FiiO M17 Portable Desktop-Class Music Player

got this in 3 days and looks like a solid product. tested lofi, pop, ele. and orchestra and all kinds just sound good. a little bit hot while using it but not a big issue

I have other high end audio devices that are heavy and bulky. While M17 is heavy, it is not bulky. I use cargo pants and have no trouble sliding it into a pocket. I have a Sony that needs to phone to get music, and it is bulky, even if it half the size of the M17. No other portable or transportable will beat this sound, to the best of my knowledge. Of course I have not tried them all but have quite a few that go over a grand and this beats them hands down. I have a number of desktop audio setups, with separate DAC and Amp driving a headphone. They are outstanding but this beats them. You can use headphones on many DAP's today, but it will not sound right They just do not have the power. If you think they are the same, you need to do some A/B testing. I have a really nice ibasso 240 and cannot use them with any headphone that is a power hog. The M17 is the only exception to this rule. I really want to use my HD800s with this but I need a 700 dollar cable. As my best desktop audio system is using the HD800s, there is no really need to buy that cable. I'm going to test it with my HD600 soon. This one the best mid costly cans, but a known power hog. I'm positive it will only sound right if I get the special cable but just being to do it is amazing. The M17 even has a setting for using hard to drive headphones. It requires using the power supply. So it turns into a desktop player at that point. It comes with a stand that has fans, so you can keep it cool when using it is desktop mode. It does get warm but it has not been hot to me. Perhaps I'm more careful to get the DAP bit of wind than most people do. Put someplace with no air flow, and it can get very, very hot. The sound is just the best. I'm use to quality music. I'm not an expert but have changed music when the quality of the player is bad or the DAP cannot lift the load. I use Tidal and Amazon music, at the highest setting. I had no idea that the Tidal compression could sound that good. All my systems have older Tidal versions and devices. I'm not sure what x 20 does but it sounds outstanding. I now have stopped using the rips of my DC collection and going with the Tidal version instead. I have not done any A/B testing between Amazon and Tidal yet. I had some trouble with Tidal, since fixed, so I got Amazon music. It is cheap and a good backup when I'm using my phone or a non-Tidal device. I had no trouble connecting with Bluetooth. I have had devices that sometimes take some work to get to it to connect. This has connected quickly on every wireless devise I have tried. Admittedly not a lot of testing. I could just be me an my 72 years but I'm not a fan of the interface. I'm often searching for a function and when I finally got it, could not tell you what I did different to get a success after the failure. I'll have to break down and study the manual. The case that came with it is sub par. If I grab it while it is upside down, the M17 tries to slip out. The flap will slide open letting the DAP start to slide out of the case. Not a big problem and yours might be better. I expect and after market case that is better to hit the market if this is the success I believe it will be. Funny, I use a music player when playing on the music on the computer. The developer of the music program was not a Tidal fan. He said it would fail so it was not worth his time to create a Tidal version. Only that was five or six years ago. I'll have to give him a ribbing about that if I ever talk to him. If you are not afraid of carrying a 5lb DAP, or one that costly, I highly recommend this. You could spend more and get less on a desktop system. Only without speakers, of course. I like to listen to my headphones rather than speakers most times. The biggest danger is that with Biden's recession combined with a 2K price, will harm the sales. Speakers can sound the best but it takes time and work to get an even good setup sounding right. If married, you might find it impossible. Some people build a room, just for music. So headphones are the way to go, especially if you live in an apartment. You can get two top of the line headphones headphones for cost of one set of top of the line speakers. set of speakers and put in into the wrong room, and get sub par music. At the top of line, say the 10k range, speakers can cost thee price of two top of the line headphones. Of course, most high end speakers are more hype and sucker bait than quality. I cannot count the number of ways I have seen people put one strange set of Bose speakers in. Far more hype than anything else. There is an old saying. Welcome to Audiophile, sorry about your wallet.

About 2 weeks ago the power module quit; I cant recharge it! What can I do?

Just as the reviews and YouTube influencers described. Plenty of power to drive your higher ohm IEM’s and Headphones. No DAC required. This thing is a beast. The only problem I had was initially changing the default language. Once YouTube helped me with that I was good to go. This is the perfect DAP for home and for your home stereo. Great job with this FiiO

I actually bought this because I thought it was kind of a joke. It had rgb, a desk fan, and is massively large. Then when I actually used it, I was surprised that it was actually very good. The desk fan is actually nice, the rgb isn’t too ugly. But the thing is gigantic. Sound wise it’s pretty good. Anyone that says the stage is huge you can ignore. It’s average sized stage, maybe less than average. Hugo2’s stage is much larger. Imaging is good. Pairs very well with he-1000v1. It does get Susvara loud enough but is still too underpowered for Susvara…. So you won’t get the full effect that you should. I would have given it 4.3 stars out of 5 for sound quality but 4 seemed unfair.