The great thing about moveable music gamers is their simplicity. Load them up with music, pair them with first rate audiophile headphones, and away you go – into the revered sonic realms of moveable hi-fi which are typically solely reached by speaker-fronted programs costing considerably extra.
With the FiiO M11S, there’s, nonetheless, an extra accent and slight value it’s essential to issue into its £489 / $499 / AU$819 price ticket – a microSD card. Whereas many house owners of music gamers may find yourself buying a storage card to spice up inner storage capability, it’s virtually a requirement of shopping for the M11S, which has a mere 32GB in-built – half as many gigabytes supplied by the pricier however most entry-level participant in Astell & Kern’s catalogue, the SR25 MkII. As that may accommodate roughly 1,000 CD-quality songs, those that have modest libraries, who maybe additionally depend on a streaming service, could imagine they may get by on that. However if you fireplace up the participant and get caught into the menus, you quickly realise that half of that inner storage is already eaten up by varied capabilities of the participant’s Android 10 working system. And if you wish to obtain any apps corresponding to Tidal (100MB) or Apple Music (45MB) from the Google Play Retailer, that may depart even much less room in your music information. So do finances somewhat additional for that microSD card, whether or not it’s a 128GB or 2TB (the utmost supported) one you want.
Options
As a result of then you definitely actually can have all the pieces required to nurture a serious-sounding digital music library and participant. FiiO gamers we have now examined previously typically main on options, and built-in storage apart the M11S is not any totally different. It has all of the mod cons of a music participant in 2023 – file help that extends to 32-bit/384kHz, DSD256 and MQA; entry to music streaming companies (plus each different app out there on Android); and even a selection of three.5mm, balanced 2.5mm and balanced 4.4mm headphone outputs. Nevertheless it additionally goes the additional mile to develop into an even bigger a part of your music-listening life in case you so want, because of its extracurricular responsibility as a USB DAC in your laptop/laptop computer, to not point out its capacity to stream music to wi-fi headphones and audio system through Bluetooth (LDAC, aptX HD, LHDC) or AirPlay.
FiiO M11S tech specs
Music information 32-bit/384kHz, DSD256, MQA
Storage 32GB
MicroSD slot? Sure
Charging USB-C
Battery life 14 hours
Dimensions (hwd) 12.5 x 7.4 x 1.9cm
Weight 271g
Contemplating the reliability of Android and the actual fact the M11S is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 chip (the identical utilized in FiiO’s flagship M17), we weren’t stunned that each process we requested of the participant was carried out with haste and with out difficulty.
What you utilize and the way you utilize it would decide how a lot motion the FiiO can ship from a single cost, although the claimed determine is 14 hours for single-ended use. Throughout our testing, we discovered that it ran for round 11 hours repeatedly taking part in 16-bit to 24-bit information at a middling quantity – not dangerous for real-world use, although bettered by the aforementioned Astell & Kern participant. As long as you don’t desire a participant to loudly blast music into your ears for your complete size of an extended transatlantic flight, the M11S’s battery life needs to be passable for many use instances, whether or not that’s on the coronary heart of your house desktop or hi-fi system or accompanying you in your each day commute.
Construct
You’re actually getting lots of participant in your cash right here, with the participant measuring 12.5 x 7.4 x 1.9cm (hwd). To place that into perspective, it’s simply shorter than a Samsung Galaxy cellphone however wider and virtually thrice the depth. Certainly that makes it extra coat pocket than denims pocket-sized, although extra desktop-suitable than each. The headphone output’s place on the backside of the participant emphasises this too.
It’s suitably heavy for such dimensions, presenting a reassuring sense of construct high quality, although the truth that the chassis corners are pointed and far of the participant’s entrance is a 5-inch touchscreen show (albeit with a factory-fitted tempered glass protector) wouldn’t depart us in any doubt as as to if or to not use the provided clear case. It’s not fairly precisely, however neither is scratched aluminium.
