I don't think fiio wants to rush a product and deliver something that is subpar. Hell they have been extremely active on this thread and another month is not such a big deal especially for a product I know they care a lot about.
I disagree. I highly doubt this is about 'rushing' a product, especially when it's a 2nd generation offering that uses essentially the same chassis as the original Q5, and shares a huge amount of similarity in PCB layout and parts bill with the M11, Q5, and multiple other FiiO DAC/DAP models. The Q5s does not require software changes like DAPs do, only firmware, which can be highly similar to the Q5's. Unless
@FiiO can state otherwise (e.g. cite some kind of Q5s specific parts shortage, like the XMOS chip or whatever else), to me, these differences are minor changes that can be rectify with a few lines of code here and there. There's nothing here that a single electrical engineer a couple of years out of undergrad and a process engineer can't rectify in a few weeks' time. If you ask me, I think this is about profit, profit, profit (for both
@JamesFiiO and his downstream distributors). The natural demand for the M11 is higher, and I feel they've allocated more of their parts orders to fulfill stock of the M11. Additionally, other higher volume, lower cost products (e.g. Q1 Mark II, M5, etc.) move faster and better than a relatively high cost, lower volume unit like the Q5s. It's natural for high volume chips like the Qualcomm parts to be allocated toward those units. If FiiO wants to make money with the M11, so be it --- it's their prerogative. However, it leaves us potential Q5s customers in the lurch.