FiiO M27 Review

Design

• Titanium or aluminium alloy and glass fibre construction
• Twin microSD slots for up to 4TB of memory
• 3.5mm, 4.4mm and 6.3mm headphone sockets

First things first: this is a chunky device. The features section goes some way to explaining the 157 x 85 x 28mm (HWD) dimensions and 630g weight – but it’s worth confirming the M27 is not portable in the sense that it will slip happily into the back pocket of your trousers.

A sturdy pocket in a sturdy coat, at the very least, is what’s required – a bag is probably your best bet. Think about it as a desktop device and suddenly it seems a little more manageable than it does if you approach it as a truly portable player.

Still, FiiO has made sure this not-inconsiderable machine looks and feels premium as well as looking and feeling like a handheld weapon. It’s available with either a titanium or aluminium alloy chassis, with a 6-inch 1080p touchscreen display behind Gorilla Glass at the front and a glass fibre rear panel finished in a marble effect.

Naturally FiiO supplies a real leather case in order to keep the finish in tip-top condition – wait for a vegetarian option and I fear you’ll be waiting in vain.

On the top edge there’s an oversized power on/off and volume control – it’s a turn-and-press dial. There are also three analogue outputs/headphone sockets: 3.5mm and 6.3mm balanced connections with a 4.4mm balanced alternative between them.

On the bottom there’s room for a full-size Toslink digital optical output, a coaxial on an RCA socket than can function either as an in- or an output, two microSD card slots (each of which can cope with cards of up to 2TB capacity), a hold switch to disable the physical and touch-controls, a switch to turn desktop mode on or off, and no fewer than three USB-C slots.

One is for power – either charging the battery or powering the M27 from the mains. One is for charging and for data transfer. And the third, which is designated USB HOST, allows connection to an external DAC if you wish to use your player as a digital transport.

On the left side (as you look at the touchscreen) there are a few physical control buttons: skip forwards, skip backwards, play/pause and a user-definable multifunction control. On the right there’s a fairly large patch behind which the FiiO keeps its wireless antennae. And on both sides there’s an area for lighting – the company describes the lighting as a “dazzling studio-like” effect.

FiiO’s reputation in general, and the asking price of the M27 in particular, will have primed you for the information that the device is built to last in the same sort of way that a bank-vault door is built to last. And no matter which of the half-a-dozen available modes it’s running in, the user experience is swift and seamless – the screen is fast and responsive, and even though the FiiO features sub-menus within sub-menus it’s simple enough to set up and control.

FiiO supplies a little desktop charging stand with its own suite of USB-C connections and an integrated fan to keep the M27 cool. To the same end, the protective leather case features a stainless steel hollow-cut panel on its rear, backed by a cooling gel pack.

Features

• Qualcomm QCC5181 chipset for aptX Lossless, Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast
• Twin ESS Sabre ES9039S PRO DAC chipsets
• 10000mW of output power in Ultra Gain mode

As befits FiiO in general and its ambitions for this device in particular, the M27 is thoroughly specified. Exhaustively, even. If there’s an area of its functionality that hasn’t had lavish attention paid to it, it has managed to elude me.

Those modes, mentioned in the Design section, are Android (the M27 is running Android 13, and in this mode access to third-party streaming apps is available), Pure Music (meaning only the FiiO Music app is available), USB DAC (so the M27 can act as a soundcard for external devices), Bluetooth Receiving (turning the player into a Bluetooth amplifier), AirPlay (take a wild guess), and Coaxial Decoding (which allows digital information incoming via the coaxial socket to access the FiiO’s D-to-A circuitry).

Additionally, desktop mode bypasses the battery altogether when the M27 is connected to mains power, which has obvious benefits for the longevity of the battery.

The player is powered by the Qualcomm QCS6490 chipset – it features Snapdragon 770G architecture, eight Kryo 670 cores and the Adreno 642L GPU. The idea is to provide class-leading response times, seamless multitasking and a rock-solid platform for streaming and playback no matter the audio format or its source.

There’s further Qualcomm involvement in the shape of the QCC5181 chipset, which allows the M27 to run Bluetooth 5.4 and support aptX Lossless and LDAC codecs as well as LE Audio and Auracast. As a Bluetooth transmitter, the FiiO is running Bluetooth 5.2 and features aptX Adaptive and LDAC codec compatibility.

