the M15 player with extreme stacking is the beginning of Feiao's top flagship road.
at the end of 2019, Feiao launched the real top flagship player product-M15.
In fact, we have heard about the M15 speculation for a long time. When Feiao replaced the previous X series with the M series, the planning of the new flagship must have already started. In the era of Feiao M series, the whole player market has changed a lot. Everyone has begun to pay attention to system operation, streaming media function and modeling design. This is no longer the era of heavy and large national bricks. High-quality audio products are no longer limited to minority groups. Mass HiFi is the desired effect of audio manufacturers.
Prior to this, Feiao M5, M6 and M7 were basically mass HiFi products. Their prices are approachable, simple and smooth to operate, and are very suitable for ordinary users to use daily. People who like audio products should also know that "fever" requires a process. On the contrary, excellent low-priced products can better stimulate the market and achieve the goal of allowing more users to join this circle. Since the launch of the M series, Feiao's product planning has started from the entry level and the price has been rising all the way. It was not until the launch of M11 that everyone saw Feiao's ambition. The subsequent M11 Pro was sold to 4497 yuan with a dual-AK4497EQ DAC chip configuration, which has full cost performance.
I am not a corialist, I have reason to believe that this brand has enough sincerity when the product is guaranteed a standard of high-quality hardware. At least he is willing to pile up materials to ensure that what consumers buy is not empty. This is actually very important in the seemingly mysterious audio market. M15 is the model with the highest positioning, the strongest configuration, the best parameters, the most expensive price and the largest volume among the players that Feiao has launched so far. It can be said to be a complete flagship model,is 8998 yuan, and it is also promised never to reduce the price., I am determined to pull the high-end flagship route.
Although there are quite a few 10,000 yuan players in the audio market at present, for Feiao, the price to 10,000 yuan is obviously not their personality. Feiao, which focuses on cost performance and popularization from the beginning, does not want to price high-end players at will. 8998 yuan, this is their positioning for M15, a top flagship model. Compared with many 10,000 yuan players on the market, Feiao seems to want to be more realistic.
The brand-new design is inspired by classical columns.
In fact, since the M series, the styling design of Feiao player has changed a lot. Compared with the previous X series straight male design, the M series player obviously has a more elegant design style. The M15 adopts the fifth-generation design of Feiao. The official said that it was inspired by the classical column. The overall appearance is quite round. Compared with the M11, there are many differences.
If you have played Feiao's decoding earpiece, you should find that the M15 is actually closer to Q1 Mark II and K3 decoding earpiece models. As for why Feiao's designers designed M15 as their own decoding earpiece? The reason is also very simple. For M15, Feiao does not only want it to be a flagship player, but also a flagship decoding earpiece product. "All in One" is the design core of M15.
In fact, I personally prefer the M15, which is very different from the M11. The design of the classical column version makes its grip feel quite good, and the M15 places the volume wheel on the top of the fuselage, and the left side of the fuselage is a row of function buttons., The integration of the whole machine will be stronger.
Not only that, the volume roller at the top also echoes with 3.5mm single port, 2.5mm balance port and 4.4mm balance port, forming four concentric circles. The highly unified form creates a strong sense of order. This detail should be something that many domestic audio brands will not notice at present, and Feiao's ability to further polish the details of M15 is commendable! Interestingly, the volume knob of M15 also takes in the function of the breathing light. The breathing light is hidden under the knob and looks quite harmonious. Whenever you adjust the volume, the brightness of the breathing light will change accordingly.
M15 is equipped with a 5.15-inch 720P Corning gorilla glass with an oleophobic layer. The back is still the familiar carbon fiber texture back cover. Hi-Res small gold label and Hi-Res wireless small gold label are still not absent.
, as far as the overall design is concerned, M15 should be the most exquisite model of Feiao at present, but the texture part may be a little short of meaning. If Feiao makes M15 into an all-copper body or an all-steel body, I believe the texture part will have a leap in quality, just like the stainless steel version of M11 Pro is very different from M11 Pro. As to whether there is a stainless steel version of M15 Pro, Feiao also said that the hardware configuration has basically reached the top level. If only one body material is changed, it may not conform to this "Pro", so there should be no M15 Pro in recent years. However, I don't think Feiao will give up the M15 stainless steel version or brass version. After all, it has reached the top. I believe there are still many high-end users willing to hold money to support it by adding a little more money to improve the texture of the fuselage.
