INTRODUCTION

   Although today most people use their smartphones to listen to music there's an increasing demand in the market for standalone music players (evident by not only sales but also the increasing number of manufacturers). Now if you happen to ask someone why that is the first reason that probably comes to mind is simply because people don't want to risk running out of battery for such a task and although a valid reason in most cases it is the superior performance of the hardware components found in good music players that has people looking for one. Size of course is also rather important to some people and with the majority of music players being far more compact than most smartphones it makes sense. FiiO has been leading the music player market for the past decade or so and after testing their award winning M3Κ and M7 high resolution (Hi-Res Certified) music players today with us we have the latest M6 model.

   FiiO was established in 2007 and has experience in researching and developing countless portable music products of different types, and sell FiiO-branded products through sales agents worldwide. The brand name FiiO is composed of Fi(fidelity from HiFi) and iO(number 1&0), representing the real feeling and convenient life that digital brings to life. Meanwhile, the Chinese “??” is the transliteration of FiiO, indicating the positive and innovative spirit as thriving as spring. FiiO is focused on product quality, adheres strictly to ISO9001 standards in quality management and works hard to attain the lowest repair-related product returns rate. FiiO designs, produces and sells high-quality products at favorable prices to those who love music and style; our high-resolution digital audio players, portable headphone amplifiers, DACs and earphones have all received praise from the majority of users. Several products from FiiO have created record sales in their respective product segments and have received countless awards including iF Design Award, Reddot Award, EISA Award, VGP Award, etc. FiiO places great importance on users' needs and ceaselessly pursues perfection in product design and manufacturing, to supply users with the best audio products at the best prices.

   The M6 Portable High Resolution Music Player by FiiO is based on the same Samsung Exynos 7270 SoC (Cortex A53 Dual-Core 1GHz 64-bit CPU with Mali T720 MP1 graphics and integrated memory and power management IC) and ESS Sabre 9018Q2C Reference DAC (32-bit HyperStream architecture with Time Domain Jitter Eliminator, 2-channel audio D/A converter, headphone amplifier) combo just like the M7 we reviewed previously. It also has the same 3.2 inch IPS touchscreen (2.5D glass - 480x800p resolution with a pixel density of 292ppi), the same Bluetooth v4.2 chip by Samsung (S5N5C10B01-6330) and also comes with 768MB RAM and 2GB of built-in storage. Both players also feature metallic enclosures (although they are different in shape with the M6 clearly winning in terms of size) and support the same file formats (ISO/DFF/DSF/APE/WAV/FLAC/WMA/OGG/ACC/ALAC/MP3). However these two players are far from identical so the M6 comes ready with a custom Android v7.0 OS (the M7 came with Android v5.1), smaller capacity lithium polymer battery (1200mAh for the M6 and 1880mAh for the M7) which gives it enough juice for over 13 hours of music playback (up to 26 days of standby time) and a microSD card slot which is compatible with models up to 2TB in capacity (the same however should now apply for previous models released by FiiO like the M7). What makes the M6 stand out however compared to most players in its price category are its 2.4G WiFi connectivity (via which you can also perform firmware updates) and its noise floor of <3uV which practically makes it impossible for you to hear audio noise regardless of what headset you end up using.