That is exactly how I picture a common sense approach. It’s like you are in my head (are you? 
)
Since we are echoing, I am also in complete agreement with the ranting and intellectual ramblings.
It won’t change a thing, but it is carthartic 
No DSD. No investment or interest in that at present.
Ah, right. Tasker. Having to fault in old memories. If Tasker can create a shortcut (think it can), then either on its own or in collaboration with Button Remapper or equivalent, you can probably make the multipurpose button on the left side of the M17 do whatever you want. I looked at this with Button Remapper and that button generates a TV_somethingorother keypress event that can be captured and used.
I use it. I like it. I don’t use it for critical listening, I use it so that I can take advantage of my Roon library, curation, playlists, and so on. I use it in my car and, as you say, with AirPods and my phone. It’s great for that. It completely breaks down as an offline player for me and not just because it doesn’t support external storage. It breaks down because it can’t download from Qobuz or Tidal. Here, in the US, I have unlimited data on my phone for a reasonable price. So as long as I am simply using my phone in connected scenarios (which describes my use in the car and my use when I’m walking/running), it’s great.
1 Like
As far as I know, I’m not in your head but the solution space is finite and we both have the benefit of hindsight 
1 Like
I agree with ARCs purpose for an everyday access anywhere functionality. But as you said, it should have been an evolutionary aspect of the RoonRemote app. But they couldn’t because of reasons in my rant largely from streaming companies this time. They build obstacles for Roon Devs, Roon Devs build obstacles for FiiO. Rinse And Repeat ad infinitum
1 Like
They don’t pay for Roon certification like Chromecast or AirPlay it’s free the only costs are the OEMs own dev costs to incorporate it. Roon don’t charge a license fee to OEMs just strict guidelines to ensure it gives the correct performance and experience on what ever the device is.
1 Like
In case anyone is interested, this is the silicone case available in the US for $32 on Amazon.
The included leather case has a vented metal plate on the back. This case is open in that same area - clearly for ventilation on the stand. The M17 ships with a pre-installed glass screen protector on the front and back so I’m not particularly concerned about the opening.
I’m not a fan of the leather case. I don’t mind this one.
1 Like
I bought the custom leather case on eBay. It’s only a couple months old and the leather is already puckering and coming off the substrate. I’ve gone back to the OE case.
1 Like
I’ve been seriously considering the M17 but as a result of some of the things I’ve read on this thread I’m beginning to wonder now.
I already have a high quality Roon Ready endpoint that I like, a Chord Electronics Hugo2 + 2Go combo, but what appealed to me was the fact that the M17 has an integrated screen and the impression I’ve got from reviews is that I wouldn’t sacrifice too much in terms of sound quality vs my Hugo2. My concern after reading some stuff in this thread however is how useful that screen will actually be for me and whether I will be able to use it as I had hoped.
I was aware that there is a separate FiiO Roon player app that implements the bit-perfect endpoint and that the regular Roon remote app can also be installed from the Google Play store. What I had assumed that I could do is to have the regular Roon remote running in the foreground and use that to see what was playing on the FiiO bit-perfect endpoint, look at and manipulate the queue for the FiiO app’s endpoint, and briefly look at info on artists that Roon Radio has put into the queue which is all standard functionality for Roon’s remote app. Now however, if I understand what I have read here correctly, if I put the FiiO app into the background it will stop playing so if I want to get bit-perfect playback I won’t be able to use the Roon remote app on the M17 while music is playing.
So my questions are….
1 - Have I understood this correctly?
2 - Assuming that I have then what capabilities apart from playback does the FiiO Roon app offer? I can see from screenshots that it shows a now-playing screen but can it do any more e.g. can I see what’s in the queue and, if yes, does that include what Roon Radio has selected to play next?
And I suppose as a bonus question just in case anyone might be in a position to comment - has anyone compared the sound quality of the M17 vs the Hugo2?
No that is totally untrue. It works in the background works like any other app would, you can run both simultaneously and all other apps you just need to choose the correct output via the remote. When you set up the remote it will default to using Roon Remotes output from the Fiio labelled as this phone as it will believe its an android phone., this isn’t bit perfect due to the apps limitations so you dont use this.
