FiiO M6

| Music Player | WiFi | Bluetooth | USB DAC | AirPlay | DLNA | Multi-Touch Screen | DSD128 | Exynos 7270 | ES9018Q2C DAC |

? FiiO M6 the latest music player from FiiO with a small portable size, high-quality features and very affordable price.

The FiiO M6 holds an Exynos 7270 CPU, an ES9018Q2C DAC, native DSD128 and it supports wireless WiFi and Bluetooth connection – the operating system of the FiiO M6 is a customized version of Android.

This year FiiO has been shaking the budget-conscious, audio enthusiast and audiophile market, the FiiO M6 joins these new products releases next to the:

• FiiO M9
• FiiO K3
• FiiO M3K
• FiiO BTR3
• FiiO BTR1K
• FiiO FA7

You can buy the FiiO M6 in:

• FiiO M6 black

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FiiO M6 Review

Tests & Scores

Advanced Features

The FiiO M6 features include advanced options such as:

• USB DAC: can be connected as an external USB DAC on Windows and Mac computers.
• 3.5mm & USB Type-C audio output
• WiFi Streaming
• DLNA
• AirPlay
• Music streaming apps
• Dual Bluetooth 4.2
• Lossless Bluetooth codecs
• Micro SD card reader: up to 2TB cards
• Native DSD support
• IPS Touch Screen
• OTA firmware upgrades

Weight

FiiO M6 weight in Ounces and FiiO M6 weight in grams.

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Accessories & Packaging

The FiiO M6 unboxing results in a TPU clear cover (similar to the one of the FiiO M9 but with a less accentuated dots pattern), 2x screen protectors (one is already placed on the screen and on the back cover) and a charging USB Type-C cable that is also used as the cable for it’s USB DAC functionality.

The DAP/DAC comes inside a relatively small package with a clean design – packaging style similar to most latest devices from FiiO, like the FiiO M3K, FiiO BTR3 and FiiO K3.

^3.5_/5

Design

The FiiO M6 has a gracious small design with an unibody build and round edges that makes it look like a mini-me smartphone.

On the upper right bezel there is a tiny RGB light that indicates the status of the device.

The FiiO M6 is a tiny device, measuring 92.5mm×53.3mm×11.5mm, the M6 is extremely similar in height and width to the FiiO M3K.

5_/5

Operation & Control

The FiiO M6 has four buttons and a multi-touch screen (5 finger sensitive) that allows the full operation of the device.

The buttons are placed on the left edge and on the top edge. The top edge has a single button that turns on/off the device and the screen, the 3 remaining buttons on the left edge control the play/pause function, volume +, volume – and skipping tracks.

On the FiiO M6 you won’t find the volume scroll wheel that the FiiO M9 has, but each click of the volume + or volume – buttons provides the exact same precision of control as the M9’s wheel- and it has the same 120 volume steps.

The 3 side physical buttons can, also, fully control the music playing while the screen is turned off, allowing to: play, pause, increase volume, decrease down, skip to next songs, go back to previous song. The operation with the screen off of any and/or all the side buttons can be disabled through the “Key-lock” settings.

The FiiO M6 is a very easy device to control and use, while the touch screen has the same intuitive gestures as many Android smartphones.

FiiO M6 controls:

Top Edge Button:

• Press and hold: Power on/off
• Single press: Lock screen, turn screen on/off

First Side Edge Button:

•  Single press: Play/pause

Volume +:

• Single press: 1 volume step up
• Press and hold: Previous track

Volume -:

• Single press: 1 volume step up
• Press and hold: Next track

Touch Screen Gestures:

• Swipe up from bottom-left: Previous screen
• Swipe up from bottom-right: Back to Home screen

^5_/5

Battery Life

The FiiO M6 has a 1200mAh rechargeable battery that can provide 15 hours of continuous music playback time while being used in Bluetooth mode and up to 13 hours using a wired headphone.

According to the brand, the standby time of the FiiO M6 is over 26 days.

How to charge the FiiO M6:

The FiiO M6 is charged through it’s USB Type-C connection (with the included cable) connected to a power adapter that outputs 5V and 2A.

A full charging cycle takes slightly less than 2.5 hours.

^3_/5

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Construction & Build

Despite the tiny size, the FiiO M6 is a very rugged device with 2.5D glass and an CNC aluminum alloy main body with narrow bezels.

