FiiO R9

The latest flagship, the FiiO R7, has been a success. It offered similar capabilities to the R9, but the output power was "only" 3.6 W and used the previous generation DAC chip, which offered only 4 channels. The R9 is truly unrivalled as output power is more than double and the DAC chip offers 8 channels. Thanks to this, you can plug any headphones into the streamer and you can be sure that there will always be enough power. FiiO has already worked with the ES9038PRO chip in the past in the M17, Q7, K9 Pro SS and M15S, where it gained a lot of experience that it used to implement it in the R9. There are even two chips used here, one for the left and one for the right channel. Combined with the latest generation THX AAA 788+ 8-channel amplifier chip design, they provide fully symmetrical output with up to 7300 mW per channel at 32 ohms. Built on the Android operating system, the R9 supports all the streaming platforms an audiophile could want.

Practical player

As usual with FiiO, the design of the device is minimalistic. The body is made of aluminium alloy and glass. On the front, there is a 6-inch touchscreen, two wheels and three headphone outputs. You can control volume and mute with one wheel, and switch between outputs with the other. Even more interesting is the back of the R9, where you'll find all the ports you could possibly need. In addition to these ports, there's a SD card slot, LAN port, AC and DC power that you can switch between, and a Bluetooth antenna. Of course, it also supports AirPlay/DLNA, NAS playback, Roon Ready and control via the RM3 remote control or your phone. For maximum flexibility, two rubber bases are included, one rotated and one straight.

Headphone outputs:
XLR, 4.4 mm jack and 6.35 mm jack

Ports:
3-pin XLR balanced line output, pair of RCA outputs, coaxial input and output, optical input and output, HDMI input, HDMI output/ARC, USB-C and USB-A for USB drive