Qualcomm’s Dragonwing AI platform, meanwhile, enables (among other things) global All to DSD functionality for bitrates from DSD64 to DSD256, a 31-band PEQ available at resolutions up to 32-bit/384kHz, and controllable end-to-end audio processing.

Digital-to-analogue conversion business is taken care of by a pair of ESS Sabre ES9039 PRO chipsets that can cope with resolutions up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512. They’re augmented by the sixth generation of FiiO’s DAPS (digital audio purification system) technology, which uses a new field programmable gate array and dual RIVER femtosecond crystal oscillators in an effort to maximise timing accuracy and minimise jitter.

What else? There’s the six-stage fully differential audio circuit – it doubles up on the high-quality components (such as signal relays, volume control chips and Texas Instruments op-amps) for processing of each channel of audio information, and then drives them via independent power supplies.

There are the big energy storage capacitors which, in conjunction with a colossal 9200mAh battery (which is good for eight hours of playback via the balanced output and nine hours via the unbalanced equivalent), allow for big power outputs. Switch from battery power and plug a fast charger into the player’s dedicated power port, select Ultra High Gain mode, and a huge 10,000mW is available.

The battery, by the way, is replaceable – which is a reassuring touch. Naturally swapping the battery is something that needs to be done by FiiO technicians.

I could go on. I haven’t mentioned the 8GB of RAM and 256GB of ROM (of which over 240GB is usable). I could discuss the copper heatsinks at greater length, or the high-current, low-loss, MOFSET-managed power path, or the graphite vapour chamber and graphene thermal conduction pads that are integrated into the chassis to ensure efficient cooling.

But we all get the point by now, don’t we? FiiO has specified the M27 to the point it’s mildly surprising it’s not the size of a Mini.

Performance

• Open, authoritative, detailed and dynamic sound with hi-res content
• Remarkable soundstaging abilities
• Dislikes lo-res files more than somewhat

It’s not really a game of two halves, because anyone with this sort of money for a digital audio player seems likely to do the right thing in terms of the content they load onto it. But nevertheless, it’s worth noting that unlike some, more easy-going alternatives, the FiiO M27 does not try to flatter lo-res content in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So if you think the M27 is about to make a silk purse out of a 320kbps sow’s ear of a Spotify stream, think again – if anything, it makes the compression, the absences and the generally rather squashed nature of a file like this all too apparent. Frankly, this sort of nonsense is beneath the FiiO – and it’s not shy about making this point.

Do things properly, though, and get a nice big 24-bit/48kHz FLAC file of James Holden’s Imagine This is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities playing, and the M27 stops being all judgy and instead happily reveals exactly what it’s capable of. Which, I think it’s fair to say, is plenty. In virtually every department, the FiiO is an eloquent and endlessly enjoyable listen.

The M27’s menus offer a fair amount of end-user input into the way the player sounds – but it’s best to leave your interference to a bare minimum. This way the FiiO exhibits the sort of neutral, uncoloured tonality that allows a recording to reveal itself in full – and the way it handles the frequency range (from the deepest, punchiest sounds at the bottom end to the crisply assertive way it deals with the highest frequencies) is similarly even-handed.

No part of the frequency range gets ahead of itself, just as no part is understated. At every stage there’s the sort of attention to detail that’s easily described as fanatical – so the minutiae of texture, timbre, attack and decay are all carefully observed at all times. Variation in tone is apparently limitless, and the way the M27 handles the transients and the low-level harmonic dynamics at work in every recording is profoundly impressive.

As well as being loaded with information, those low frequencies are confidently shaped and controlled – and rhythmic expression is almost instinctively correct as a consequence. The amount of dynamic headroom that’s available means the moments of greatest intensity or attack in a recording contrast starkly with the quietest, most contemplative passages.

And everything that occurs, occurs on a notably large, rigorously defined soundstage that offers a heap of space in both the left/right and front/back axes. The M27 is as attentive to spaces and absences on the stage as it is to the actual occurrences, and it knits even the most complex, element-heavy recordings into a singular, identifiably unified whole.

There’s an almost tangible sense of togetherness and commonality about the way the FiiO presents music that’s not all that easy to come by no matter how much you’re spending on a digital audio player. 

Should you buy it?