Fiio M11Plus ESS and M11S with Roon Ready is fanatasic!

If you can get udp-proxy-2020 running on both ends (or another way of doing the same thing) you should be in business. But as far as I can tell, no one has actually done this in the wild. Many have set up road warrior or individual device access to a core this way just having UDP proxy on the far end. But when you have a separate set of endpoints in both houses, you gotta be passing UDP multicast packets on port 9003 in both directions across the tunnel. Please let me know if you make progress!

Roons not made it to easy for VPN given it uses two different methods of discovery and communication depending on what the type of endpoint is and if it’s a remote or not. Which is why you can get the remote app to work but it won’t have any audio functionality.

@Johnny_Ooooops - I have this working with the M11. I don’t know what this implies about being able to bridge two home networks, but I have the M11 functioning as a Roon endpoint from outside of my home network. Roon Remote works as well.

I wasn’t able to get it working with ZeroTier running on a Pi. I have it working with both ZeroTier and Roon running in Docker containers on the same Synology NAS.

I haven’t been successful getting Roon Remote to find my Rock-based core at all. That’s a little surprising but I didn’t spend a ton of time on it. With both ZeroTier and Roon running in Docker using network host mode, everything just works.

My iPhone has WiFi disabled, Personal Hotspot enabled. The M11 is connected to the iPhone’s Hotspot. ZeroTier is running on the M11 and its VPN is active. ZeroTier on the Synology is configured to allow bridging. As their instructions explain, you have to do a little bit of work to get the TUN up and running, but that’s straightforward.

I’m currently playing a 96/32 track with no issues.

@Simon_Arnold3 pushed me in this direction with his comment regarding needing the VPN bridge on the same box as the core.

I know it isn’t a popular choice to run Roon on a NAS but I did it for a long time as both a package and in Docker and it worked just fine, though my NAS is very beefy. I’m not sure how invested I am in this, or whether I’ll stay the course, but at least it’s a proof of concept! It’s pretty cool to actually be able to run the full bit-perfect Roon experience like this - gets you everything including DSP.

[Edit: Reading a bit more on this. I think the very specific scenario that I’ve solved is getting an Android device to work. I don’t think this implies that a home network can be extended nor do I think this will work with an iOS device. I do get think it can work with any Android device, though, which creates some interesting options - not just with the M11.]

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Yes, I guess I could have clarified that I was streaming to the M11 Plus the whole time I was transferring the 194Gb, all over WiFi. The Snapdragon 660 includes the X12 modem, and it has 2x2 MiMo, including 2x spatial streams, and WiFi 5 up to 867 Mbps. Makes a huge difference.

Yep. I forgot. This works. I need to add this to my write-up in progress. Thanks.

Nirvana can come from many different directions for people, and often what really appeals to one person or group, isn’t that big of a factor to another person or group. For me, the M11 Plus is my first “modern” DAP. I pre-ordered the Pioneer XDP-100R and received it just before Christmas in 2015. I was very impressed with the device. Sound quality was great for the time. Battery life was great for the time. Standby time was…well, I don’t know. I thought it sucked, actually.

If I didn’t use the device and re-charge it within 24 hours, it was always dead when I picked it up. Since I had to charge my mobile phone every day, or day and 1/2 at best, I figured this was the norm for android devices. At least at the time.

Fast forward, had some Sony, Shanling, iBasso DAPs here and there, and nothing really changed. Maybe the device was thinner and lighter, and the chipsets for the audio got better. But I was still charging every day, or risk picking up a brick when I actually wanted to use it.

I am SUPER impressed with what FiiO have been able to do with the M11 Plus. I can’t attest to the 1000 hour standby time, as I use the device much more than that frequency. But, I did just return from a trip, where I had left the DAP at home (had access to other audio gear). I was away for 5+ days, which is only about 130 hours. But, I remembered after I left I hadn’t taken the time to plug in the DAP, and it had about 50% charge after my last listening session.

I was amazed that it had 46% charge when I picked it up!! I am really going to LOVE this device!

