Kingbull Jumper Go

MSRP $1,499.00

Released January 2025

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“The Jumper Go has plenty of character and is an incredible value.”

Pros

• Dual Suspension
• Four-disc brakes
• Lots of character
• Incredible value

Cons

• Short seat post
• Thin instructions

Quick Take

It’s no surprise that budget eBike brands often will skip full suspension hardware, and you can see why. It costs money, adds weight, and most buyers in this category will never utilize the advantages of a dual suspension setup. The Kingbull Jumper Go got my attention for a number of reasons. First, I love the design with the large retro motorcycle-looking headlight on the front. It has a DNM air shock in the back, is a step-through (my preference for bikes you ride around town) frame and 20-inch fat tires. And while Kingbull claims this is the world’s first bike to combine these features (it’s not. Magicycle has had a full suspension since 2023), the Jumper Go is still unusual enough at this price point to make me pay attention.

Originally at a list price of $2,499, you can now find the Jumper Go online for around $1499 which is a steal, and it undercuts the Aventon Aventure 3 and the Velotric Nomad 2 by five hundred bucks while offering rear suspension, which neither of those models has. The 750W Bafang hub motor is a great brand that pulls hard up hills. And the torque sensor makes it feel like a bicycle to me rather than an electric scooter. You also get Tektro four-piston brakes, which is amazing for this price range. I found that the 960Wh battery lasted pretty well for my hilly neighborhood, and did great on the open flat roads.

While the Jumper Go will hit Class 3 level speeds at 28MPh, I think the ride quality, design, and plush suspension are what you should really be buying this bike for. If pure speed and torque are more your thing, I would recommend the Hynox Trooper X that I just reviewed.

Specifications:

Design, Build & Fit: A low frame that fits fewer people than it claims

On first inspection after getting the bike out of the box and assembled, I can see that the Jumper Go looks more expensive than it really is. Welds are solid and clean, cables run internally, and the battery disappears into the downtube instead of bolting on as some of the lower-end bikes do. As I mentioned before, what I appreciated most in the daily use was the low step-through frame that I prefer for city bikes where you will be stopping at lights, stop signs, and can put both feet on the ground easily.

The Kenda 20 x 4.0 tires give the Jumper Go a slightly cartoonish yet very cool stance, and even the bulky-looking rear rack is rated for 150 pounds, which is super odd to me (in a good way) and more than most bikes in this class. I love the look of it too.

On the fit side, the big glaring issue that stood out for me is the seat post height. Kingbull advertises a rider height range of 5’3″ to 6’7″. The seat post offers 3.1 inches of adjustment, from a 33.5-inch minimum seat height to 36.6 inches. I’m 5ft 10 inches tall, and while the seat post adjusted for me, anyone over 6”3 is likely to have issues. Kingbull needs to fix this, as it can be a serious issue, and I’m not sure the frame even has room for a longer post, though, which means the solution is probably a narrower published range.

Score: 7/10

Motor & Performance: The torque sensor is a premium touch

A lot of e-bikes at this price use what’s called a cadence sensor, which works by detecting you turning the pedals, and when the motor decides you’re pedaling, it powers the motor whether you want it to go or not. That’s why cheap e-bikes lurch away from stop signs. The Jumper Go uses a torque sensor, which measures how hard you’re pushing and scales assistance to match – at least in theory. Theoretically, power arrives in proportion to the torque, so the bike feels like a bicycle you happen to be strong on rather than a scooter with pedals attached.

The 750W Bafang rear hub has no trouble with steep grades. I never found a hill in my testing that made it hesitate, and acceleration from a stop is quick and smooth instead of violent. As I have mentioned in several of my eBike reviews before, I live in a hilly neighborhood, with some steep grades. Some eBikes struggle with the inclines, but the Jumper Go didn’t have any issues. Sure, I had to pedal at some of the steepest inclines to keep momentum going, but the bike did just fine with little effort and no sweating on my part.

