Disclaimer: I received the M9 tour unit to evaluate for about 10 days in return for my honest opinion.
Build:
The M9 is small, but solidly built. The controls are conveniently placed. There are two headphone ports, one 3.5mm single-ended (SE) and one 2.5mm balanced (BAL) and a USB port at the bottom of the unit. The 3.5mm port does extra duty as line-out and SPDIF (the 3.5mm TSR to SPDIF RCA adapter is included). The USB port is Type C and operates bidirectionally as USB DAC (using driver software available at https://fiio.com/m9_faq]https://fiio.com/m9_faq[/url]), as a USB data connection, and as the M9 charging port. A USB A to USB C cable is included with the M9. On the left side, there is one slot for a micro SD card (up to 512 GB), a “back[up]/forward[down]” rocker switch for changing tracks, a play/pause button, a volume wheel, and a power/lock button. All other controls are software driven and accessible through the touch screen. Below the touch screen is a LED-enabled “FiiO” logo that, according to the User’s Guide, is blue when the unit is on, pulsing red when the unit is charging, and off when the unit is off. A clear plastic cover is provided to protect all sides of the M9 except the front touch screen that is protected by a pre-installed glass screen protector. The forward/back rocker, play/pause button, and power/lock button are under the plastic cover, but easily used. There are cutouts for the volume wheel and micro SD slot making them easily accessible without removing the cover.
Unlike the X5ii, the SD card actually goes in the “right” side up (IMHO) and it doesn’t go into a tray like the X5iii and X7ii. There is no need for a tray extraction tool.
The rocker bar, play/pause, and power buttons are easy to hit by accident. The rocker bar and play/pause buttons (and the volume wheel) can be disabled during screen-lock using the system settings.
The function of the 3.5mm output port (headphone out [PO], line out [LO], or SPDIF) is controlled in system audio settings. The LO function worked well with my desktop system. By default, the volume control on M9 does not function in LO mode. This can be changed in Settings -> Audio.
Using BAL output and volume 60 into 45 Ohm IEM (WiFi and Bluetooth off), battery life was about 10% per hour. This is consistent with the FiiO claim of 10 hours of play time.
Operation:
Note: I did not test the unit in USB DAC or Bluetooth receiver mode. Nor do I have a NAS or streaming subscription service. My focus was on the use of M9 as a portable audio player.
Touch-Screen:
Once the unit is turned on, a screen swipe is needed to open the main software interface. The same is required when unlocking the screen during operation. There are too many touch-screen operations to describe them all. In general, I found the user interface to be feature-rich, intuitive, and responsive. Some touch-screen operations were finnicky for my large fingers. This was particularly true of the sliders in the equalizer.
Bluetooth:
When trying to perform Bluetooth pairing, the M9 first displayed the MAC address rather than device name. The device name eventually appeared and remained after pairing. I paired with two different Sony WF1000X IEMs and my car audio system.
On first use, there was a lot of static on some tracks when in Bluetooth output mode. This occurred with my WF1000X and in-car system. These same tracks had no static when using headphone ports. Reformatting my SanDisk microSD card as exFAT on a Dell XPS15 laptop did not get rid of the static. FiiO recommended factory reset, which seemed to resolve the problem.
There were some issues with my in-car dash display when connected to the M9. The dash displayed track information (album, artist, track, and total track duration), but the progress indicator stayed at zero and did not advance during play. The play/pause and forward/back controls on the dash display performed as expected.
FiiO Music App:
I first tried the microSD cards previously formatted in my FiiO X5ii. Unlike other FiiO products (X3, X5, and X7), there is no apparent way to format the SD card. The M9 had no trouble reading and scanning SD cards formatted in the X5ii or a Windows 10 computer. Scanning was very fast (less than 10 seconds) for an SD card with about 850 files.
The following file formats were tested and played successfully by the M9:
The FiiO indicator light changes color (apparently at will). I have not been able to determine if the color corresponds to any particular file type, sampling frequency, or bit depth. This behavior is not described in the manual.
The default behavior for the app is to start on a random song after boot. This can be changed in FiiO Music settings to play the last song from the beginning or from the point the song previously stopped.
The M9 remembers separate volume settings for the headphone out (PO) ports and Bluetooth output. Play is paused when inserting or removing plugs from the PO/LO/SPDIF port or when powering on a previously paired Bluetooth receiver.
There are three five-band equalizer settings (Pop, Rock, and User Defined). There is a 6dB gain reduction applied when with EQ enabled to avoid clipping when sliders are max’ed out. I prefer to keep them off. “Pop” and “Rock” settings can also be customized. Gain control for the PO ports is set at the system level (not within the FiiO music app).
Some extended ASCII characters (i.e. those above DEC 127) in album and track names do not appear correctly and may revert to “?” or the Chinese character set when encountered.
