up to this point, I was loving this little player. I hadn’t played with any of the settings. In fact, I couldn’t even figure out how to get to the settings. Normally I over-investigate and overanalyze everything. But this time I just wanted a music player to plug into and listen to some rock while working. After Madman Across the water, it flowed into Foreigner. Foreigner’s cool, but I had been planning to listen to Concrete Blonde all day. I have 8 albums by them and I knew it would last me almost all day. So I changed over the Concrete Blonde – Bloodletting and let it start. So this is where it got weird. It no longer would play through to the next folder. Maybe I went into artists instead of folder play. I don’t know for sure. But from this point on, I needed to start each next album manually.
Changing anything at this point was a bit of a pain, since the screen was not bright enough for me to read outside. Even in the shade next to the house, I could barely make out anything. Plus I’m old(er) and the screen and writing were extremely tiny. Another thing that I noticed when I got to Concrete Blonde’s Live in Brazil is that it didn’t have FLAC gapless. Whenever a FLAC changed from one to the next, there was a tiny little beep. Strange, since it didn’t beep when it changed songs that had spaces. No big deal. Just something to note to see if I could enable gapless later.
Now let me set my expectations. I purchased this to do exactly what it was intended to do. Play music into headphones. Did I care if it had gapless. Nope not for 50 bucks. Did I care if it had play through folders or not. Nope. Never had that before, so never missed it. Did I care about reading the screen outside? Would have been nice, but not a deal breaker. So far it was doing exactly what I had hoped. It scanned my card and played music that I loved while doing a chore that I hated.
At this point, I was loving the little Fiio M3. That night while driving with my wife, I told her about my recent purchase and how much I was loving my new little dap. Normally she doesn’t care about my music hobby, and I don’t bore her with talk about it. That’s why I have you people. But I was excited about the M3 and loved how it sounded and how it was performing. Man, was it small and powerful and rich. Thanks for helping me get through day 1 of staining. We got the top deck stained. I plugged it in and charged it overnight. Wow. The keypad blinks while it is charging. Nifty.
Hate:
Day 2 of staining – lower deck. Got up and put the M3 in his ziplock with the headphones hanging out and started listening to my band of the day. Clutch. Should have listened to Clutch on Saturday. Much more energy to help drive my tired arms. But that’s ok. Pumping out some Clutch now. Blast Tyrant. (Awesome) Now Earth Rocker. (Wow this thing sounds soooo Good.) Starting from Beale Street to Oblivion. Man I love this thing. I really don’t like staining but I love this dap. Listen to how good “Power Player” sounds. (Me singing “Get your hands off me, you don’t know who I am. I’m a Power Player! I’m a Power Player!”) Then… What the…. Stopped…
No more music…
Let me go back to the album. Choose artists: Disc error… Choose folder: Disc error… Choose anything: Disc error… Crap. I don’t have time for this!
So I take it inside and get my ipod nano/predator with case. Put that in a baggie. Continue staining with my ipod playlist. Ok. At least I can listen to music.
In the heat of the day, I take a water break and look to see what might be going on with the M3. Look at the get started guide. If you need to reset it, press and hold power for 8 seconds. No change = Disc Error. Ok. Crap. I’ll go download the latest firmware. Downloaded 1.7. Crap. How do I get to the settings? You need to have music playing and long hold menu. Ok. Copy a folder of music to the hard drive. Hit play. Upgrade. No change. Disc Error. Remove SD. Hmmmmm. Now I’m in a continuous loop of “sd inserted – scan sd – sd removed – sd inserted – scan sd…..” But there is nothing at all inserted in the slot. That’s not good.
At this point, it is playing the MP3s that I had to put on the internal hard drive. So I check another SD card. 16G. Disc error. While trying to get the new SD card to scan, I get a huge sharp digital ice pick in my ear. Like a huge screech. I pull my iem out quickly. But no sound is playing any more.
I noticed on the original SD, that a folder was created by the dap. But nothing was created on the new disc. So it wasn’t even successfully finishing a scan. Last thing I try is factory reset. No change. Now the MP3s that I had to put on the internal hard drive won’t even play sound. I can see the M3 thinks it is playing as the time is progressing, and I see the play symbol. But no sound. I turn it off and go back to staining the deck with the ipod/predator.
Today, I checked the M3 one last time.
Mp3 – internal drive: Shows playing but no sound.
SD card. Attempts to scan. Then disc error – M3 shows nothing on uSD. (but card is actually full)
SD card removed – does loop of “inserted – scan – removed – inserted – scan – removed….”
So RMA has been initiated and it is going back. Will I get another one? Probably. Now it is time for me to read the last 67 pages of the thread and see if this experience is random or not. More to (possibly) come.
Please realize that I have not yet had a chance to read this entire thread. I’m only up to Nov/Dec 2015 where they were just released, and Brooko is giving some initial impressions. (p50). So this experience is just me buying the M3 and rolling with it over the weekend.
Love:
I picked up the M3 last week. I needed to start staining my (huge) deck this weekend, and I needed a DAP that I could listen to without worrying if I got stain on it. My current portable setup is an iPod shuffle mounted on a Ray Samuels Predator amp. I also have an iBasso DX50. None of those I really want to carry around in a pocket while staining a deck in the summer.
I was going to pick up a Sansa Clip, because those have been talked about since I joined Head-Fi, and are supposed to be solid contenders. Unfortunately, my quick investigation lead me to believe that the current Clip Sport and other offerings aren’t up to what the legacy models were. So someone mentioned the M3 and Xdoo X2. Looked into these real quick, and decided to pick up the M3.
