Excellent feedback Simon.
With Bit perfect ARC (when it arrives for built-in DACS) and PlexAmp for traveling this sound a like almost the perfect device.
I can’t believe these devices do not come with more storage options though
What’s wrong with a 1tb card do you need more than that for on the go? You can also use OTG storage if your short.
I already have a couple of 512GB micro SD cards for my other DAP, but it would be great to have more on board storage as long as it wasn’t a silly cost.
It will also need ARC to support no. Local storage which I do not think it currently supports.
PlexAmp should work perfectly well as is though.
Good luck with your continued testing
I just plugged in my 2tb hdd, it works with it battery drain though and not so portable. Yeah they need to sort the whole downloads thing out as currently it’s badly implemented from all angles, speed, usability, storage, reliability. Rushed to market.
1 Like
Maybe by next Christmas it will make the perfect present as it all comes together 
1 Like
Does the M11 support adoptable storage? It’s disabled by iBasso in the DX320 and I assume other models. Without either A) An ARC update which allows the user to choose a mSD card or B) adoptable storage, there’s no way to store ARC downloads on a card.
I’m going to say something probably contentious and probably fairly specific to me.
These devices are fantastic in the home. I mostly work from home where I have a nice desktop setup. I also have outdoor spaces that I sit in when the weather is nice and a counter in the kitchen that I sometimes work from. A DAP is a perfect solution for moving around the house, working from wherever. It’s also great relaxing on the couch or even in bed. I like using the screen and the physical volume and transport controls. I’m fairly neutral on Roon or ARC for these in-home use cases though I’d like the option of DSP filters which biases me towards Roon.
Here’s the contentious part. I’ve come to the conclusion that ARC is just too limited in capacity for portable use especially offline which is necessary for me. I can’t get this DAP onto my wireless network at work on days I’m there. Our network is locked down. On those days, I have a workspace that I also like to listen to music in. A DAP is perfect for that but it needs to work offline. Because of ARCs limitations, which I won’t belabor, I’m finding myself using Qobuz on the DAP. I can download whatever I want and I can download onto an mSD. I miss Roon Radio and other Roon advantages, but Qobuz just works. Unrelated issues with Roon led me to mirror my 500+ personally ripped CD collection into Qobuz. The stuff that’s unique to me is not huge. Because of that, it’s easy for me to find and organize stuff in Qobuz.
I subscribed to Qobuz so that it could act as a content source for Roon. But I’m finding myself using it directly more and more. Anyhow, these DAPs are amazing little devices. Ridiculously functional and quite spectacular sounding. They are so flexible that I think most of us can find a unique path to an experience that meets our needs.
As others have said - 2023 should be a fun year for this category and it’s only going to get better from here.
2 Likes
Don’t think it’s adoptable is on my Hiby though. Still copying all my music to the card currently as I have gone way past my hibys card in files.
I never found any of the streaming apps downloads to not have their own issues with downloads. Use to get lots off skips ands corrupted files on Qobuz and Tidal I gave up. Also as sometimes I would not turn on the dap for a long time until I was on a flight and it was too late for it to authenticate so all my downloads would not work. Funny had that with arc after one of it updates none of the files which where downloaded showed to play until it had resynced back home.
Tidals is the only streaming services app I would use as it’s the best all round for usability and its algorithms, can’t stand to use Qobuz app at all its just horrible. As for Spotify yuck too much noise and podcasts taking up my screen space .
I think I need to get better iems now and this is my weak link and some more balanced cables, doh opened up a can of worms.
2 Likes
On ARC doesn’t want to work on the M11 at all, keeps disconnecting all the time, working fine on my iphone so has some issue with the M11 which works for everything else perfectky fine.
Trying out my Focal Elear now on the M11 not as good as they sound with the RME ADI 2 loose some authority and bass presence not sure it’s as good as the my sound with the bedrig but it’s no slouch and all this cable swapping doesn’t help . Need to wack up the gain to high and have high volume so battery will take a big hit. I think the Meze are the sweet spot for it but need to listen to more variants of stuff.
