[fish1050]

  They prolly also rushed it for xmas.

The M3 is $79AUD, the A15/17 $250AUD+. You kinda pay for what you get here. Of course on the more expensive products yes it kinda does hurt the company if the UI and feature set is lacking.

But if i have learned one thing it's that people use music differently. I hardly ever do 'albums' anymore, sure once or twice on first hearing, but I select the tracks I like and add to my 'best of' collection and shuffle all. Not all shuffles are equal either, just because a DAP has it doesn't mean it does the shuffle job well <ahem... Hippo Biscuit>.
If I have learned anything in this business it's that people have wide variances in what matters. Some couldn't give a stuff about EQ, others it's a must. Some don't even need a screen (Alien Shozy)! We all interact with our music differently is my point and I can understand how some are satisfied with a half baked M3 firmware. Others it doesn't come close.
I can list the things that matter to me in a DAP but I have yet to find a single DAP that can 'do it all' and satisfy my needs, even the Sony A17 as stable as it is misses what I perceive to being crucial features.

I am not comparing features of a $60.00 DAP to a $250.00 I am comparing the usability and completeness of a product regardless of the features.  If you are going to release a product then make sure the features you offer work properly before you release it. 

 

[BruceBanner]

I'm not speaking specifically of you, i'm just saying in general you pay for what you get. I expect ****ty bugs for a $50 DAP, I don't in a $250 DAP. Sony are overpriced, but then (like Apple) they tend to come through with stability. I'm just saying I am wary of many products that have a low price tag on them because it usually means bugs or crappyness in someway or another. I am wary now of even a DAP that supports Shuffle, because not all DAPs shuffle well at all!
I totally agree, in an ideal world even a $50 DAP should be stable, but look at all the crap we have at the $50 price tag, garbage the lot of them! Why should Fiio be any different? Because they're Fiio? Yep, hopefully people like you and I by not rushing out and buying a M3 (which will sure to disappoint us) will hurt them and make them work harder and raise the standard, but I doubt it.. there are just too many easily pleased people out there that don't want much from a DAP.

 

[fish1050]

  Yet I gave it to my 12 yo daughter to play with, she spent 30 minutes with it, worked out the navigation, declared she absolutely loved it, and now wants her own.
 
People are diverse.  She likes it better than her iPod Touch.
 
I agree that they can (and will) improve the device.

Yeah kids have no fear in using technology and I bet alot of kids I know would be happy to play with and figure it out.  But my dad or my mom or my aunt or even my older brother who would have the money to actually buy one would have given up after 30 minutes and returned it.   It needs to be usable and easy to learn for someone who isn't tech savvy and can actually afford to buy it.  Tech savvy people will opt for the X1/X3/X5 will pay the premium for these products, casual users who want something simple and cheap will be the target customer for a cheap DAP like the M3.  At least that is the market Fiio should be targeting with the M3

 

[Brooko]

I think Fiio know their markets better than we do.  Their biggest one is China, and their expectations may be a lot different than ours.
 
I actually think teens and young adults probably ARE the target audience (price, size and features).  Like you said - people with more money are more likely to buy something more fully featured.
 
My 12yo and 14yo both have part time jobs.  A lot of kids their age do.  I think they are the modern consumer in this bracket.
 
Anyway - pointless debating - it's only taking us away from discussion about the M3.  Sorry it didn't work out for you.  I'll talk to Sunny and see how they are tracking with updates.

 

[fish1050]

  I think Fiio know their markets better than we do.  Their biggest one is China, and their expectations may be a lot different than ours.
 
I actually think teens and young adults probably ARE the target audience (price, size and features).  Like you said - people with more money are more likely to buy something more fully featured.
 
My 12yo and 14yo both have part time jobs.  A lot of kids their age do.  I think they are the modern consumer in this bracket.
 
Anyway - pointless debating - it's only taking us away from discussion about the M3.  Sorry it didn't work out for you.  I'll talk to Sunny and see how they are tracking with updates.

Many people I know in their teens already have smartphones and find it silly to buy a separate portable audio device.   Teenagers are becoming the new audiophiles and I have seen teens on the subway sporting some pretty expensive portable rigs that make me envious. They also seem to be leaning towards streaming audio services like Spotify and Tidal so the M3 won't fit their needs
 
Not every person over 30 is an audiophile and would want to spend hundreds of dollars on a DAP.  Many just want something cheap and compact to listen to and kill time on their commute to work.  I am 49 years old and that is exactly why I want to buy one.  I know if I showed something like the M3 to people I work with and it was easy to use they would snap one up pretty quickly.   A lot of business people I know have Blackberry's or company phones and don't put personal stuff on them like music.  If they want to listen to music they would buy and many have compact DAPs like the ipod Nano.  They would love to have something like the M3 that is cheaper than Apple and have expandable memory.
 
Older people want simple and easy to use for the most part and have other more important things to spend money on.  Once you get older and your hearing starts to go a great sounding expensive DAP becomes pointless.  I bought one of the Sony cheap E series a couple of years ago for my 70 year old aunt and she loves it.  She finds smartphones to hard to use but still wanted something to listen to on the bus.