Sound:
Sound quality (SQ) was evaluated using wired SE and BAL headphone ports with Low gain, “Short delay Sharp Roll-Off” filter, and “Balance Boost” off.
Heretofore, I have never noticed any difference between SE and BAL output with any other DAP. I did with the M9. There seemed to be better instrument separation and the sound stage was wider and deeper with the BAL output. I have no good way to volume match with the ER4SR, but the benefits of BAL were there for me even with the BAL volume set audibly lower than with SE (and “Balance Boost” off). When using SE output, the separation and sound stage were good and on a par with my X5ii. The BAL output on the M9 took the sound stage to a new level to me.
The frequency response for single-ended (SE) and balanced (BAL) headphone ports was neutral and detailed. That said, I missed the Viper effects available with the X5iii and X7ii.
The M9 amp was adequate to drive my Etymotic ER4SR and Sennheiser HD600 to good listening levels at volumes 60 and 80, respectively.
Overall:
For its size, this is an amazing DAP. The SQ is definitely worth the $300 retail price. I am seriously considering purchasing the M9 for the excellent sound stage with BAL output. It is a notable improvement over my X5ii. My normal listening habit is to select and play through folders on the SD card and I have encountered no problems with the user interface on either the X5iii or X7ii that I previously received for review. That said, the user interface for the M9 seems to be better designed and more responsive than FiiO’s other Android DAPs. The flexibility to format cards on other devices (including Windows 10 computers) is also an advantage. I have grown accustomed to using two SD cards with the X5ii. Nonetheless, the gain in SQ more than makes up for the loss of one SD slot and I would recommend the M9 to anyone in search of a portable DAP.
The following albums were sampled during my review:
Build:
The M9 is small, but solidly built. The controls are conveniently placed. There are two headphone ports, one 3.5mm single-ended (SE) and one 2.5mm balanced (BAL) and a USB port at the bottom of the unit. The 3.5mm port does extra duty as line-out and SPDIF (the 3.5mm TSR to SPDIF RCA adapter is included). The USB port is Type C and operates bidirectionally as USB DAC (using driver software available at https://fiio.com/m9_faq]https://fiio.com/m9_faq[/url]), as a USB data connection, and as the M9 charging port. A USB A to USB C cable is included with the M9. On the left side, there is one slot for a micro SD card (up to 512 GB), a “back[up]/forward[down]” rocker switch for changing tracks, a play/pause button, a volume wheel, and a power/lock button. All other controls are software driven and accessible through the touch screen. Below the touch screen is a LED-enabled “FiiO” logo that, according to the User’s Guide, is blue when the unit is on, pulsing red when the unit is charging, and off when the unit is off. A clear plastic cover is provided to protect all sides of the M9 except the front touch screen that is protected by a pre-installed glass screen protector. The forward/back rocker, play/pause button, and power/lock button are under the plastic cover, but easily used. There are cutouts for the volume wheel and micro SD slot making them easily accessible without removing the cover.
Unlike the X5ii, the SD card actually goes in the “right” side up (IMHO) and it doesn’t go into a tray like the X5iii and X7ii. There is no need for a tray extraction tool.
The rocker bar, play/pause, and power buttons are easy to hit by accident. The rocker bar and play/pause buttons (and the volume wheel) can be disabled during screen-lock using the system settings.
The function of the 3.5mm output port (headphone out [PO], line out [LO], or SPDIF) is controlled in system audio settings. The LO function worked well with my desktop system. By default, the volume control on M9 does not function in LO mode. This can be changed in Settings -> Audio.
Using BAL output and volume 60 into 45 Ohm IEM (WiFi and Bluetooth off), battery life was about 10% per hour. This is consistent with the FiiO claim of 10 hours of play time.
Operation:
Note: I did not test the unit in USB DAC or Bluetooth receiver mode. Nor do I have a NAS or streaming subscription service. My focus was on the use of M9 as a portable audio player.
Touch-Screen:
Once the unit is turned on, a screen swipe is needed to open the main software interface. The same is required when unlocking the screen during operation. There are too many touch-screen operations to describe them all. In general, I found the user interface to be feature-rich, intuitive, and responsive. Some touch-screen operations were finnicky for my large fingers. This was particularly true of the sliders in the equalizer.
Bluetooth:
When trying to perform Bluetooth pairing, the M9 first displayed the MAC address rather than device name. The device name eventually appeared and remained after pairing. I paired with two different Sony WF1000X IEMs and my car audio system.
On first use, there was a lot of static on some tracks when in Bluetooth output mode. This occurred with my WF1000X and in-car system. These same tracks had no static when using headphone ports. Reformatting my SanDisk microSD card as exFAT on a Dell XPS15 laptop did not get rid of the static. FiiO recommended factory reset, which seemed to resolve the problem.
There were some issues with my in-car dash display when connected to the M9. The dash displayed track information (album, artist, track, and total track duration), but the progress indicator stayed at zero and did not advance during play. The play/pause and forward/back controls on the dash display performed as expected.