Kingbull does offer a speed modifier for $49, which will let you unlock Class 3 performance and a top speed of 28MPH with Pedal assist. Alternatively, you can go to the Kingbull website, and they give you a “secret” unlock instructions menu on the display if you want to try speeding the bike up that way as well.

Score: 8/10

Ride Quality & Handling: Suspension that earns its place, until you lean it over

Because of the dual suspension, I found the ride on the Jumper Go to be quiet and composed while doing my city riding. The bike took potholes and dips with ease, with zero issues. Gravel and hardpack trails felt good as well for me. The bike tracks straight and corners predictably for something this heavy; it didn’t get skittish or lose traction on loose surfaces. The leather saddle is comfortable, and I didn’t experience any hot spot discomfort while testing the bike.

Two issues that could matter to people came up in my testing, though. First, the ZOOM coil fork doesn’t have rebound adjustment, and there is no lockout, and I bottomed out on some real rough riding over curbs and on the trail. An adjustable air fork would let you change the stiffness to help prevent bottoming out, especially if you are going on some off-road trails AND you happen to weigh more (I weigh 215lbs). I also found that because of the low ground clearance, my pedals struck the ground when taking some hard corners on rough terrain. It’s very clear that the Jumper Go is not meant to be a competitive mountain bike, and the full suspension might trick you into thinking it is. This is a comfortable all-surface cruiser that will handle trails on a casual level, not one where you would need a dedicated mountain bike; there are better offerings for that.

Score: 9/10

Battery & Range: The 80-mile claim with an asterisk

The Jumper Go uses a high-quality 960Wh Samsung battery, which is larger than the 733Wh pack in the Aventon Aventure 3 and on par with the Lectric XPeak 2.0. You remove the battery from the downtube with a dual lock, and you can charge the battery on or off the bike, which is a nice convenience. It took me close to 7 hours to charge the battery with the included 1-amp charger.

Kingbull claims you can get 80 miles of range with the Jumper Go under “ideal riding conditions,” which basically means those “conditions” are not realistic. In my testing, I was able to push 70 miles of range on flat roads in pedal assist 1 and 2, but most people will not be on flat roads. In combined riding throughout the Portland, Oregon area, I averaged around 40 miles of range on assist level 5 up and down hills and flat areas. In “Ecomode” I was able to push 57 miles of range on mixed terrain but had to pedal pretty hard on some steep hills. The Portland area is known for being very hilly, so that has an impact on range.

Score: 8/10

Brakes & Safety: The best component on the bike

The Jumper Go weighs around 81 lbs. and can technically go up to 28MPh with the speed hack that turns it into a class 3 bike. That means with someone like me on it that weighs over 200lbs, you need some serious brakes. A lot of bikes in this category come with two-piston brakes, but Kingbull has added Tektro HD-E3940 four-piston hydraulic brakes with 180mm rotors on both the front and the rear. Braking power is adequate and linear and was predictable for me without being grabby. On steep downhill descents where I would lean on them hard, I experienced no brake fade from the heat and zero change in the brake lever feel. They worked as they should.

Score: 9/10

Display, App & Connectivity: Functional and bright, but missing a connection

I found the color display to be adequately bright in the direct sunlight. You get speed, pedal assist level, battery state, and trip data on the main screen where you would expect. To change the pedal assist level, there is a thumb pad you can reach without moving your hand off the handlebar grip. Going into the P08 menu setting is where you can change the speed limiter if you want to convert the bike between a Class 2 or Class 3 capability.

There is an integrated horn in the headlight which is louder than a bike bell and more useful in traffic than I expected. Lighting runs off the main battery, so there’s nothing to charge separately, and the taillight brightens under braking. There are two lighting settings, standard and high beam.

Where the Jumper Go falls short for me is in the upgradeability department. Unlike the Hynox Trooper Go I just reviewed, there isn’t a companion phone app, no GPS tracking, or a firmware update path for the bike in case there are issues a software update could fix. And to be truthful, most bikes I have ridden or researched in this price range have an app companion, but they aren’t typically that good. But having one is better than not and something Kingbull needs to improve on.