I was lucky and had great custom iems and over ears so my source was my very weak link. The M11 is great and then Roon just makes it even better! I had been loving PlexAmp but when I got the M11 and compared Roon to Plex, I just liked Roon enough to keep going with it. The M11 update leveled it up again! I seriously went to audio heaven in a period of less than 2 months. I didn’t take the stairs either. I took one of those airport walkways- the fast lane 
1 Like
Will get also today my M11 Plus and filling now a 1 TB sd card for it.
Question: How long the M11 takes to initialize (scan) such a sd card?
Depends on the app. Fiios own music app took about 10-15mins for my 317gb taken on my card. USB audio pro less time.
AKG K550 Mkiii needed some serious DSP to sound listenable on the M11. They are my office set and are a bit bass light but work fine on the mac when I am working. Lacked a lot of depth on the M11, all good now, but again the Mezes win out as they dont require any DSP (for me anyway) does seem this unit does react very differently to different cans and IEMS.
1 Like
Thanks. So it doesn’t make sense to have multiple SD cards…
By the way: Got the M11 now and also ARC is working without problems, but (as expected) with resampling to 48 kHz.
Also Roon remote seems to work without problems.
I agree with ypu, that the Roon integration is a bit strange. You can activate also in the settings Roon ready, but this seems to be the same, than starting the app.
I think, that the intention for this integration is saving the accu…
It doesn’t seem to drain it like A&K did had over 50% left in the tank at 12 last night and used it a lot over the day playing with settings and setting up the fiio and other apps. I just leave the RR on all the time. But I don’t use remote app on it so far so keeping the screen inactive mainly use my phone app which is always at hand. Just ordered the DK1 for it on eBay.
Arc will resample until they change the app behaviour which is coming at somepoint. I just find ARC in general flakey and it seems on Android more so than iOS from my short experience with it.
I have a question for you M11 folks.
What happens when the physical transport controls on the device are controlling Roon and you press and hold either the next or previous track button?
On my non-non-FiiO DAP, Roon is very quick to detect a press and hold and, in response, starts flying through tracks at an extreme rate (as in at 10+ per second). What I see can’t be the intended behavior - it’s too easy to invoke unintentionally and and goes too fast to be helpful.
What’s the behavior of these buttons on the M11? It would be helpful to understand if it’s specific to my device or not - might report a bug either way but would like to know.
I’ve mitigated the issue with a button remapper app. It’s easy on Android to get the buttons to behave however you want including overriding the press and hold behavior. In fact, on my DAP, the buttons are far too easy to press accidentally (it’s a big device, they’re right where your hand wants to sit, and they are very very sensitive). I now have them responding only to double press, which is fine. The touchiness is obviously not Roon’s issue but the rapid skipping might be.
The right side controls operate as normal. Play/pause, forward, back.
Edit - I see you said press and hold, not just press. But the answer is the same. After you release the hold, the buttons either pause/play, back, forward.
1 Like
Thanks. Seems like an iBasso, and not Roon, issue then. Appreciate the response.
The app doesn’t work with controls in the same way as no daps unifi how they all work. My Hiby doesn’t work with the app nor some other apps but works best with its own player. Even Qobuz is flakey with my Hiby controls. Roon Ready goes deeper than the app as I keep explaining this is the point of it so it operates exactly as the devices own music player does.
I am noticing that the SQ of Roon is very different presentation to the M11s own app from SD card. Roon sounds muddy in comparison and looses details. A comment that seems to be used a lot when the differences are noted on other devices. This is the first device I have really noticed a difference like this and wasn’t expecting one but some stuff sounds very different and not sure I like what I hear currently. It’s not a volume difference either. Anyone else notice this yet?
Have you managed to register the Fiio app as mine crashes everytime I enter the code I get.