Best way to hook this unit to my stereo system? Line out to rca? my amp does have a usb as well
Whilst outboard DACs usually play pretty well, some internal DACs (your amp has a DAC?(you said ‘USB input’!)) can be of a high quality. It would depend on your amplifier (age and pricepoint).
Basically if it is a surround receiver and made by any of the normal ‘big brands’, unless it was high in the hifi companies parts’ lineup (eg ‘top of the line’), then the DAC inside of it is more for ‘bullet points’ on a sales sheet, and whilst handy, probably not better than the CIRCUIT inside the M11+ (remember that the M11+ has some incredible design layout regarding isolation/shielding and battery implementation).
The DAC (as a circuit) inside the M11+ holds its own pretty well... I placed it as better than a few ‘high end’ Sabre designs, in some really well made and high priced desktop and portable units. If said DACs I tested against didn’t all have much better amplifiers, then the test would have been easier to get overt results from.
I felt the home desktop parts may have had the edge, until I fed the M11+ into their analogue inputs (like other HEADFIERS have suggested; 3.5mm headphone socket- set to ‘line output’ mode, and fed into the hifi amplifier using RCA/Phono plugs..
The M11+ is a great DAC (and an excellent transport), but the ‘THX’ amplifiers are its weakest link.
When we feed out using ‘line out’ the task put on the amplifiers is made somewhat easier, and they cease to be a problem with regards to getting the best sound from the unit.
Having fed from the M11+ using digital (eg USB) and analogue (headphone jacks); I have thoroughly enjoyed the internal DACs enough, especially when using the FiiO ‘all to DSD’ feature- that playing for days and not caring that the M11+ is sitting on top of three other ‘better‘ DACs, has been so easy (I truly do not care).
If you knew how infantile I can be regarding ‘absolute’ BEST SOUND, my ‘laziness’ with not bothering to hook the M11+ into an external DAC (the whole reason I bought it) when feeding into the hifi for critical listening - then you would know how decent the analogue sound fed from the M11+ is.
I am fortunate in that the main 2 channel hifi rig I use, has an old Proceed AVP2 preamp(processor) with xlr inputs and the iFi Diablo came with a 4.4mm to xlr cable, which is always ready to go...
I have also ran the 3.5mm ‘line output’ to a Burson Conductor V2 headphone amp (8watts/class A/14pounds), and the sound output was FANTASTIC. (The M11+ achilles heel is the ‘lowly’ THX amps, but they sell units cause of ‘brand awareness’, so we are stuck with em).
To be fair the notion of amplifier ‘chips’ (like the THX modules) makes sense for portable music players.
Feeding an M11+ (using analogue) into a stereo amplifier is worthwhile.
Some stereo amps have alright DACs built into them, but generally would have to be a ‘non mainstream’ hifi brand, or ‘fairly high tiered’ on the manufacturers lineup in order to best sub $1k price point DACs. Surround Receivers much less so. The age of the part matters, but price point (and ideally a LACK OF features) will dictate whether it is worth letting the ’amplifier’ do the digital processing.
If you want to play via a receivers ‘surround modes’, or ‘all speakers’ (in a multichannel setup), then USB into the AMP may be a good option- as the digital conversion will be done in the same circuit that will upmix the sound to ‘more than 2 speakers’; otherwise Hifi purists would probably pass the audio using the analogue headphone output (from the M11+) and set the amp to ‘pure direct’ mode...
Either way, I encourage trialing the ‘all to DSD‘ feature.. Under headphones it can seem ‘very subtle’ (sometimes), but on a hifi rig, it can be ‘very telling’, and show quite nicely the differences in the sound when avoiding PCM filter/reconstruction..
edit: not trying trash talk the M11+ when I talk ‘poorly’ of the THX amplifier modules. I know a lot of users think that THX headphone amps are ‘all that’.
As someone who has owned a lot of amps (stretching back to the 60s), most modern amps, to me, are junk.
When I go into hifi shops, even twenty years ago, I couldn’t believe how many of the ‘five star’ rated stereo/integrated amplifiers were absolute junk (*to me) all sounding ‘very digital’.
Back then the store person was fairly amazed that I could detect whether amps were using a digital volume control within seconds of listening to them, but to be fair to the ‘evolution of the parts’ - digital volume controls were ‘low res’ back in the day.. (maybe we need a ‘hi res’ sticker for digital volume controls)
When I throw chagrin at the M11+ due to the THX amplifiers, I am trying to establish that the other two aspects of the M11+ are
exceptional. (as a transport, it pays for itself twice over. The DAC circuit is a good layout and supported by great clock chips and power and rf isolation etc.. - it is only the
lowly THX that hold the unit, as a whole, from MUCH BETTER RECOGNITION.
Moving past the built in amplifiers, and the unit soars to MUCH GREATER HEIGHTS.
So what about the amp is ‘so bad’?
Nothing particular. It is ‘very clinical’ and gets most of what I want from an amp correct.
Except ‘life’ of the music.
When I played back some Muse (band) playing live, the bass guitar ‘note’ strength was absolutely missing the bass wave associated with being near a bass guitar that is being plucked. (don’t know about you, but most guitar amps are not set to ‘lowest volume’ when playing live music on stage...)
Every other amp I could feed the M11+ into recreated the bass note ‘pluck’ (and <imagined> gut impact that said bass note creates) and none of them were driven loudly.
I do not use amps for ‘ultimate volume level’ (thank goodness), but for clarity and quality of playback..
The M11+ can drive all of my cans I have thrown at it perfectly, but just ‘without’ that extra something that a nice amp generates..
On topic: when feeding ‘line level’ output, the sound is intact and the way it should be. THX amplifiers used herein seem ‘good enough’ for untricky ‘line level’ feeds, and deliver superb quality sound. They probably feed balanced armature in ears perfectly (sterile) fine as well, but they simply DO NOT feed ‘easy to drive’ over ears with any of the finesse of a real/‘high quality’ amplifier will do.
My ’go to’ external amp (and DAC) that I wanted to most use with a nice transport (the M11+) is an iFi Diablo, which gives massively MORE bass note delivery when being fed, digitally from the M11+ (as a transport). The perfect zeros and ones ‘transport’ duty that the M11+ pulls, actually improves bass note delivery from all DOWNSTREAM Digital to Analogue parts’; simply for doing a vastly better job at passing perfect digital (very few devices are ‘good transports’, let alone great or excellent transports (like the M11+ nails so perfectly)). Improving transport quality feeding into a DAC will usually do wonders for the sound, so those THX amp modules are being given a pretty easy job of it (and not really impressing me).
Whereas the M11+ has wowed me, as a transport, into every device I have fed it.
(including nice amps when fed analogue from the FiiO source kit)
And you could read more information about M11Plus from our website now: 