Score: 7/10

Assembly & Maintenance: Eighty percent done, and the last twenty percent is on you

Kingbull says the Jumper Go arrives 80% put together, and I think that sounds about right. It’s the last 20% that can be a pain in the butt to complete. The bike comes with a nice tool kit, a cheesy tire pump (you should buy a nice portable electric one if you don’t already), and some zip ties (which is a nice touch).

I seem to be on a streak lately with the eBikes I have been reviewing. Like the recently reviewed Hynox Trooper Go, the instructions that come with the Jumper Go are very thin and left me with doing some guesswork. The headlight installation specifically was difficult for me to figure out for some reason, and I found a couple of screws missing from the kit, which turned a ten-minute job into a trip to Home Depot.

Once the bike was put together, maintenance is mostly conventional and routine. You can service the Shimano shifter and derailleur and the Tektro hydraulic brakes at any bike shop. The rest might be a little more difficult to service since Kingbull looks to only have a few US dealers, all of which are in California. Otherwise, they would have to ship the parts to you.

Score: 6/10

Durability & Warranty: Warranty that’s all over the place

Kingbull markets a 2-Year Warranty for the frame, motor, battery, controller, and wiring, which is competitive at this price point. There is a warranty table that lists all of the warranty lengths for each part, and it gets pretty confusing. The display gets 1 year. The hub gets 1 year. The fork gets 1 year, covering suspension system failures. The charger gets 6 months. The brake system, four-piston Tektros, gets 3 months. Tires get 3 months. 2 years on the rear suspension.

If the bike shows up not working at all, you have 15 days to notify Kingbull. Local repairs need prior approval and are reimbursed up to $75, and unauthorized work can void coverage.

Score: 8/10

Verdict: Should You Buy the Kingbull Jumper Go?

The Kingbull Jumper Go has plenty of character and is an incredible value. It’s comfortable to ride, feels very planted, and is perfect for city riding and mellow trails. At $1,499, very little else pairs dual suspension, a torque sensor, and four-piston brakes. Plus, it’s a step-through, which is my personal preference, and it’s rare to see all of these features on a step-through eBike.

Skip the Jumper Go if you are a very tall person, plan on doing some hardcore mountain/trail riding, and worry about service from your local bike shop.

For me, I have a soft spot for bikes with character, and the Jumper Go definitely has character. I love the design with the huge solo headlight and the bulky rear rack. Right now, the Jumper Go and the Hynox Trooper X are my favorite step-throughs, although the Hynox bike’s torque is for more confident riders, making the Jumper Go my easy go-to bike for now.

Overall Score: 8/10

How I tested

I rode the Kingbull Jumper Go as my primary bike across city streets, sustained climbs primarily in my neighborhood, gravel roads, and unpaved trails, in mixed late-summer conditions. Testing covered stop-and-go urban traffic, repeated steep descents on trail and in my neighborhood to evaluate brake fade, and off-road sections chosen to test ground clearance and suspension behavior. I assembled most of the bike from the box myself (had a professional assembler check out my work) and logged the tools, time, and problems involved. Battery range testing was assessed across all five assist levels.

Why Not Try…

Hynox Trooper X ($1,499) – It beats the Jumper Go on power, with a 100Nm torque sensor versus 85Nm, and it folds down for storage or a car trunk, which none of these other recommendations do. It matches the full front-and-rear suspension setup too, an 80mm hydraulic fork paired with an 80mm DNM air shock. The battery is a smaller 720Wh, though, and payload drops to 400 pounds with just a 66-pound rear rack rating versus the Jumper Go’s 150, and it’s a far newer, less established brand. If you love lots of torque and have hills around you, this would be the one to consider.

