[Answerawake]

I use an old iPod classic with a flash memory upgrade for offline audio listening and was considering this device because of perceived audio quality. From your description it sounds like this device is in the class of alibaba junk. It sounds like the software was an afterthought, fair enough. How does the audio quality compare to things like an iPhone/iPod etc?

[walterbell]

That's why the software can be replaced with Rockbox, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26876247

Audio/DAC quality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871983

[elagost]

The sound quality (via Sony MDR-7506) is comparable to an iPod. Detailed and clear. It can get very loud and drive much nicer headphones than mine. It loads and plays FLACs and other large files much faster than the iPod can because the iPod is 20 years old and doesn't have the horsepower.

The software, honestly, is not nearly as bad as "alibaba junk". It is just fine. The iPod's software is more thought-out and consistent. The Fiio software is much more user friendly than Rockbox though. It responds well and hardly ever crashes. It has all the settings you'd expect and then some. It will be annoying if you expect perfection, but it never skips tracks on its own, the buttons always do what you want, settings aren't reset on you. The M5 is more fiddly than the M3K but I usually use the M5 anyway. I'm willing to tolerate the less-than-perfect software.