You start the Fiio Roon app and then add that as the zone and disable the local remote zone. It then works like any other Roon endpoint. They added Roon Ready as a separate app so you can decide if you want it running or not you start it on power up and thats it. It has its own now playing screen and basic play/pause controls which also work using the side buttons. It handover to other apps as it would on another endpoint when your not playing via Roon and it will switch back if your not playing via any other app. You can still use and external remote as well. I tend to use my phone as the controller and have my M11 just playing.
1 Like
Ah. Thank you. That’s great to know. The M17 is definitely back on my almost-ready-to-take-the plunge list.
From further up this thread…
I obviously misinterpreted that brief exchange that I just quoted between you and gTunes from further up this thread where you said “If you close it then Roon Ready is off”. I guess I subconsciously interpreted “close” to mean take the FiiO Roon app out of the foreground which of course I would have to do to use the regular Roon Remote whereas what you actually meant by close (I now assume) was not having the app running at all, either in the foreground or the background, which of course is exactly what close means so silly me for misinterpreting it.
In fairness to me I am an iOS user and I run with background refresh turned off to enhance my battery life so sometimes apps do need to be in the foreground to complete stuff like downloads etc (a minor irritation that affects me about once every few months so a compromise I am happy with in order to extend battery life). Maybe because of how I have iOS set up I have become conditioned to consider an app no longer in the foreground to be closed when of course it’s not really unless I use the task manager to actively close it.
A comment for a moderator I think.
I see that in the “Audio Gear Talk” section of this forum there are sub-categories for various audio equipment manufacturers including “FiiO” but this thread is not listed if one clicks into the FiiO category of the Audio Gear Talk section. Would it be possible/sensible to add the appropriate tag to this thread so that it will appear amongst the other threads seen when someone clicks on the “FiiO” category?
An interesting discussion albeit now about 6 months old. It might be wishful thinking because it is how I hope things will pan out given that Roon didn’t take the approach of augmenting RoonRemote to include ARC functionality, but I do get the impression that just maybe we will end up at the same destination - a combined app that can do all that Roon Remote and ARC can do - but arrive at that destination by building out Roon ARC to incorporate more Roon Remote capabilities rather than using RoonRemote as the starting point. We already see some hints that might be the case with DSP (MUSE) coming to ARC and unless things have changed there was also some indication by Roon staff in the very early days of ARC that control of other Roon endpoints via ARC was at least being considered at some point.
Ultimately on devices like phones, screen real estate is somewhat limited and that restricts how many icons can be put right on the home screen to be the most easily accessible. For that reason I would really like to have a single app, hence a single icon, that served all of my music needs.
On the subject of devices like the FiiO M17 I see one big potential advantage of ARC functionality on the device. Since ARC is designed to work over a mobile network I assume that the protocol used is far more tolerant of unexpected glitches in the network compared to RAAT in the home environment. In my experience RAAT can be very fussy because it needs to encompass the home use case where multiple endpoints are playing as a synchronised group. When listening to a portable device over headphones however I would really like the more robust ARC protocol (maybe ARC is RAAT just with a much bigger client-side buffer?). Currently when doing headphone listening at home using my Hugo2/2Go setup I do sometimes get track skips when I move about the house and my WiFi connection point transitions from one mesh point to another. Admittedly I find those track skips getting rarer and rarer now but if the ARC protocol can handle a mobile network connection without track skips then I would imagine that it would pretty much guarantee that the tiny extra latency that happens on a mesh handover in my home would pretty much never cause me any issues.
1 Like
Moved it for you.
Hello,
I own a Fiio M17 since one year and half now.
I want to use it on my sedentary system and i wonder what is the better :
- Use it as usb DAC connected to my Rock system
- Use the Roon Ready app.
I notice that for MQA files, i have the correct decode LED color when I use Roon Ready App but not when i use it as an usb DAC.
Thanks for your point of view and these who make already the test before.
Only you can decide, personally I only use my M11 as a Roon Ready endpoint. Roon do suggest it’s better to have core and zone separated.
1 Like
Yes, it is…!
1 Like