The FiiO design team has done a very good job with the intersecting section of the glass to the metal body with, nearly, unnoticeable seams or bumps.

^5_/5

Screen

The FiiO M6 is equipped with an 800×480, IPS screen with 16 million colors and a diagonal size of 3.2 inches – resulting in a density of 292 pixels per inch.

The screen size and resolution is the same as the FiiO M9 and FiiO M7. On the other hand, the 16 million colors of the M6, vastly, surpass the 2.62 million that the M7 can reproduce.

The IPS technology used for the screen of the FiiO M6 provides full viewing angles with no color shift nor distortion.

The brightness of the screen can be manually set with the same Android brightness slider that can be found on any modern Android smartphone.

^4.25_/5

Menu

The user interface of the FiiO M6 has 9 main menu categories (as of firmware v 1.0.0): FiiO Music, File Management, Gallery, Technical Support, Settings, KKBOX, TIDAL, NetEase Music, MOOV.

Being an Android-based device, the FiiO M6 has the same sliding top menu as any Android smartphones but that has been customized to give quick access links to: Settings, Brightness slider, WiFi, Bluetooth, Line out mode (LO, PO), USB mode (DAC, storage), Filter settings, AirPlay.

The FiiO Music App, bundled with the FiiO M6 (firmware version v 1.0.0) is the version 1.0.7 which enables FiiO Link to control the music player from your smartphone – it is needed to use the FiiO Music app on both devices.

The music playback screen informs the: album cover image, song name, play mode, elapsed time, track duration, number of track (x/x). In-depth details of the audio file being listened can be seen by tapping parallel lines icon – information revealed is: file name, artist name, album name, album name, kHz, bits, track duration and file size.

Formats Compatibility

The FiiO M6 holds a single ESS Sabre 9018Q2C chip that combines DAC and amp capabilities – this is the exact same DAC/Amp chip that the FiiO M7 has.

By being armed with the same M7’s chip, the M6 also has similar decoding capabilities, being able to decode files such as:

• DSD: DSD64, 128（“.iso”“.dsf”,“.dff”）
• APE(Fast): 192 kHz/24 bit
• APE(Normal): 192 kHz/24 bit
• APE (High): 192 kHz/24 bit
• APE (Extra High): 48 kHz/24 bit
• APE (Insane): 48 kHz/24 bit
• FLAC: 192 kHz/24 bit
• WAV: 192 kHz/64 bit
• Aiff: 192 kHz/24 bit
• Aif: 192 kHz/24 bit
• WMA Lossless: 96 kHz/24 bit
• Apple Lossless: 192 kHz/24 bit
• MP3
• OGG
• M4A
• ALAC
• ISO
• DFF
• DSF
• CUE
• LRC –  for lyrics

^5_/5

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Connectivity

Differently to the FiiO M9, the FiiO M6 has their connections distributed on the top and bottom edge of the device.

The top edge holds the 3.5mm headphone jack (on the left corner) and the bottom edge has the USB Type-C connector centered.

The right edge holds the microSD card slot which, unfortunately, gets covered by the TPU cover, so to remove or swap microSD cards on the FiiO M6 you will have to remove the TPU cover – the FiiO M9 has a smarter cover that has a cutout on the microSD slot place so that the card can be removed while using the cover.

^4.25_/5

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Sound

Similar to the bigger brother (FiiO M9), the FiiO M6 presented a clean and clear sound with little to no coloration.

During our soundtests, the FiiO M6 revealed to be a neutral sounding music player that was able to reproduce each frequency range as it is meant to be.

Furthermore, we measured it’s frequency response, which resulted in a remarkably flat curve.

As the unit also oofers Bluetooth connectivity and USB DAC functionality, we proceeded to test it out in these 2 modes.

The results of the FiiO M6 soundtests, in Bluetooth and DAC mode, demonstrated that the device is still able to preserve the same impeccable response as in wired mode, with no coloration and only a rolled-off response on frequencies near 20.000Hz while being used in Bluetooth mode (not in DAC mode), which did not affect significantly the sound quality of the music player.

Being that the device provides 9 EQ presets we proceeded to measure their efficiency and response. The results showed that the FiiO Music app EQs reflect the real band’s +dB and -dB applied on each EQ preset with accurate precision.

