[cosie]

Highly recommended to change DC and AC cables (with a good quality) as well as a fuse (in case of PL50). You will get a different sound quality experience.
However that will lead to about double the M17 price as a source

 

[rocksarkar]

Lads need advice .. recently i acquired focal utopia and wanted to know if i need to get external amp to drive utopia.. example connecting connecting m17->ifi dsd diablo for small footprint and would i gain anything using diablo.. i mentioned diablo coz i have it laying around.. or do i need to get different amp to power the headphones..

 

[viffer]

***UPDATE***
FiiO has informed me that my M17 has been fixed.
They said the issue was caused by, and I quote, “an aging battery”
I will update again next month when my friend returns from her travels, and I can test the repair.
They also mentioned something I had no idea about.
Apparently, when it DC mode, only the amps are powered by it, the rest of the machine runs on the battery. I always assumed that the entire unit was powered by DC bypassing the battery.
@cosie
How did you get the boot logs?

 

[Dixter]

Lads need advice .. recently i acquired focal utopia and wanted to know if i need to get external amp to drive utopia.. example connecting connecting m17->ifi dsd diablo for small footprint and would i gain anything using diablo.. i mentioned diablo coz i have it laying around.. or do i need to get different amp to power the headphones..

have you plugged the M17 into the Diablo ??? if yes did you like the results... if not then try it and see if you like the results...

 

[Erolo]

***UPDATE***
FiiO has informed me that my M17 has been fixed.
They said the issue was caused by, and I quote, “an aging battery”
I will update again next month when my friend returns from her travels, and I can test the repair.
They also mentioned something I had no idea about.
Apparently, when it DC mode, only the amps are powered by it, the rest of the machine runs on the battery. I always assumed that the entire unit was powered by DC bypassing the battery.
@cosie
How did you get the boot logs?

How can a 1.5 year old device be an "aging battery"?
If M17 doesn't completely bypass the battery in DC mode, then it's all a marketing gimmick by fiio.

 

[ApaucalyptiK]

They said the issue was caused by, and I quote, “an aging battery”
[...]
Apparently, when it DC mode, only the amps are powered by it, the rest of the machine runs on the battery.

Wait, what ?!
@FiiO do you confirm this and is it the same for the Q7 ?

 

[viffer]

How can a 1.5 year old device be an "aging battery"?
If M17 doesn't completely bypass the battery in DC mode, then it's all a marketing gimmick by fiio.

Yeah, that was a huge surprise to me.
I told them that an aging battery can’t be the case as my M17 was fully functional once it started. I also told them that while refusing to start, the unit would not charge but, once it had booted, it would charge as normal, that’s when they told me that the DC only powers the Amps still, I am not convinced that's the cause of the intriguing charging and booting issues. A friend of mine who is an IT systems specialist, told me that a substandard component that was not spotted during QC, and has prematurely started to fail, was likely to be the issue. Maybe that’s the battery?, who knows. It is all very confusing to me.
Hopefully, the repair is solid but, I cannot test the unit until next month when my friend returns to London from her travels.
I shall, of course, update accordingly.

Below, screen shots of the emails FiiO support sent me

 

[NOMOS]

When I connect my power bank to the M17 and turn off the battery charge, only the power bank empties and the M17 stays exactly at the same battery percentages in DC Mode .So I think everything runs through the power bank and the internal battery is bypassed .

 

[viffer]

When I connect my power bank to the M17 and turn off the battery charge, only the power bank empties and the M17 stays exactly at the same battery percentages in DC Mode .So I think everything runs through the power bank and the internal battery is bypassed .

I can only go for what they sent me, maybe the DC maintains the battery at the initial charge level?
Like I said, it is all very confusing.

 

[Dixter]

the way modern day battery management works is if the battery is charged up and the unit is on AC charger for source power the unit will use the Ac charger and ONLY engage the battery charge circuit if the battery requires a trickle... otherwise the unit is running 100% off of the AC charger.... or in some cases when a person uses a battery pack in place of the AC charger... the unit doesn't know the difference if it has a battery pack or a AC charger connected...

 

[MusicalDoc8]

Go back to my post about temperature and battery lifespan. It is all the more possible that the high internal temperature cooks the battery quite fast so that you can expect a shorter lifespan than average.
But hey even my old cheap and nuclear fission tier gaming laptop's battery lasts 3 year before servicing, 1.5 of lifespan is either cheap battery or nuclear tier heating. This is why some daps weight more, copper and aluminum "cradle" to protect battery and dissipate heat is mandatory.
Otherwise it's a throwaway device.

 

[Dixter]

Go back to my post about temperature and battery lifespan. It is all the more possible that the high internal temperature cooks the battery quite fast so that you can expect a shorter lifespan than average.
But hey even my old cheap and nuclear fission tier gaming laptop's battery lasts 3 year before servicing, 1.5 of lifespan is either cheap battery or nuclear tier heating. This is why some daps weight more, copper and aluminum "cradle" to protect battery and dissipate heat is mandatory.
Otherwise it's a throwaway device.

They are all throwaway devices.... the battery WILL die sooner or later....

 

[MusicalDoc8]

They are all throwaway devices.... the battery WILL die sooner or later....

Yes battery does sure. This is why being able to operate on them with ha few tools and opening them up to service then it's important. Still, it all depends on the the time horizon. We all are going to die, but I think people would be concerned by a much shorter lifespan.

 

[viffer]

Just to clarify.
I don’t think that the battery was the cause. Once successfully booting up, the battery charged just as it should and I would get 7-8 hours of continuous use and, with my FiiO FH9 connected to the balanced output, the temperature was just warm.
Now, after a successful boot up, when turning the unit off, the battery will also charge as normal but, once the booting up sequence failed, then the battery would not charge even though, it was charging before failing to boot.
My friend’s suggestion that a premature component failure was the cause makes a lot more sense to me.
But, I can only go from what FiiO has told me which, and taking into consideration the unit faulty behaviour, is very confusing.
I shall update once I get the M17 back and I can test the repair.

 

[Dixter]

I can't say for certain about the battery in the M17 but some batteries have the BLM circuitry embedded into the battery so the actual battery is an assembly... if the BLM goes bad its the same as saying the battery is bad...