FiiO M15 Review: A Flagship Android Hi-Res Lossless Smart Portable Music Player

FiiO M15 Specifications

The FiiO M15 uses an AK4499EQ chip, which is AKM”s flagship DAC, and the first current output DAC. That is after the digital signal is converted into an analog signal, the analog signal is expressed by current rather than traditional voltage, and the advantage is that it is more friendly to small devices because portable devices are generally 5V power supply. So AK4499EQ is not the product of AK4497 brushing paper data, but a completely new DAC.

PS: AK4499EQ is a 128-pin HTQFP package, the AK4497EQ is a 64-pin TQFP package, and the chip area is much larger.

The motherboard of the FiiO M15 is an eight-layer gold sinking process, not to look good, but to resist oxidation. You can refer to the high-end PC motherboard. I first saw it on the LP5 in the player.

The operational amplifier part of the FiiO M15 is composed of Ti’s OPA2211, OPA1612 and 1622. Many players use the classic models in the OPA chip. Clock part, two NDK femtosecond clocks, top player standard, one corresponding to 44.1kHz and multiple, one corresponding to 48kHz and multiple, and an FPGA chip to further reduce jitter.

In the shielding part, the chips that FiiO M15 can mask are masked independently, except for Bluetooth and WiFi antennas, and the material has the ability to absorb wave in 2.4G band to further reduce interference, so the low noise effect of FiiO M15 is very excellent. By the way, there is also heat dissipation, heat conduction silicone grease, graphene and white copper heat sink together, do not do bulging tank, spread the heat evenly to avoid heat affecting the performance of components.

FiiO M15’s CPU is Samsung Orion 7872, and its performance is not comparable to that of mobile phones, but it is still strong in the player circle. It is similar to Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 as a whole and much better than Snapdragon 430 and RK3368. Why not use the CPU? with better performance. Well, the size is too small, the cost of R & D adaptation is high, and the programmer’s hair is not enough.

Samsung Orion 7872 itself integrates Bluetooth function and USB interface function, but FiiO M15 still uses independent Qualcomm CSR8675 Bluetooth chip and XMOS XUF208 USB interface chip, corresponding to Bluetooth mode and USB decoding mode, respectively. CSR8675 is Qualcomm’s flagship Bluetooth chip, Bluetooth 5.0, which supports a variety of coding formats, including LDAC and HWA, and the delay can also achieve 42ms. XMOS XUF208 many USB interface chips used for decoding ear amplifiers, most PC, MAC, Android, and iOS devices can be driver-free, and independent clock, can work in asynchronous mode, the delay is only about 20ms, it is not a big problem to connect to the computer to play games.

FiiO M15 Sound Quality

For music players, a clean sound bottom is advanced tuning, and the more expensive the player is, the more so is the ultimate pursuit of HiFi and Hi-End. Of course, people’s tastes are changeable, especially young people, it is normal to like different tones.

Resolution is the cost of high-end players. FiiO M15 has high sound quality, top quality in all music players, high separation, wide sound field, and rich information.

Dynamic, do not listen to classical friends may not care, but some manufacturers themselves do not know is very fascinated. Recently indulged in Wang Yujia piano, unexpectedly a seemingly thin girl, playing the piano is full of explosive power, recently bought two digital albums, a “Yuja Wang-The Berlin Recital” 2019 gramophone best instrument award, a “Yuja Wang-plays Rachmaninov” Wang Yujia performance of one of the best lineup, conductor Abbado, accompaniment Mahler chamber orchestra, interested can find a try. I am quite satisfied with the 4.4mm balanced performance of the M15, which is matched with Z1R.

At extremely low frequency, the FiiO M15 is deep enough, powerful and powerful, and you can feel the charm of “drum poem” and “ghost drum seat” with small plugs such as Z1R (in the ear) and V3 +.

In fact, high-frequency and very high-frequency should also be paid attention to. In fact, many loud and thick players are not restrained enough here, pursuing one ear to stimulate the sense of hearing, pursuing brightness, and deliberately raising them, which will cause instrumental music such as violin and flute to be unbearable to listen to. Tired after listening for a long time. M15 is more restrained in this respect, under the 2.5mm mouth, the low-gain T9ie, the violin is loud but the flute is smooth and penetrating, and the performance is good, which is much more advanced than the loudness and roughness of its competitors.

There is no obvious tendency in the mid-frequency and low-frequency parts, but the balanced mouth thickens the mid-and low-frequency parts to a certain extent, which makes the human voice appear more enduring, the popular repertoire has a stronger sense of atmosphere and avoids the problem of mid-frequency thinning under the general balance mouth. However, there are gains and losses, the sound of the cello has become a little divergent, cohesion is not enough, sinking is not enough.

I almost forgot to mention the matching, the balance port of the FiiO M15 has a lot of thrusts, and there is no problem with some big headphones that are easy to drive, such as my Z1R, but the original line HD660s is still worse, and the sound field still can’t be pushed away. In terms of small earplugs, there is no problem with low resistance and high sensitivity, even for plugs such as T9iE, which are easy to push high frequency.

Generally speaking, the FiiO M15 sound is quality-oriented, highlighting the level of analytical power, dynamics and sound field restoration, but the details of tuning are done well. For the problem of balance mouth, the mid-frequency and low-frequency are thickened, so that the popular repertoire is more enduring, high-frequency and extremely high-frequency are also restrained, and the sense of hearing and quality are indeed taken into account.

Summary

Some FiiO fans may think that the price of FiiO M15 is too high and jump from the 5000RMB price of M11 Pro to 9000RMB. But if you take a closer look at the hardware configuration of the FiiO M15 and listen to the sound, you will find that the price is definitely worth it.

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