In addition, I personally think it is more appropriate for M15 to put the function key on the right side of the body. Judging from the current operation experience, I often accidentally touch it because I hold M15, especially the newly added custom key of M15, which feels soft and can be easily triggered. In the current firmware version, the custom key must correspond to a function, if you can choose "None", it will effectively reduce the misoperation caused by mistouch. I hope that Feiao will consider it in the subsequent firmware.
or double AK4499EQ blessing, absolute stacking of materials
Looking at the hardware configuration alone, Feiao should say that the best things are stuffed in the M15 fuselage.Two AKM flagship DAC chip AK4499EQ, Qualcomm flagship Bluetooth decoding chip CSR8675, Xmos XUF208 USB decoding chip, Samsung Exynos 7872 main control chip, NDK femtosecond crystal oscillator, eight-layer gold sinking process PCB, 7490mAh battery capacity and fully balanced internal architecture, etc., this configuration is really luxurious, which shows that Feiao is really not stingy, and the M15 that the flagship level should have been basically used.
Among so many configuration parameters, the most gimmicky one is the AK4499EQ of AKM's flagship DAC chip. Feiao also understands it very well. On the underside of the M15 fuselage, the back side of the leather case and the exclusive wallpaper, the double AK4499EQ is regarded as the main publicity words.
I am no stranger to AK4499EQ this chip. I have heard of the first player-SP2000 with dual AK4499EQ architecture before. I still have a general understanding of this new top DAC chip. I would like to introduce this chip to you again. AKM's previous generation flagship DAC chip was AK4497EQ, which was released in 2016. DNR (dynamic range) is 127dB and THD N (total harmonic distortion noise) is-115dB. It belongs to a 5V voltage output DAC product. Its performance has reached the physical limit of voltage output DAC. The M11 Pro previously used these two chips.
In terms of parameters, AK4497EQ performance has been very excellent, and it is not easy to develop a DAC chip that surpasses AK4497EQ. In the end, AKM decided to improve the performance of the chip by changing the output mode of DAC, which also made the new flagship DAC chip AK4499EQ a current output type product. At the same time, it also became the first current output type DAC chip in AKM history, which is of great milestone significance. In terms of parameters, DNR and S/N both reached 140dB, while THD N reached-124dB. It relies on four channels to achieve the performance index that eight channel ES9038Pro can achieve, and it is even better.
Of course, behind the excellent parameters, AK4499EQ is not a good DAC chip. On the one hand, due to the change to the current output type, the current and voltage conversion circuit of the AK4499EQ needs to be completed by the brand side, which has a certain test for the circuit design of the brand side. How to tune depends on this. On the other hand, the AK4499EQ uses a 128-pin HTQFP package, which has a large block and large power consumption. In order to give full play to the best performance of the chip, many factors need to be, feiao also called it a "fever" machine, which refers to the terrible power consumption of double AK4499EQ.
Although the M15 uses a 7490mAh large battery, the whole battery lasts only 15 hours. If the "full fire" is expected to fall faster, you know AK4499EQ this DAC chip is still too electric. If it is replaced by AK4497EQ, it is estimated that the battery capacity can last 30 hours. If you want to have a fever, you have to accept the opposite of the fever. However, fortunately, M15 supports 21W fast charging, which is really rare in the current player. It is also another way to extend the endurance. Feiao also has a DK1 charging base (Type-C version). Personally, I think it is very suitable to match M15. I will stand on it when I go home. It is good-looking and can be charged. Users who have purchased M15 can get it by drying the list.
M15 is Android 7.0, which can be freely installed and applied. If you have used M11 or M11 Pro, you should not be unfamiliar. Samsung Exynos 7872 main control chip ensures the smoothness of the whole machine operation. In the system settings, you can also change the working mode. There are four choices: "Android mode", "pure tone mode", "USB DAC mode" and "Bluetooth receiving mode, in addition, there are two special options:" car mode "and" big ear mode ". The" big ear mode "is very interesting. As the name implies, this mode is to drive hard-to-push big headphones.
In this mode, M15 will greatly increase the output voltage, which makes it possible to better drive high impedance headphones. Under 32 Ω load, the single-ended output power reaches 490mW, the balanced output power reaches 800mW, and under 300 Ω load, the single-ended output power reaches 70mW, and the balanced output power reaches 280mW. This is a very terrible data, even higher than the output power of Feiao's flagship decoding earpiece product Q5s. Since I don't have a big ear that is difficult to drive, I don't want to talk about this part in detail. I can only say that I listened briefly at the press conference. M15 has no problem with high resistance and big ear in big ear mode, and the sound is solid. The sound density is not lacking at all, and it is very.
in fact, the big driving force of M15 is not only seen in the "big ear mode", but also in the normal mode, this dynamic feeling is still obvious, as we will elaborate below.
