Hello everybody...!
I would appreciate your views/opinions on something...
I’m thinking of replacing my aging 1st gen iPod touch+JDS labs c5 combo mainly due to the fact that I’m finding it difficult to get reliable 30-pin to usb cables that will last long enough...I have to replace the cable every 2-4 months and that’s becoming an increasing financial burden that will very likely carry on...
So my questions are:
- Would I be better off getting an inexpensive Fiio M3K and pair it with the C5 (which I love...!)
- Would the sound quality of the M9 be on par or superior to the iPod touch+C5?
- Would I be able to install the sonos app on the M9 and stream to my sonos speakers...?
Many thanks for your time in advance..!
Some people really really like the iPods but from a pure technical perspective. The FiiO DAPs will have better audio circuitry than what your iPod have.
#2: Maybe, no one can tell except those that have that exact config
#3: No, contact FiiO and ask for it and have them test it and whitelist it.
Is there a way to sideload any app or will only those whitelisted work? Specifically wondering about a browser.
No. You can sideload apps (by installing APK) on the whitelist, you can not install app APKs not on the whitelist, it will deny you. Now if you are asking about sideloading by hacking it and gaining access through Fastboot and load the app there?....dunno lol
The M9 absolutely is not designed to run regular software like a browser. That's what your smartphone is for.
Do you guys not have phones!?
I also listen to 1-3hr mixes, downloaded from Mixcloud/Soundcloud etc. Depressing the Next/Skip button will fast forward your mix slowly. Skipping the track by moving the slider on the touch screen causes long pauses, and in a few cases the device to stop working, along with a warning message.
I have decided to sell my M9, it's too laggy for me I prefer the sound out of my ipad pro.
Fair enough. The interface and physical buttons are not my favorite either. I can't hold the M9 naturally, I have to do a soft claw grip or else i risk depressing the buttons on the side.
Actually I want to run a browser specifically to listen to an internet radio website because there is only an iOS app for said service. Watch CPU or not, I assume a single chrome tab running background audio wouldn't be overly taxing.
Your reply also didn't really answer the sideload APK question though, so I'll investigate further
It is taxing. You have to understand there is a reason audio purist DAPs do not have screens. There is a lot of processing involved in terms of system level interrupts, general priority, niceness level (Linux high level priority), and other aspects of this operating system that they need to leave enough resources for. With a touchscreen DAP running Android, you put yourself at a con audio wise as any movement or interaction could cause lag that causes stuttering or inability to assure SQ throughput as Android is not fully optomized for sound.
Add in more processes, a browser, and internet HTML5 multimedia elements and this thing will no longer have audio as a priority and audio quality will drop for sure.
I'm not sure Fiio are going to whitelist any requests quickly enough. The Fiio native app is pretty basic. Fiio make claims about the M9 doing anything one could want. Well the Fiio app just can't. The Samsung music app on the S9 plus casts to whatever speaker it can find. The Hi-Fi Cast app will find all my speakers, including the Google Home Mini, and Jam Symphony. The Fiio app cannot find these. The Spotify app on the M9 does very well and finds the Jam Symphony. Well thought out Spotify. If Fiio do not whitelist apps like Hi-Fi Cast or BubbleUPnP, how are we going to use UPnP? Hi-Fi Cast is a unique app and would benefit many. Strange omission. I hope Fiio really do listen to their customers and not drag their heels over whitelisting apps that really advance the capabilities of the M9. Even though the processor on the M9 is a watch processor most of the Apps being demanded are not using any processing power the M9 can't handle or would slow it down. I would still rate the M9 highly for all its other capabilities and its sound is really great. I love it.... but will I love Fiio? Will they care about us customers? I'm not sure. They occasionally post to this thread. Will they actually listen.........? Talk is cheap Fiio, how about some action..
Get a poll going, sign a petition sheet, contact FiiO and tell them you want X apps. Ranting here won't get the apps you want approved. It's not rocket science. It's not a great thing but if you want something, tell them directly up front and get some backing for it.
"Even though the processor on the M9 is a watch processor most of the Apps being demanded are not using any processing power the M9 can't handle or would slow it down." Read my above paragraph to handwander. I'm an embedded computer sys engineer and have worked on Linux extensively (what Android runs on). Things are a LOT more demanding than you think they are. They need to leave enough headroom to sustain audio quality or else you'll start getting chops. The processor threads will literally start throwing audio as a low priority is how it usually happens. Someone not familiar with this process might say, why not hack the system and set audio priorities throughout the system configs to be high with a cpu direct niceness level? Because that's how you get a full system freeze up when you start messing with priorities of things that actually need it to kill what is bogging down the cpu.
Deleting apps does not equal gaining processing power.
+1 lol. Deleting apps can 'speed up' a system if it is very bogged down and using crap flash memory like a slow internal NAND flash or SD card that is almost full. But that's the only time and that's due to access times and IOPS.
The M9 doesn't need more processing power to whitelist some other apps. I'm fairly sure given enough time Fiio will whitelist various apps. Trouble is the Snails pace that many of these companies work at. What is sad is that the M9 even with its present processor is capable of so much more than the native Fiio app can do for it. It a fairly solid app, but so far behind many other music apps, that in truth it's holding the M9's capabilities back..
The Exynos SoC is at its limits of the app already. You don't notice it but there's stuttering inside already and album loading is slow and there are hiccups. They are running at a greater graphical resolution and running a near full version of Android as opposed to say Wear OS or a more cut down version of Android. Only thing its missing is Google Play Store and the stuff FiiO hid to be enabled and you have an Android tablet/device.
The most common Wear OS smartwatches have a resolution of 360x360(129,600 pixels) to 400x400(160,000 pixels). The M9 is 800x480 (384,000 pixels) and has over double the amount of screen it needs to render which is definately something the SoC struggles with.
The Exynos 7270 sports a Mali T720 with a maximum supported resolution of 960x540 but that's a technical maximum of pushing the limits and running Wear OS.
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Guys no. FiiO is not screwing with you here on why it can't whitelist apps. It's literally at its limits. Any more and you will start having audio stuttering which already does happen even with just the FiiO Music App and nothing else running.
