A few months ago, I posted here asking for opinions comparing the Fiio M6 and the Sony NW-A55. Last week I ended up getting the Fiio M6, and since I asked people here for opinions, I figured I'd post my experiences with it.

tl;dr - I really like it, and I'm happy I got it. I have no regrets, although there are things that could be improved.

Headphones: usually I use Fiio FA1 IEMs. I also have Sony 1000XM3 (wired and Bluetooth) and WF-1000XM3 (Bluetooth only). I prefer the wired connection and only use the WF1000XM3s when I'm outside hiking or whatever.

PC connectivity: I installed a 128GB microSD card, powered the M6 up, connected it to my PC via USB-C, and fired up MusicBee. MusicBee saw the device and the memory card. After configuring it to write to the 128GB SD card rather than 12GB device memory, I copied over about 30GB of MP3 and FLAC. I think it too about a half hour, although I was messing around with copying playlists and other things. Transfer was fast, no timeouts or any problems.

Musical tastes: all over the map. I'm generally more a fan of instrumental music than vocal. I like a lot of classical music, but I also like orchestral works by soundtrack composers like John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Christopher Franke, Ramin Djawadi, and the like. But I've also got a lot of pop, rock, jazz, and folk.

Streaming: I don't. I live in Canada, data plans are horrifically expensive, and I've got a few decades worth of CDs that I've ripped to MP3 and am reripping to FLAC.

Having loaded up the M6 and started to listen to it, I quite like it. I currently have an iPod Nano and a Samsung S7. The iPod has better acoustics than the S7 when playing the same MP3, but the S7 plays FLAC files better because, well, the iPod doesn't play FLAC. So for FLAC files, the M6 is the best, having both the high end DAC and the ability to play FLAC.

The M6 always sounds at least as good as the iPod or S7, and is usually much better. Generally speaking, there is more improvement when using the wired headphones (FA1 or 1000XM3). With the Bluetooth WF1000XM3s, by default, it's not really much different than the S7, to be honest. Of course, I'm usually only using those outside in noisy environments, where subtle differences won't be noticed anyway.

For the instrumental and orchestral FLAC tracks, the M6 is a significant improvement over the S7. The M6 doesn't provide any more bass than the iPod or S7, but it has a clearer sound stage. In one orchestral piece, I could make out the snare drum playing in the back when the horns took center stage. When listening to that on the S7, if I specifically listened for it, I could just make it out, but I'd never have known it was there. On the M6 it was faint, but definitely noticeable. I'd listened to that piece for years and never noticed that. I'm experiencing that a lot with many of my orchestral pieces.

The M6 audio is clearer than the S7. There's no hiss or distortion. There's not a lot of bass (default equalizer), but it's not shy of bass either.

Physically, the M6 is easier and nicer to use than a phone. It's actually smaller than my Sound Blaster Nomad MP3 player from 1998. It's about the size of a 2005 era cell phone, so some of my old Nokia cases actually fit it, which is nice when I'm outside and using Bluetooth headphones. There are only 4 buttons (power on top, and pause/play, up and down on the left side). The side up/down buttons take some getting used to because they behave differently based on whether the screen is on or not. This isn't an MP3 player I'd hook up to my car stereo and try to operate while driving.

Battery wise, it sucks, as expected. When setting it up, I saw it drop from 94% to 90% in less than 10 minutes. That was with the screen on, though. With the screen off, as it usually is, I used it for 45 minutes, and it was at 85%. I've never had it die on me, although I have seen it with only 21% charge at end of day. Fortunately, it charges via USB-C, so it's easy to recharge. The majority of the time, I used wired headphones, so Bluetooth and Wifi are both disabled. When I'm out, Bluetooth is enabled, and it probably speeds battery drain by about 10%. I don't use the Wifi, because I don't stream.

Software wise, it's a bit of a Frankenstein monster. The default Fiio player app isn't great. I used the Fiio Android app and didn't really care for it. Surprisingly, the Fiio app on the M6 is actually worse. It doesn't even understand genres, unfortunately. And even the equalizer is limited. To be honest, if I was limited to using the Fiio player software, it would really downgrade my opinion of the M6.

Fortunately, you can install other players from the Fiio site (link). I've been using Media Monkey for years, and Musicolet, so I installed both.

I've configured the Fiio player's equalizer for Pop, Musicolet for Classical, and Media Monkeys' for folk, and switch between players depending on the genre I feel like.

One of the things I wanted to use was my existing M3U playlists. How those are handled depends on the software being used. Media Monkey sees them automatically. Musicolet has its' own playlists, but can import M3U playlists, though you have to do it one at a time. And the Fiio native player just doesn't. There are hacks online on how to do it, but it's not worth the effort to me.

So, in summary, the Fiio M6 is a great little DAP with terrific audio, a good price, mediocre default software that can be improved by using third party players, and terrible battery life. As I get more comfortable with it, I'm going to start playing with PowerAmp and tweaking the equalizer, but even without it, it's a great player, and I recommend it.