Im looking for a DAP to run Roon Arc on when Im out and about. Going to use my Phone as a hot spot. I have until now been using the FIIO ear hooks with Audio 64 neo’s fone to hooks.
The Neos are OK but a bit dark. Thinking of using my Ut12’s but they don’t sound very good over Bluetooth and don’t fit the ear hook case. So I want to use them weird to a dap instead.
The FIIO m21 looks good (m23 is too big) Any recommendations for an android DAP that would fit the bill ?
With your comments, beyond the FiiO M21, I would look into the FiiO JM21, the Hiby R6III 2025, and also the Shanling M3 Plus. All of these are newer, smaller and have great feature sets. They all utilize the Cirrus chipsets, which are less expensive. If it was my choice out of these four, I would just go for the FiiO M21.
I have the Fiio m11s. It’s pretty good. Disappointed that I can’t download music on to a storage card for offline listening but maybe one day.
I listen offline to downloaded albums with ARC on an iPhone with an AK HC 4 DAC when I’m out and only want one device with me. [Otherwise I listen on the AK SP-3000]
Yes, just went through the reviews for those DAP’s
. Think you right, I’ll get the FIIO M21.
On another note, do you use your SP-3000 in room ready mode at home ? or are you using the ARC app ? I have an SE200 which supports roon ready but seems to be a bit unreliable and keeps cutting out. Recently switched to my Mojo/Poly for home listening. Wish I had the commitment to get the SP-3000 :).
I do like the AKM DAC’s sound Was thinking of investing in a dongle DAC too but that has got to hit the battery which Is a limiter for me. Also I just need to have buttons 
Oh I didn’t know ARC had an issue downloading. Can one not download to the internal storage at all or is it just SD cards ? I have most of my library on a 2TB SD card so I guess I could use the native player for library stuff then use roon arc to access qobuz and the remaining library.
Yah. Can’t use SD cards
That’s really bad news. I have an audio book player that can do it. Also use one sync to sync my one drive to my current mobile. Seems trivial to do it. Just a permissions and media mapping job. I guess the Roon Arc devs dont see it as a priority ?
Open a Feature request, collect several hundred votes, and maybe - just maybe - your request will be considered 
I found one already open and voted: (ARC: Support External Storage (eg SD and Micro SD Cards))]
184 votes so far… Come on Dev’s you know you can do it
I don’t know if this helps anyone but I was playing with my old Sony Walkman (NW-A306) Which is full android 14 but has no CPU power and only 32gb storage. But by installing Before Launcher and FullScreen immersive, freed up quite a bit of RAM and got processing under control. And really simplified the interface. Anyway it works as a Roon Arc player and quite well too… Oh and I am caching (Smart Downloading) to the internal memory. Also have a 500 GB SD with my music library. All in a device the size of a swan Vester match box. Should keep me happy untill my M21 turns up…
Yup - I have definitely used one of my votes on this. Hopefully one day (it was the reason I bought my Fiio). I really do like the Fiio though, but I mainly use it in my network using the Roon ready (not the Roon remote or arc). Fantastic sound!
The M11s has roon ready ? nice. I think the M23 has it too. But it doesn’t look like the m21 has it which is the only thing making me hesitate to pull the trigger.
The M21 is indeed Roon-Ready and works great!
As for ARC, it will work but all your music will be up/downsampled to 48kHz as ARC doesn’t bypass Android’s limitations in this regard.
Oh Cool! Shame about resampling, I was hoping the FIIO hardware and the OS mods where going to avoid that. Perhaps Arc is written to not take advantage of the Android tweak’s FIIO have done…
Thanks for confirming Roon ready.
I should have said, you can plug an external DAC into the M21 and ARC will then work bit-perfect.
I’ve verified this with my Fiio KA17 plugged into the M21.
Pity Roon can’t/won’t get ARC bypassing Android resampling directly on the M21 as it would save faffing with external DACS. That’s kind of why I bought a DAP.
I use an AK SP3000 paired with a chord Mojo2 when at home for bit perfect and ARC. On the SP3000 forum on Head-fi it is mentioned roon is working on bypassing the android downsampling. It would be nice to get confirmation from roon. The 48k android sample rate still sounds very good and ARC is a great app.
es, I use Mojo2/Poly for around the house, my mobile as a remote. I guess 48k is ok for out and about. not exactly critical listening
Well I got the M21 and it works brilliantly, thanks Graeme_Rogers. Now using it as my walking DAP. It actually sounds better than my A&K SE200.