Fiio M11Plus ESS and M11S with Roon Ready is fanatasic!

Was this ever discussed further anywhere or commented on by FiiO Support? I have the same behavior with my M17. The whole purpose of Roon endpoints is to have bit perfect playback. Would be good to know if this is a display bug on the FiiO end or if the FiiO player is changing the bitrate in a way that Roon the Roon core isn’t able to see.

It’s bit perfect. It’s just the device bit padding as the DAC only accepts 16 or 32 bit inputs. It’s not upsampling and maintains the original 24bit samples. It’s just a way to get 24bits through. Fiios display is showing it as it’s done after RAAT. It’s common thing apparently.

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Awesome. Thanks for the explanation! Did FiiO actually document this somewhere or make a statement?

They said as much on their forum

First real test of ARC and Fiio M11 Plus. I am in Valencia and ARC works just fine with my iPhone.

But M11 Plus not = all the time just “Poor connection”. Both on the same WLAN

Qobuz works just fine on the same WLAN with my M11 Plus. But ARC not.

Torben

Did you test it at home before leaving? Mine works perfectly fine.

@Simon_Arnold3 - No I did not test it before living because ARC has been working just fine with my iPhone since day one - even in the car.

Torben

Just try resetting arc on it. But I would have ensure it worked when at first as I had to do that to get it to work last time as one of the arc updates changed something and it stopped working. Been fine ever since.

How to play music using Roon ARC on the FiiO M11 Plus or the iPhone 12 Max Pro in three easy steps:

Open Roon ARC → “poor connection” → close Roon ARC → open Qobuz or Tidal or even PlexAmp → listen to music!

Works every time!

@Simon_Arnold3 Thanks - resetting did it :+1:

It shows “384” High Quality when playing CD from server.

Torben

PS: Do you use Wavelet and ARC at the same time?

You can yes. As ARC currently doesn’t support bit perfect on DAPs only via USB dacs it will upsample to the last resolution that was played via other apps this is why it’s 384/24 at moment. Arc just follows what the DAC tells it. Until Roon sort it not much you can do here other than play lower res files before via Fiio app to switch DAC to lower sample rate.

Tbh I tend not to use ARC a lot on my Fiio and just use it via Bluetooth from my iPhone to my Sennheisers Momentum 4 wireless headphones. Until they get native DAC support in DAPs then tend to no bother, when they do then I will switch to using it.

When I have used it yes I used Wavelet it works with all apps.

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Let’s hope soon :smiling_face_with_tear:

Torben

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Define “soon”.

Your definition of “soon” is most likely not the same as Team Roon’s definition of “soon”. :astonished:

I hope you have a wonderful time there. I’m glad you got your ARC issues sorted out.

I agree with what you wrote on this. I use ARC with CarPlay in my car (works most of the time, though usually requires me to force quit and relaunch it on the phone). I use it with AirPods Pro when walking/running outdoors. I don’t use it much on the FiiO - I do use Roon + ZeroTier on the FiiO when I have a decent WiFi connection at work.

I’m doing a 2,500 mile (~4,023 km) motorcycle trip in Norway in July. Doing our planning now. This thread just convinced me to leave my FiiO and even all wired headphones behind (I was thinking I would take a pair of IEMs for evening listening because my wife tends to go to sleep well before I do). But I’m going to simplify and just bring wireless headphones for phone use. Too many issues with trying to do a thing like this with a DAP. If I were headed to just one destination, I might bring it.

These conversations are always helpful in surprising ways.

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My portable audio setups differ depending on location.

While at home I use one of my headphone amps and a set of over ear headphones. If I want some mobility I use the FiiO M11 Plus running Roon and either over ear headphones or IEMs.

When outside of my home I have two different ways to listen:

If there is good Wi-Fi or cellular then I use my iPhone running Qobuz, Tidal or PlexAmp and the Focal Bathys in USB DAC mode with an OTG cable. Sounds fantastic!

If there is spotty Wi-Fi or cellular then I use the FiiO M11Plus and a good pair of IEMs (Westone Mach 80) playing the music stored on the SD card via the FiiO Music app along with the Wavlet app for some bass boost and a touch of crossfeed.

When in my car I just listen to SiriusXM, usually the Real Jazz station.

Notice there is no mention of Roon ARC since Roon ARC is very unstable and a massive battery drain. I’ve been trying to figure out the conditions that Roon ARC will work under. Thus far I’ve narrowed it down to once in blue moon but only if I’m super lucky. :rofl: Granted I have a massive Roon library so that doesn’t help. Qobuz and Tidal also have massive music libraries and they both work fine via Wi-Fi or cellular, especially with 5G service.

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After a wonderful week in Valencia, I must say, that I am very disappointed with ARC.

The SQ - 384 High Quality - is very poor. After a couple of days I stopped using ARC and just used local files with USB Audio Player PRO or Qobuz. And that works just fine (SQ)

Torben

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Just returned from a month long trip with the FiiO M11 Plus which proved to be great company (along with the wife!) on planes, trains automobiles,ferries and when walking. Mainly used an sd card which contained my jazz/blues collection, and WiFi where available. The Sony noise cancelling headphones worked well but I’ve concluded that IEMs are not for me (they sound OK but uncomfortable). I did not use ARC as my ISP is Starlink which uses CGNAT. While I have a workaround using Tailscale on a Raspberry Pi, ARC accesses the core OK and I can play Tidal, but I get the treaded “slow connection” when I try to access my local files.

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At least the trip was wonderful and ARC had issues instead of the other way around :slight_smile:

Do you have any idea of what might have caused the sound quality issue? I’m never quite clear on what content streams from the core versus directly from Qobuz or Tidal. I thought everything other than local content came directly from cloud providers. Were your issues with local content?

Qobuz and local files (on FiiO M11 Plus) where just fine - super SQ. But ARC … Very low SQ

Torben

PS: God tur til Norge :slight_smile: Det er et utrolig vakkert land.

Tak!

I’ve been to Norway maybe half a dozen times though this will be the first time doing an extended road trip. It’s a wonderful country. It’s my first time heading north…we’re going all the way up to the North Cape. Some day we’ll make it to Denmark :slight_smile:

I’ll be leaving my M11 Plus behind. You and others have helped me understand that it’s probably more trouble than its worth on a trip like this. I think it’s just going to be my phone, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max for the flight and the occasional music listening opportunity.