FiiO M15 Audio Player | Dual AK4499EQ | 7490 mAh Battery | 64 GB ROM | $1299.99
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The Story About FiiO M15----From James
Part I Introduction & Project Origin
Preface
After releasing the M15 at the end of 2019, we have received overwhelming responses out of our expectations from the market and users. Not only did the M15 sell out soon after going public, but the feedback from consumers was also very positive.
There are several reasons for me to write this series of articles.
1）The price of the M15 is relatively high. For those who are interested but still considering, the online review is just a reference due to the lack of hands-on experience. Furthermore, it is difficult to understand designers' thoughts and ideas by simply looking at its parameter and configuration. Therefore, this series of articles would offer you an opportunity to learn more about the M15.
2）Through these articles, I could make a thorough explanation of some features of the M15. Because I don't think the M15's introduction on the official website, the product introduction page or the press conference is completely clear. Therefore, it is still necessary to write it down for further analysis.
3）It is also found that consumers like to listen to stories, including the ins and outs of products, and some stories behind R&D. I hope that these articles will meet your curiosity.
4）Last but not least, some technical guidance and responses to some hot-spot topics will also be involved.
In a word, these writings do not focus on promoting products and calling more people to buy them. On the contrary, what we are mostly worried about is not the sales volume, but consumers who don't know enough about the M15, and thus be disappointed at the brand and product. The M15 is the flagship symbol of portable players in FiiO's product line, which does not undertake the task of making money. It is something important about FiiO's technical strength and product philosophy.
The Origin of the Project: Legendary X9
If you are an old user of FiiO players, you would have known that FiiO players have always been named as X series. In fact, after the X7 was released, old users have kept calling for a better and more advanced X9.
However, because of the worse market condition at that time that there were rarely-seen Chinese players exceeding 700USD. The X7 has been sold at 649.99USD, so will the X9 is definitely over 700USD. It would be a big question whether the market and users can accept it or not. Additionally, we could only acquire Rockchip's RK series chips that has corresponding development capabilities at the time. In fact, many users were already very dissatisfied with the X5III and X7II. Because with such an old and high-power consumption Soc on a high end player, I'm afraid that customers would not accept it.
Therefore, we first spent a lot of effort to apply Samsung's SoC platform 7270 to low-to-mid-end HiFi players, like the M6, M7 and M9, in order to accumulate experience and simultaneously establish a cooperative relationship with Samsung. After all, Samsung was still very skeptical about the development capabilities of Chinese manufacturers, so it would not open up the mid-to-high-end chips to FiiO at once.
Now came to the part that you knew. FiiO won the trust of Samsung successfully. By combining the Exynos7872 SoC with a 5.15-inch 18: 9 720P display screen, FiiO's Android-based mid-to-high-end player platform was eventually built up, managing to release the M11 and M11 Pro to the market in succession.
Of course, you may want to ask why not research and develop the M15 at the beginning? There are two reasons.
1) Generally speaking, the more expensive the price, the less sales. If we started at the higher-end player first, the purchase order to Samsung would be rather smaller, which would affect their support for us. So, we must increase the volume as soon as possible. In this case, we must start with models in large amounts.
2) The higher-end the player, the more technical accumulation is required. With development experience of the M11 and M11Pro, and continuous firmware updates based on market feedback, we have a relatively stable software and hardware platform to be ready for the M15, which help to reduce the development difficulty.
Therefore, when all was set and done, we started the M15 project, making it the flagship model of FiiO portable music player.
Part I Introduction & Project Origin
Preface
After releasing the M15 at the end of 2019, we have received overwhelming responses out of our expectations from the market and users. Not only did the M15 sell out soon after going public, but the feedback from consumers was also very positive.
There are several reasons for me to write this series of articles.
1）The price of the M15 is relatively high. For those who are interested but still considering, the online review is just a reference due to the lack of hands-on experience. Furthermore, it is difficult to understand designers' thoughts and ideas by simply looking at its parameter and configuration. Therefore, this series of articles would offer you an opportunity to learn more about the M15.
2）Through these articles, I could make a thorough explanation of some features of the M15. Because I don't think the M15's introduction on the official website, the product introduction page or the press conference is completely clear. Therefore, it is still necessary to write it down for further analysis.
3）It is also found that consumers like to listen to stories, including the ins and outs of products, and some stories behind R&D. I hope that these articles will meet your curiosity.
4）Last but not least, some technical guidance and responses to some hot-spot topics will also be involved.
In a word, these writings do not focus on promoting products and calling more people to buy them. On the contrary, what we are mostly worried about is not the sales volume, but consumers who don't know enough about the M15, and thus be disappointed at the brand and product. The M15 is the flagship symbol of portable players in FiiO's product line, which does not undertake the task of making money. It is something important about FiiO's technical strength and product philosophy.
The Origin of the Project: Legendary X9
If you are an old user of FiiO players, you would have known that FiiO players have always been named as X series. In fact, after the X7 was released, old users have kept calling for a better and more advanced X9.