 
I also never said I was not interested in the M3 just not in its current buggy state.  If Fiio ever addresses most of the bugs at some point then I will definitely be interested. 

 

[Lorspeaker]

Any m3 owner here owns the VE monk earbuds...?
How does the stockbuds compare?

 

[Brooko]

Not in the same league unfortunately.  I'll try and measure them in the weekend for you.

 

[yoyorast10]

when does it come out

 

[Panthor]

It's already out.

 

[Fergz]

    Quote:
 
You can view by song, artist, album, and folder but there's a limit on how many songs are in the library so you may be using the folder view more often. You also have to switch between the internal memory and microSD card in order to browse through the libraries. Getting to your music is pretty straightforward even if the UI isn't all that good, it's switching between your internal memory and card or configuring your settings that's a major pain.
 
 

What kind of song limit and can you just use the songs on the micro sd card ?

 

[fourrobert13]

  I'm not speaking specifically of you, i'm just saying in general you pay for what you get. I expect ****ty bugs for a $50 DAP, I don't in a $250 DAP. Sony are overpriced, but then (like Apple) they tend to come through with stability. I'm just saying I am wary of many products that have a low price tag on them because it usually means bugs or crappyness in someway or another. I am wary now of even a DAP that supports Shuffle, because not all DAPs shuffle well at all!
I totally agree, in an ideal world even a $50 DAP should be stable, but look at all the crap we have at the $50 price tag, garbage the lot of them! Why should Fiio be any different? Because they're Fiio? Yep, hopefully people like you and I by not rushing out and buying a M3 (which will sure to disappoint us) will hurt them and make them work harder and raise the standard, but I doubt it.. there are just too many easily pleased people out there that don't want much from a DAP.

I can buy a Sansa at a local store for $39.  I get a stable UI that's easy to use.  My 8 year old son has a $15 Coby MP3 player that has a stable UI that's easy to use.  Both of these cheaper devices offer more features that work, than the M3 at $55.  It's 2015, FiiO should be able to do this as well.  At $55, I expect the same features (maybe more) and a easy to use UI.  I was able to figure out the M3's quirky/buggy UI, but I still did not like it.  The M3 may have been rushed, but that's on FiiO.  They released a few other new devices late this year, perhaps they should have waited on the the M3 till next year and worked out all of the problems.  I find it odd, that none of this was mentioned prior to the release by reviewers of the tour units.  Now it's on the market and the truth is coming out.  I wonder how much more we'll learn about the M3 after Christmas.

 

[Lorspeaker]

i am an unsophisticated dap user... start/ play/ forward/ stop /off kinda person, 
just wanna kill half an hour of lunchbreak, thats about it..
i had no problem figuring it out after a few mins, albeit the skinny fonts.
 
The sound coming out of this tiny dap killed my sansa clip+  within seconds.
 
This is still a $starter dap, i am sure it will be well received by common folks like me ...
esp in china..(?)   This will sell by the millions
 
----

 

[ZeNya]

  What kind of song limit and can you just use the songs on the micro sd card ?

 
The M3 will simply stop scanning songs after a certain point. Like on my card, I nearly filled out the whole 64 GB, but the library stops at T (viewing the library alphabetically by artist). I believe someone in the thread said that the limit was at around 3700 songs or so.
 
EDIT: Yes, you can use the songs on the microSD card that do not show up on the library but you have to access them through the file browser instead. This limits some playback functionality if you're like me and like to shuffle through an artist's discography at once but have their albums in subdirectories.

 

[JWolf]

  I can buy a Sansa at a local store for $39.  I get a stable UI that's easy to use.  My 8 year old son has a $15 Coby MP3 player that has a stable UI that's easy to use.  Both of these cheaper devices offer more features that work, than the M3 at $55.  It's 2015, FiiO should be able to do this as well.  At $55, I expect the same features (maybe more) and a easy to use UI.  I was able to figure out the M3's quirky/buggy UI, but I still did not like it.  The M3 may have been rushed, but that's on FiiO.  They released a few other new devices late this year, perhaps they should have waited on the the M3 till next year and worked out all of the problems.  I find it odd, that none of this was mentioned prior to the release by reviewers of the tour units.  Now it's on the market and the truth is coming out.  I wonder how much more we'll learn about the M3 after Christmas.

 
When the Sana and Coby first came out, how were the UIs then?

 

[JWolf]

   
The M3 will simply stop scanning songs after a certain point. Like on my card, I nearly filled out the whole 64 GB, but the library stops at T (viewing the library alphabetically by artist). I believe someone in the thread said that the limit was at around 3700 songs or so.
 
EDIT: Yes, you can use the songs on the microSD card that do not show up on the library but you have to access them through the file browser instead. This limits some playback functionality if you're like me and like to shuffle through an artist's discography at once but have their albums in subdirectories.

 
Can't you make playlists that include tracks not in the library?