Additional Audio Options/Settings

• Output selection: PO, LO
• Digital filter mode (fat roll-off, slow roll-off, minimum phase)
• Wireless playback quality: codec can be selected among 6 options
• Balance: 10 levels
• In-line remote on/off
• Balance boost on/off
• AirPlay on/off
• USB DAC on/off

Part of the M6 sound capabilities to highlight include a wide frequency response range of 10Hz to 85000Hz, a recommended headphone impedance of 16 to 100 ohm, measured signal to noise ≥118dB , noise floor <3uV and a power output of 110mW (16 ohm)

The strong output at 16 ohm and 32 ohm allowed the FiiO M6 to drive nearly any in-ear and over-ear headphone with these impedance range without any issues and providing as much power as needed. Moreover, this tiny music player was able to drive full sized headphones with higher impedance with a very respectable performance and output volume.

^5_/5

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EQ

The FiiO M6 has a 10 band EQ that goes from -6dB to +6dB and covers the following frequencies: 32Hz, 62Hz, 125Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, 4kHz, 8kHz and 16kHz.

The EQ of the FiiO M6 can be manually set or can be selected among predefined presets (Pop, Rock, Dance, Blues, Metal, Vocal, Classical, Jazz)

^4.75_/5

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FiiO Music App

Audio files can be stored in the internal 2GB (remaining free space) or in an external microSD card; to access and play these files you need to use the FiiO Music App.

The FiiO Music App includes advanced audio options like:

• 10 band EQ
• Gapless playback
• Off timer
• Library scanner
• Fixed volume
• ReplayGain
• HWA (audio streamed via LDHC codec)
• WiFi song transferring
• DLNA
• Lockscreen album photo on/off
• Lockscreen lyrics on/off

Songs can be accessed and sorted by:

• All songs
• Artist
• Album
• Playlists
• Genre
• Folder
• Recently played
• Most played
• Recently added

The music player screen show: cover image, song name, elapsed time, track duration and number of track (x/x), file name, album name, artist name, kHz, bits, kbps, Title, Album, Artist, Genre, Year, Track #, Length, File Size, Format, Channels, Bitrate, Sample rate, Path.

Third-party apps support:

Additional apps can be installed besides the already bundled but only apps that are whitelisted by FiiO are installable, as of firmware v 1.0.0 the apps that can be installed are: Spotify, Qobuz, Roon, Deezer, QQ Music, Xiami Music, JOOX, ES file manager, Himalay.

How to install apps on the FiiO M9:

To install third-party apps on the FiiO M6 it is needed to copy the apk of the app to a microSD card and install it from the “File Management” of the FiiO M6.

Firmware

The firmware of the FiiO M6 can be upgraded through it’s micro SD card or via OTA upgrades from the device itself while connected to a WiFi network.

To update the firmware is needed to insert a microSD card, even if the update is done OTA.

To search and install OTA firmware updates you need to go to “Technical Support”–>”Firmware Update”

At the time of the publication of our FiiO M6 review, the firmware version available is v1.0.0

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Scores

FiiO M6 Scores

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FiiO M6 Frequency Response Curve

Red= reference / Measured with Sony MDR-EX650

FiiO M6 Frequency Response Curve – USB Type-C DAC Mode

Red= reference / Measured with Sony MDR-EX650

FiiO M6 Frequency Response Curve – Bluetooth Mode

Green= reference / Measured with 1MORE Triple Driver Bluetooth In-Ear Headphones

FiiO M6 Frequency Response Curve – EQ Presets

Red= reference / Measured with Sony MDR-EX650

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FiiO M6 Technical Specifications

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FiiO M6 Full technical specifications