The FiiO saves itself from being a boring rectangular chassis by being virtually a boring rectangular chassis, save for its left-hand facet angled protrusion, on the outer fringe of which you’ll discover energy and multi-purpose buttons in addition to a properly sized, barely textured quantity pad. Our eyes lit up on the sight of the latter, presuming it will be a slider management to permit for one-finger quantity adjustment when the participant is sat on a floor. Disappointingly it isn’t, however like the remainder of the controls (pause/play and skip tracks on the participant’s right-hand edge) it’s reliably responsive and ergonomic whereas within the hand.
FiiO has been within the recreation lengthy sufficient to know produce an intuitive music participant each from {hardware} and software program views. The FiiO Music app provides a constructive first impression – open it up and it prompts you to scan native information on the gadget (that are straightforward to repeat throughout from a pc utilizing a free third-party software program corresponding to Android File Switch) and any networked information you will have on a NAS gadget. And it builds on that in our testing with a logically laid out and pleasantly enticing interface that most individuals will become familiar with inside minutes. Album paintings takes up a lot of the playback display screen’s actual property, although we’re equally happy to see full format and measurement data for each monitor just under it.
Sound
Android gadget customers shall be comfy with the acquainted interface and dropdown shortcut menu, although we’d encourage house owners to put aside time to deep-dive into the menus to discover player-specific settings. We discovered, for instance, that switching on all ‘All To DSD’ (conversion) and Pure Music Mode (which restricts operation to the FiiO Music app solely) enhanced the sound high quality, pulling all the pieces into focus somewhat extra because of an additional dose of readability and precision.
These two adjectives are two of the M11S’s strengths, present beneath the participant’s two most dominant traits – smoothness and openness – on its CV. This all makes for a really comfy pay attention that invitations you to sink into an armchair, calm down and swap off the surface world. Its soundstage has that pretty stability of being wide-open sufficient for music to really feel dimensional and spacious whereas additionally having the sheer readability to tug all the pieces into direct audible focus. Add to {that a} tonality on the richer facet of impartial, and a selected lushness within the midrange, and we come again to its sonic consolation. It’s very likeable.
Taking part in The Nationwide’s I Want My Womanthe FiiO conveys the guitar melody and Matt Berninger’s baritone vocal with simply the correct quantity of weight and physique to permit the monitor to assuage, with the extent of the lilts in his supply intact and proof too of the M11S’s expression. Over to Ocean Alley’s Yellow Mellow (Tidal) and that funkadelic instrumentation has sufficient area to bop round in, with all the pieces properly balanced from high to backside and a ahead treble chew it nearly will get away with.
If you are forgetting in regards to the exterior world, although, you may additionally neglect how dynamically punchy or pushed a track is, such is the FiiO’s easygoing nature. It’s not a slouch precisely, however a low precedence given to timing means it struggles to underpin the rhythmic components of a track, as its rendition of Elvis Costello’s charged Lipstick Vogue opener lays naked. For all of its spectacular articulacy, it’s too laid again to be thought-about notably enjoyable – and, relying on what sort of music you are likely to hearken to, that could possibly be a motive to decide on another. Certainly, the Astell & Kern SR25 MkII (and MKI, really) is a greater timekeeper and consequently a extra musically gifted element.
Verdict
That will inevitably require upping your finances, contemplating the FiiO roughly occupies a barren phase of the market that may now firmly be thought-about ‘entry-level’. However for its asking value (plus somewhat extra for a storage card), it’s a really high-quality choice and, for sure, an enormous improve on a smartphone. Prioritising maturity over merriment, the M11S won’t be probably the most thrilling performer. Nevertheless it’s extra refined in different methods – sonic readability and openness, and feature-set – than this degree has demanded previously, and for that it deserves an viewers.
SCORES
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Learn our evaluate of the Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 MKII
Finest moveable MP3 gamers: finances to hi-res music gamers