, pure feeling and dynamic feeling are the two major characteristics of M15 sound.
When I first heard M15, this machine gave me a feeling different from all previous Feiao models. This feeling mainly comes from two points: purity and dynamic.
M15 has achieved 122dB in signal-to-noise ratio. Although the data alone is not the optimal level, the actual performance is actually very good. The overall sound is very pure, basically can't hear the noise, and gives people a very clean feeling. This is very beneficial to people like me who like to listen to songs with plugs. In addition, all aspects of M15 sound quality have reached a new height in Feiao player. The horizontal sound field is quite wide, and the sound density and details are excellent. In my opinion, M15 ensures straightforward and accurate sound in style, and strives for full strength and vivid performance under such a sound. The timbre is quite different from M11 Pro.
In the M15's 3.5mm single-ended output, 2.5mm balance-ended output and 4.4mm balance-ended output, I prefer the tone color of the 4.4mm balance-ended end. For Feiao's FH7, the overall sound is the most stable after connecting the M15 4.4mm balance-ended end. In fact, the overall sound of M15 has a flaw, that is, when performing some songs, the high frequency is a little hard to control, and it is easy to prick. Even so, the overall listening feeling of FH7 is not particularly comfortable under the 2.5mm balanced end of M15, especially the fast-paced songs, such as Shiina Ringo's style, which bursts in minutes and is quite pleasant to change into a soothing jazz. Therefore, on the balance end, I personally recommend you to use the 4.4mm port of M15. The high-frequency brightness will converge to a certain extent. Although the symptoms are not the root cause, at least the timbre is a little smoother.
Feiao deliberately increased the thickness of the intermediate frequency in the tuning of M15 this time. You can obviously feel this adjustment when listening to some pop music. However, unlike M11, which was previously popular in style, the low frequency part of M15 is not abrupt. The overall energy sense will be more concentrated in the middle of the full frequency band, and the sound field will be very wide, which makes you feel that you will have a larger human voice when listening to M, I feel that listening to live on an empty stage, and there is a certain distance between the instrument and you. This sound style is obviously not aimed at groups who like to listen to pop music, but is more suitable for people who like to listen to instrumental music or human voice.
In terms of classification, M15 is a warm-up machine, but its high frequency that is not convergent enough makes me only use some warm-up plugs to match it, and the sense of permeability will naturally decrease. That's why M15 is not a very versatile machine. It needs a little effort in matching and combination. Isn't "tossing" actually part of fever?
As far as I have some plugs at present, the matching of Sun God and M15 in Campfire Audio is quite suitable. The problem of high-frequency over-brightness has been greatly alleviated. Moreover, the solid low-frequency performance of Sun God adds a lot of energy to M15, and the overall timbre will be fuller. The M15 still has a strong control over earplugs. Although the parameter Helios is very good at driving, it is not really good at driving to high quality. However, under the driving of M15, the performance should be remarkable. It can be seen that even if the big ear mode is not turned on, M15 still maintains a good enough driving force to cope with all kinds of earplugs.
, in terms of the overall sound style, Feiao M15 has achieved a strong sense of quality. On the one hand, this sense of quality comes from enough luxurious stacking, and on the other hand, Feiao team's further understanding of the sound of high-end flagship players. However, I feel very sorry for the defects of M15 in the high-frequency part. At present, Feiao still has some shortcomings in the exploration of top-level sound. Tuning is an artistic activity. With the same hardware configuration, different tunings can lead it to completely different directions. This is what Feiao needs to work hard.
M15, this is the beginning of Feiao's top flagship road.
Speaking of Feiao's tuning, I have heard some people ridicule him before. To be honest, I respect the insistence of each brand in terms of sound. This in itself is a problem that radish and green vegetables have their own love, but if they want to rise to the top level, then what they take out must have convincing reasons.
M15 has changed a lot from Feiao's previous style. Excellent dynamics and high-quality sound field are the advantages of M15. I can see Feiao's efforts on the flagship player, which are worth encouraging. The official price is 8998 yuan, which is naturally very cost-effective for M15. With excellent driving force, rich functionality, luxurious hardware configuration, more mature tuning and detailed and exquisite design, this is a real flagship Feiao player product.
Feiao's top flagship road may officially begin from M15.
author:
Xiaomiao-Hai · Video ·