However, because of the worse market condition at that time that there were rarely-seen Chinese players exceeding 700USD. The X7 has been sold at 649.99USD, so will the X9 is definitely over 700USD. It would be a big question whether the market and users can accept it or not. Additionally, we could only acquire Rockchip's RK series chips that has corresponding development capabilities at the time. In fact, many users were already very dissatisfied with the X5III and X7II. Because with such an old and high-power consumption Soc on a high end player, I'm afraid that customers would not accept it.
Therefore, we first spent a lot of effort to apply Samsung's SoC platform 7270 to low-to-mid-end HiFi players, like the M6, M7 and M9, in order to accumulate experience and simultaneously establish a cooperative relationship with Samsung. After all, Samsung was still very skeptical about the development capabilities of Chinese manufacturers, so it would not open up the mid-to-high-end chips to FiiO at once.
Now came to the part that you knew. FiiO won the trust of Samsung successfully. By combining the Exynos7872 SoC with a 5.15-inch 18: 9 720P display screen, FiiO's Android-based mid-to-high-end player platform was eventually built up, managing to release the M11 and M11 Pro to the market in succession.
Of course, you may want to ask why not research and develop the M15 at the beginning? There are two reasons.
1) Generally speaking, the more expensive the price, the less sales. If we started at the higher-end player first, the purchase order to Samsung would be rather smaller, which would affect their support for us. So, we must increase the volume as soon as possible. In this case, we must start with models in large amounts.
2) The higher-end the player, the more technical accumulation is required. With development experience of the M11 and M11Pro, and continuous firmware updates based on market feedback, we have a relatively stable software and hardware platform to be ready for the M15, which help to reduce the development difficulty.
Therefore, when all was set and done, we started the M15 project, making it the flagship model of FiiO portable music player.
Happy Bithday Fiio and James.
Im really happy with m15 and the support is great. Its not cheap but the quality is impressive
Great write up! Thank you for that.
@atahanuz : Can you please add a link to this post by FiiO (and the following ones later) to the first post of this thread? It has good background information people ask about M15.
Could you clarify point 2? Are you saying that when "over-ear mode" is off the M15's battery is bypassed and powered only by USB, and when "over-ear mode" is on it uses both USB and battery? And if the battery isn't bypassed, could any battery issues arise by using it too long in USB mode?
Thanks!
I guess the answer was coming from a misinterpretation of the question. The question was if the battery will be "over charged" in USB DAC mode, or the battery will be bypassed in this mode (if I understand correctly). As these two things were in an either/or relation. Today's phone chipset power management circuitry are much more capable than that. What control is actually implemented, Fiio might know.
Then the answer was mixing in the over ear mode, i guess as a reaction to the word "over" from the question. Nevertheless, it might mean that the over ear mode has an influence of battery management, bur not necessarily. I am courious about the clarified answer from Fiio.
Incidentally, I was trying to find out the same for the Kann Cube... does it have this implementation? I saw an A&K rep answer that USB wouldn't be enough to power it, but that he would look into possibilities. I didn't see any further discussion around this, however.
gto88
Headphoneus Supremus
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Happy birthday, and I think that an anniversary sale is in order?
Just before reading your post I was listening to music from Cube in USB mode. It was depleating the battery of my LG G7 in the tempo of 1% per minute. It would be nice to be able to tell the Cube that please, use your own battery. I do not know if the M15 "no charge" option is referring to this use case or not. On the phone I was also not able to set that it shall not charge the Cube. The manual selection of this option was always automatically switced back to charging the Cube.
Referring to your question about the overcharge: I do not think overcharge can happen in any mode.
Another topic if a USB port can supply enough power to keep the DAP charged while in USB DAC mode. Depending on the type of USB port it was not always the case for the Cube. If the M15 suffer from the same issue, I do not know.
Fiio has a USB-C type docking station, which can be a solution for such problems.
Anyone out there with DK1-USB-C and M15/Kann Cube connectivity experience?
Yes, I saw that it looks like a great addition! Maybe it could make a great anniversary bundle deal?
I’ve owned both units and what you’re suggesting isn’t possible. USB port can’t receive data and charge simultaneously. This was specifically confirmed by A&K. That’s why the original Kann had two USB ports; one for data and one for charge so it could be done simultaneously.
As for the M15 with the dock, in my experience it charges slowly even if the player isn’t doing anything. That’s with the power from a fast charger into the dock, not USB from a computer. Not sure if the M15 can charge while being used in USB DAC mode (My gut says no like the KANN CUBE). In my personal experience having it docked in USB DAC mode with all to dsd, high gain and over ear mode enabled the battery still drains in use.
Ah thanks! I'm assuming the battery drains much more slowly i.e. a negligible net loss?
On experiences about Cube charging habits in USB DAC mode I will come back soon on the Cube thread.
Thank you for the docking station info.
Any impressions on sound quality of M15 vs Cube, or any other aspects?
I don't use it in USB DAC mode too often to be honest because if I'm sitting at my desk I'll use my desktop DAC/amp. It's not easy to validate either because you can't see the battery level/charge symbol when it's in USB DAC mode. My perspective is it's not charging at all in USB DAC mode, but admittedly over ear mode, high gain and all to DSD draws a lot of power, so that might be the reason why. Perhaps @FiiO can confirm if charging while in USB DAC mode is possible.
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