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I’m still trying to wrap my head around what this enables. For example, instead of using Pis as streamers, use cheap Fire tablets and Roon’s ability to do bit-perfect output over USB. Have each Fire tablet establish its own ZeroTier VPN. Don’t worry about bridging the houses. It’s a different topology, and more annoying to set up and administer, but gets you to the same end state.

I thought about this path. I’m fine with big lift and forget, not fine with administration as ongoing cost (personal choice). So for me I decided that this way lies insanity. But I’m still beating my head against the rock (no pun intended) of udp-proxy-2020 and teaching myself Docker administration, so perhaps I am both the pot and the kettle and calling myself black.

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It’s not something you’ll regret learning :slight_smile:

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I wonder if there really is more overhead to this approach. I get the elegance of bridging at the LAN level but setting up persistent client VPNs isn’t all that bad. This took all of 20 minutes for me to get working.

There’s a caveat, though. The “buy a bunch of cheap tablets” approach won’t get you bit perfect over USB.

I tested with a DragonFly DAC connected over USB-C. What I see is that the Roon Ready endpoint does the right thing and plays bit perfect across frequencies. Roon Remote playing to the local default device does not play bit perfect. I can explain what I mean by not bit perfect but I think we all know the behavior.

The fact that the Roon Ready endpoint plays bit perfect to external DACs is another feather in the cap for FiiO’s implementation. I didn’t have to do anything to make this work other than unplug my headphones from the 4.4mm jack and plug the DAC in.

So I retract my recommendation to switch from Pis to Android tablets. That’s not a workable thing for multiple reasons.

All I’ve really done here is demonstrated that these FiiO DAPs are a bit more awesome and versatile than we knew before I went down this rabbit hole. For someone who has the right equipment and a desire to have a full, outside-the-home Roon experience, this is a pretty decent option.

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I think my clients can’t all run VPN clients, and given the fragility of “four walls Roon” I worry about adding any source of potential latency. So I shall keep going.

Keep going! You just might get there! I’m not sure a bridging at the site level is less latent but if you can get it working and stable, it’s clearly the most localized, single-point of administration approach.

Now that I’ve proven that I know how to make the M11 into a fully-functioning, mobile Roon endpoint, I’m done with the experiments and am going back to my ROCK. Was fun to play with but I don’t have a need for it.

After reading, or rather trying to read before my head starts to spin, all this back and forth about getting Fiio Roon to work when away from the Roon Core network (see I’m even having trouble trying to write what I think is going on) all I can say is that is why I just use local files on the M11 Plus or stream from Qobuz, Tidal or Apple Music. Sure there is plenty of music on my Roon Core that is not available via any music streaming service but I think that I can live without listening to it until I get back home. There’s more than enough music to listen to on any music streaming service :grin:

Nonetheless you guys have it since you seem to be having fun. Same kind of fun I have when visiting the dentist :rofl: :+1:

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For me two words, convolution filters. Not completely true as I’ve pre-convolved a micro SD cards worth of content. The downside is those files are now effectively optimised for one pair of headphones. I have a usable solution in Wavelet, but it’s adequate rather than ideal.

I kind of agree since convolution filters are very useful but when away from home one on can always just bring headphones that closely match the Harmon without the need for a convolution filter. For example I believe that the Focal Bathys were voiced to closely match the Harmon curve.

What we need is an Android app that lets one add convolution filters to any music app.

Well this one doesn’t have that many headphones :joy: :rofl:

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I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. I’m not sure it’s even technically possible as far as I know not even Neutron does convolution though it’s been discussed.

I think that it calls for some out of the box thinking. So for example several headphone manufacturers already have iOS and Android apps which allow for customizing the sound of the headphone for an individual user. All that would be needed is to allow the addition of convolution filters rather than the app generated response curves. Seems quite simple to me but then again I worked as an engineer in a field (building design and construction) where one could not blame the problem on someone else, as is the case in the computer industry (it’s not our problem it’s the network, operating system, application, hardware, etc.). :grin:

It’d be interesting to try it on an Android device. I suspect it’s a question of grunt required. Modern high end phones would manage it. There’s a lot of phones in use that might struggle some. Perhaps not enough folk are bothered.

I’m not a fan of the leather case that comes with FiiO M11 Plus.

I am looking for a case like this:

Any tip?

THX

Torben