reported by FiiO

Name / Model No. M6
Operating System Customized
CPU model Exynos 7270 14nm
No. of cores 2
CPU operating frequency 1GHz
DAC ES9018Q2C
Keyboard Virtual QWERTY keyboard
Input method Multi-touch screen
Special features WiFi Streaming，LDAC/HWA/aptX/aptX HD/SBC Bluetooth support，Airplay with Apple devices，FiiO Link
User interface Customized/FiiO Music
Chips used sung Exynos 7270 ， DAC：ES9018Q2C,，Bluetooth chip：SAMSUNG S5N5C10B01-6330
Connectivity
WiFi 2.4G，
WiFi transmission supported Bluetooth 4.2
USB TYPE C Two-way USB2.0
Bluetooth transmit LDAC/HWA/aptX/aptX HD/SBC (HWAAvailable when playing on M6, other codecs available when playing on M9 and using as USB DAC)
HWA（LHDC） Available when playing on M6
Bluetooth receive SBC/LDAC to be supported
AirPlay To be supported
DLNA Supports Windows for now, will support more in the future
FLYLINK To be supported
Display screen
Display size 3.2 inches
Number of colours 1600M
Display type LG IPS screen
Viewable angle Full-view
Resolution 480×800
Pixel density(PPI) 292
Touchscreen 5-finger multi-touch
Storage
RAM 768MB ROM 4GB
Storage expansion type Micro SD card
ROM available to user 2GB
Maximum storage expansion Theoretically 2TB (only one micro SD card slot)
Buttons and ports
Buttons Physical button+Side volume scroll+Touch screen
Button customization N/A
Headphone out (PO) 3.5 mm headphone jack USB Two-way TYPE C  USB2.0（Charging/Data transmisson/USB DAC/USB Audio）
Line out (LO) 3.5 mm port（shared PO）
SPDIF output N/A
General
Color Black Dimensions 53.3mm×92.5mm×11.5mm
Weight about 83g
Volume control 120 steps +/- button control
Recommended headphone impedance 16~300Ω
Equalizer 10-band EQ (±6dB), 9 presets+custom preset
Treble control N/A
Bass boost N/A
Balance control ±5dB
Gain control N/A
USB DAC Asynchronous 192kHz/32bit
USB Audio DSD64/128，DoP/D2P
Power specifications
USB power adapter DC 5V/2A recommended
Battery capacity 2350mAh Li-polymer battery
Charging indication Large charging icon shows on display when it’s off, small charging icon shows on upper right of display when it’s on
Charging time ＜2.5h（DC5V/2A）
Battery indication Yes (accurate battery % readings)
Deep sleep time 26 days
Battery Life & Test Conditions
3.5mm headphone output：＞13h
Volume 57
Load M3 open earbuds (27 Ω)
Screen OFF
Test File MP3 44.1kHz/16bit
EQ OFF
Bluetooth output：＞15h(SBC)
Volume 120
Load BTR1+FH1
Screen OFF
Test File MP3 44.1kHz/16bit
Others
Firmware Upgrade Supports both via zip file and OTA
Font size N/A
Firmware Upgrade Supported Third-party apps support Preinstalled：FiiO Music, Netease Music, MOOV, Tidal, KKBOX
APP whitelist：Spotify、Qobuz、Roon、Deezer，QQ Music、Xiami Music、JOOX、ES file manager、Himalaya (copy the apk file to Micro SD card or internal storage to install)
Line output specifications
THD+N ＜0.002%（1kHz/10kΩ） SNR ≥117dB (A-weighted)
Frequency response 10Hz~80 kHz（-3dB） Noise floor ＜3uV
Channel separation ＞112dB Line level 1.5V
Headphone out specifications 1（3.5mm port）
Output power 1 ≥110mW（16Ω / THD+N＜1%) Output impedance ＜2Ω
Output power 2 ≥70mW（32Ω /THD+N＜1%) THD+N ＜0.002%（1kHz/32Ω）
Output power 3 ≥7mW（300Ω / THD+N＜1%) Separation ＞75dB
Frequency response 10Hz~80 kHz（-3dB） Peak output voltage 4.245Vp-p
SNR ≥118dB (A-weighted) Noise floor ＜3uV
File format support
Lossless: DSD：DSD64，128（iso”“.dsf”,“.dff”）
APE(Fast): 192 kHz/24 bit
APE(Normal): 192 kHz/24 bit
APE (High): 192kHz/24 bit
APE (Extra High): 48kHz/24 bit
APE (Insane): 48kHz/24 bit
FLAC: 192 kHz/24 bit
WAV: 192 kHz/64 bit
Aiff：192 kHz/24 bit
Aif:192 kHz/24 bit
WMA Lossless: 96 kHz/24 bit
Apple Lossless: 192 kHz/24 bit
Lossless: MP3，OGG，WMA，AAC…

Photos

FiiO M6 Photos

meze 99classics, meze 99neo, 1more quad-driver, FiiO M6 at FiiO.com

FiiO M6

9.1

SCORE

9.1/10

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