FiiO Music App:
I first tried the microSD cards previously formatted in my FiiO X5ii. Unlike other FiiO products (X3, X5, and X7), there is no apparent way to format the SD card. The M9 had no trouble reading and scanning SD cards formatted in the X5ii or a Windows 10 computer. Scanning was very fast (less than 10 seconds) for an SD card with about 850 files.
The following file formats were tested and played successfully by the M9:
- .DFF files at DSD128 and DSD64
- .DSF files at 2822k and 5644k
- .FLAC 192kHz 24bit, 96kHz 24bit, 44kHz 24bit, 44kHz 16bit
- .M4A 96kHz 16bit
The FiiO indicator light changes color (apparently at will). I have not been able to determine if the color corresponds to any particular file type, sampling frequency, or bit depth. This behavior is not described in the manual.
The default behavior for the app is to start on a random song after boot. This can be changed in FiiO Music settings to play the last song from the beginning or from the point the song previously stopped.
The M9 remembers separate volume settings for the headphone out (PO) ports and Bluetooth output. Play is paused when inserting or removing plugs from the PO/LO/SPDIF port or when powering on a previously paired Bluetooth receiver.
There are three five-band equalizer settings (Pop, Rock, and User Defined). There is a 6dB gain reduction applied when with EQ enabled to avoid clipping when sliders are max’ed out. I prefer to keep them off. “Pop” and “Rock” settings can also be customized. Gain control for the PO ports is set at the system level (not within the FiiO music app).
Some extended ASCII characters (i.e. those above DEC 127) in album and track names do not appear correctly and may revert to “?” or the Chinese character set when encountered.
Sound:
Sound quality (SQ) was evaluated using wired SE and BAL headphone ports with Low gain, “Short delay Sharp Roll-Off” filter, and “Balance Boost” off.
Heretofore, I have never noticed any difference between SE and BAL output with any other DAP. I did with the M9. There seemed to be better instrument separation and the sound stage was wider and deeper with the BAL output. I have no good way to volume match with the ER4SR, but the benefits of BAL were there for me even with the BAL volume set audibly lower than with SE (and “Balance Boost” off). When using SE output, the separation and sound stage were good and on a par with my X5ii. The BAL output on the M9 took the sound stage to a new level to me.
The frequency response for single-ended (SE) and balanced (BAL) headphone ports was neutral and detailed. That said, I missed the Viper effects available with the X5iii and X7ii.
The M9 amp was adequate to drive my Etymotic ER4SR and Sennheiser HD600 to good listening levels at volumes 60 and 80, respectively.
Overall:
For its size, this is an amazing DAP. The SQ is definitely worth the $300 retail price. I am seriously considering purchasing the M9 for the excellent sound stage with BAL output. It is a notable improvement over my X5ii. My normal listening habit is to select and play through folders on the SD card and I have encountered no problems with the user interface on either the X5iii or X7ii that I previously received for review. That said, the user interface for the M9 seems to be better designed and more responsive than FiiO’s other Android DAPs. The flexibility to format cards on other devices (including Windows 10 computers) is also an advantage. I have grown accustomed to using two SD cards with the X5ii. Nonetheless, the gain in SQ more than makes up for the loss of one SD slot and I would recommend the M9 to anyone in search of a portable DAP.
The following albums were sampled during my review:
- 2L Test Bench (available at http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html)
- Adam Harasiewicz: Chopin Nocturnes & Preludes
- Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill
- Albert King: In Session
- Antoine Dufour: Back and Forth
- Antonio Pleeth: 6 Geminiani Cello Sonatas
- Bis: Social Dancing
- Bonnie Raitt: Road Tested
- Calum Graham: Phoenix Rising
- Cold Play: Parachutes
- Creed: Human Clay; My Own Prison
- David Elias: Rare To Go – December Solstice
- Dirks und Wirtz: Kinski Spencer Gismonti
- Don Ross: PS15
- Eve6: Eve6; Horrorscope
- Francois Sciortino: French Guitar
- Giovanni Palombo: La Melodia Segreta (A Secret Melody)
- Goran Sollscher: Eleven-String Baroque
- Hoff Ensemble: Quiet Winter Night
- Ian Ethan Case: Run Toward the Mountains
- Jan Gunner Hoff: Living
- Jian Wang: The Baroque Album
- Jimmy Wahlsteen: No Strings Attached
- Joe Satriani: Surfing with the Alien
- John Doan: A Celtic Pilgrimage
- Julian Webber: Elgar Cello Concerto - Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No.1
- Laurence Juber: Guitar Noir
- Liz Phair: White Chocolate Space Eggs
- Los Angeles Guitar Quartet: Spin
- Mike Dawes: What Just Happened
- Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
- Oslo String Quartet: The Shubert Connection
- Stevie Ray Vaughan: Couldn’t Stand the Weather