Good morning, could someone who has owned the Fiio M21 confirm if it is Roon Ready?
Because the information is all confusing.
Some places say yes, the manual says yes, but the information on the product’s main page at Fiio says nothing.
I wrote to Fiio, but the response is also super confusing… Could someone clarify?
Thank you.
The relevant source is the Roon partners page and it says no:
It’s possible that they applied and are in the certification process, but as is often the case someone might have jumped the gun. (If there is a printed manual, they may have a deadline for printing so might be inclined to add it already)
On the other hand…
… but as long as Roon Labs does not make it official, there may not be a guarantee. We have seen cases before where a device at first appeared as RR only to disappear again.
Probably a question best asked to Support.
I also found a user on Roon who said the M21 is Roon Ready… go figure. By the way, the Roon partners page with Fiio seems very outdated, as there are items on the Fiio page that mention the M23 being Roon Ready and on Roon nothing… everything is strange.
Is the same one I found 
Yeah but it’s very common that companies announce RR in the specs before certification is complete. I think the Roon Partners page is what counts. If you suspect it’s outdated, only Support can give you a definitive answer.
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And FWIW, the Roon Partners announcements of the past months mentioned several WiiM devices but not the M21
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Hi @abdoabdala and everyone here,
We are sorry for the conflicting information available online surrounding the FiiO M21.
As far as Roon goes, the partners page @Suedkiez linked above is the official source of truth. @Carl drew our attention to this thread (a big thank you!) and I’ve also checked with our partners team.
It seems the M21 has yet to be submitted for certification. We’re trying to find out more from FiiO, but it is always helpful for customers to ask for devices to be submitted for Roon Ready certification. As many of you probably know, these certifications do not require any payment — we’re hoping this would encourage manufacturers 
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Thank you for your response. I’ve already written to Fiio, but the information is always conflicting and they don’t know how to respond properly. It would be great to see the M21 certified as Roon Ready, even to enable Group functionality. I hope the Roon team requests more information from Fiio, as this would help them with certification. Because users just asking, they don’t really care. Thanks for your help.
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Just received my FiiO M21 and it says it is room ready it’s coming with an app called “FiiO Roon”
To be honest I do not know how to use it yet. But it’s there.
Yes, the app is there, but it doesn’t work yet because it’s not authenticated for Roon Ready. But what you can do is go to the Google Play app store and download the Roon app, and you’ll at least be able to access your Roon account.
Yeah. I did that already
I’ve been trying to use my FiiO M21 with Roon/ARC to stream Hi-Res Qobuz tracks, but I’m running into the classic Android audio issue, and my high-end DAP is effectively handicapped.
My experience
- Using the Roon app on the M21 (Standard Mode):
The Signal Path turns green and shows an unavoidable 44.1kHz to 48kHz conversion.
The output is listed as AAudio.
Result: The Android operating system is forcing the audio through its mixer at 48kHz, bypassing the M21’s dedicated DACs. I get downgraded audio quality. - Trying “Pure Music Mode” (The Bypass):
This mode is supposed to give the DAC exclusive access, achieving true bit-perfect audio.
BUT: It locks me into the FiiO Music app and I cannot log into my Roon server from this app even if the Roon core is visible (it’s uncertified/incompatible).
The M21 has a Roon app/mode, but it is NOT YET Roon Ready Certified by Roon Labs.
Conclusion: Until the FiiO M21 completes the official Roon Ready certification, we are stuck with the downgraded AAudio path when using Roon, and we can’t utilize the DAP’s full potential. Very disappointing for a device of this caliber!
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Just got my FiiO m21 and Im disappointed that Roon and Roon Arc still don’t bypass the android 48khz limitation… and it still plays lossy files. My Apple Music does bypass and play HiRes audio without any issues. PlexAmp also does bit perfect!
Had I known this, I’d stick to my old Pixel phone and iFi Go Link dongle lol.
Any news on when they’ll fix this?
Why you don’t use the Fiio Roon Ready feature?
If you use Roon Remote or ARC the DAP will act as all Android devices and so your feature request has nothing to do with the M21.
What is the Fiio Roon feature? as in previous posts, they have an “app” called Fiio Roon but it doesn’t do anything.
So you don’t understand how Roon works on DAPs like from Fiio or A&K!
So: Start the Fiio Roon App and you will see in Roon Remote under audio your M21.
Activate it and then you can play from Roon Remote something to the M21 without resampling.
Everytime you start your DAP, you’ve to activate on it Roon through starting the app.
I had no idea because it doesn’t say anywhere how to do it. Thanks for the instructions, that helped. For some reason it’s showing M11 Plus instead of M21 but I guess the hardware structure is the same. Also, weird thing is happening, I’m playing a DSD file and in the path, it says it’s also MQA Enhancing it… what?
Update: it was a playback lagging issue, since my previous audio was an MQA track.
PS: I assume the only downside of using ROON this way is that you can’t download tracks for offline listening through the Roon Remote. And ARC doesn’t do bit perfect playback.
Just got my Fiio M27 and ran into the 48KHz limit issue. I followed the approach described here and it works perfectly for me - be able to play 24/96 with Roon. The only thing is that I have to open Fiio Roon app every time I use Roon and keep it open until the end. Awkward but works. Thanks.
My M27 is labeled as R7 under Roon Ready in the Audio setting. I am able to run Roon perfectly, as long as the Fiio Roon app is running in the background.