Got my M3 in 2 days, and plugged it in to charge. Friday night I popped in a 64G micro SD card full of 16/44 FLAC, picked the first folder that looked good to me, and hit play. Cry of Love – Brother was the album. And I listened to the whole thing. Sounded wonderful with my Trinity Delta, and I could tell that I was really going to love the sound of this thing. I expected the music to stop when the folder was done, but it rolled right through and started playing the next folder. Elton John – Goodbye Yellow brick road. Cool. Folder play-through. Never had a dap with that function. So I kinda liked it. It was after midnight. I turned it off and went to bed.
Early next morning I got up, put the M3 in a plastic ziplock with my iem cable sticking out. (I did want to protect it as much as I could from the stain.) I continued listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and started to stain. My folder ended and then the M3 proceeded into Madman Across the water.
Up to this point, I was loving this little player. I hadn’t played with any of the settings. In fact, I couldn’t even figure out how to get to the settings. Normally I over-investigate and overanalyze everything. But this time I just wanted a music player to plug into and listen to some rock while working. After Madman Across the water, it flowed into Foreigner. Foreigner’s cool, but I had been planning to listen to Concrete Blonde all day. I have 8 albums by them and I knew it would last me almost all day. So I changed over the Concrete Blonde – Bloodletting and let it start. So this is where it got weird. It no longer would play through to the next folder. Maybe I went into artists instead of folder play. I don’t know for sure. But from this point on, I needed to start each next album manually.
Changing anything at this point was a bit of a pain, since the screen was not bright enough for me to read outside. Even in the shade next to the house, I could barely make out anything. Plus I’m old(er) and the screen and writing were extremely tiny. Another thing that I noticed when I got to Concrete Blonde’s Live in Brazil is that it didn’t have FLAC gapless. Whenever a FLAC changed from one to the next, there was a tiny little beep. Strange, since it didn’t beep when it changed songs that had spaces. No big deal. Just something to note to see if I could enable gapless later.
Now let me set my expectations. I purchased this to do exactly what it was intended to do. Play music into headphones. Did I care if it had gapless. Nope not for 50 bucks. Did I care if it had play through folders or not. Nope. Never had that before, so never missed it. Did I care about reading the screen outside? Would have been nice, but not a deal breaker. So far it was doing exactly what I had hoped. It scanned my card and played music that I loved while doing a chore that I hated.
At this point, I was loving the little Fiio M3. That night while driving with my wife, I told her about my recent purchase and how much I was loving my new little dap. Normally she doesn’t care about my music hobby, and I don’t bore her with talk about it. That’s why I have you people. But I was excited about the M3 and loved how it sounded and how it was performing. Man, was it small and powerful and rich. Thanks for helping me get through day 1 of staining. We got the top deck stained. I plugged it in and charged it overnight. Wow. The keypad blinks while it is charging. Nifty.
Hate:
Day 2 of staining – lower deck. Got up and put the M3 in his ziplock with the headphones hanging out and started listening to my band of the day. Clutch. Should have listened to Clutch on Saturday. Much more energy to help drive my tired arms. But that’s ok. Pumping out some Clutch now. Blast Tyrant. (Awesome) Now Earth Rocker. (Wow this thing sounds soooo Good.) Starting from Beale Street to Oblivion. Man I love this thing. I really don’t like staining but I love this dap. Listen to how good “Power Player” sounds. (Me singing “Get your hands off me, you don’t know who I am. I’m a Power Player! I’m a Power Player!”) Then… What the…. Stopped…
No more music…
Let me go back to the album. Choose artists: Disc error… Choose folder: Disc error… Choose anything: Disc error… Crap. I don’t have time for this!
So I take it inside and get my ipod nano/predator with case. Put that in a baggie. Continue staining with my ipod playlist. Ok. At least I can listen to music.
In the heat of the day, I take a water break and look to see what might be going on with the M3. Look at the get started guide. If you need to reset it, press and hold power for 8 seconds. No change = Disc Error. Ok. Crap. I’ll go download the latest firmware. Downloaded 1.7. Crap. How do I get to the settings? You need to have music playing and long hold menu. Ok. Copy a folder of music to the hard drive. Hit play. Upgrade. No change. Disc Error. Remove SD. Hmmmmm. Now I’m in a continuous loop of “sd inserted – scan sd – sd removed – sd inserted – scan sd…..” But there is nothing at all inserted in the slot. That’s not good.
At this point, it is playing the MP3s that I had to put on the internal hard drive. So I check another SD card. 16G. Disc error. While trying to get the new SD card to scan, I get a huge sharp digital ice pick in my ear. Like a huge screech. I pull my iem out quickly. But no sound is playing any more.
I noticed on the original SD, that a folder was created by the dap. But nothing was created on the new disc. So it wasn’t even successfully finishing a scan. Last thing I try is factory reset. No change. Now the MP3s that I had to put on the internal hard drive won’t even play sound. I can see the M3 thinks it is playing as the time is progressing, and I see the play symbol. But no sound. I turn it off and go back to staining the deck with the ipod/predator.
Today, I checked the M3 one last time.
Mp3 – internal drive: Shows playing but no sound.
SD card. Attempts to scan. Then disc error – M3 shows nothing on uSD. (but card is actually full)
SD card removed – does loop of “inserted – scan – removed – inserted – scan – removed….”
So RMA has been initiated and it is going back. Will I get another one? Probably. Now it is time for me to read the last 67 pages of the thread and see if this experience is random or not. More to (possibly) come.