Lectric XPeak 2.0 Long-Range ($1,599) – It matches the Jumper Go’s 960Wh battery, uses a torque sensor, and hits Class 3 speeds. You give up rear suspension entirely and get an 80mm RST fork, and the payload drops to 330 pounds. The standard XPeak 2.0 is $1,399 with a smaller 720Wh pack.

Aventon Aventure 3 ($1,999) – Solid brand, better dealer network, better app, and it has a torque sensor of its own. It’s a Class 2 bike capped at 20 mph, though. The 733Wh battery is meaningfully smaller, and there’s no rear shock, just an 80mm fork and a suspension seatpost. You’re paying $500 more for polish and support.

Ride1Up Revv 1 FS ($2,095 on sale, $2,495 list) – While looking more like a motorcycle than a bike. The other 20-inch fat bike here with front and rear suspension, and it goes further with a 120mm dual-crown fork, 203mm rotors, and a 1,040Wh pack. It’s also 93 pounds, uses a cadence sensor rather than a torque sensor, and has no step-through version. Not the best comparison, but something to consider.

The saga of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger that not many people seem to want other than one failson and his billionaire daddy continues. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just announced that it’s waiving its own rules regarding foreign equity ownership, according to a report by The Verge.

The rule states that foreign entities can only own up to 25 percent of media companies that broadcast on public airwaves, and Paramount owns 28 TV such stations. Fortunately for David and Larry Ellison, the totally non-political FCC has decided to allow a stake of 49.5 percent by a trio of wealth funds coming from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. That’s right. Three Gulf states will own nearly half of Paramount-Warner Bros. if this merger goes through.

Don’t worry though. The FCC says these entities “will not be able to wield any influence, let alone control, over decisions involving the Licensees.” This is because the stock options don’t come with official voting rights.

NEWS: The FCC approved Paramount’s request to let foreign investors — including sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar — own more than 25% of its equity, clearing a regulatory hurdle tied to its WBD purchase. Here’s the ruling’s breakdown of the investments: pic.twitter.com/VMakQfaSbV

— Daniel Miller (@DanielNMiller) September 17, 2026

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Now I’m just a humble tech reporter who is confused by the ways of big business, but couldn’t three entities that own half of a giant media conglomerate sway voters in a myriad of ways even while not sitting in the boardroom? They would own half of the company, which certainly grants a level of influence and control, no matter what the FCC would like us to believe.

Also, this could be just the beginning. The petition actually asked the FCC for permission to allow foreign entities to own up to 100 percent of Paramount-Warner Bros., which was granted. The commission did put on its big boy pants and say the company would have to issue another request for these groups to gain voting shares. So they have to ask nicely before handing over absolute control. Pretty bold stance FCC.

The advocacy group Free Press and a number of Democrats are against the move. “Control over for-profit, commercial domestic news media by any government is an extraordinary situation that would surely strike most Americans as unseemly, precisely because of the utility of the news media as a propaganda tool for those governments,” Free Press told Variety.

“Ellison, legal fixer Makan Delrahim, and other Paramount mouthpieces are speed-running through the four stages of greedy corporate grief: abandonment, astroturf, antisemitism and assholery.

They are, as the kids say, crashing out.” – @notaaroncraig.bsky.social

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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) 2026-09-16T22:05:14.529Z

Anna Gomez, who is the only Democratic member of the FCC, responded that the organization “just let some of the most repressive governments in the world indirectly control nearly all of a combined Paramount-Warner Bros. An investment this large in one of America’s biggest media companies doesn’t just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and made.”

Of course, the elephant in the room is the FCC itself. Since Trump got elected, Brendan Carr and his organization has repeatedly threatened channels for airing stuff it didn’t like, tried to block stations from platforming people it didn’t like, censored late-night TV hosts and attempted to bully journalists. So it seems it reserves all of its real teeth for, uh, Americans and not global wealth funds with their own agendas.

The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger is still up in the air pending an antitrust suit filed by California and 11 other states. A trial is set to begin next March.

There are so many things we approximate to make life simple. Wires, for example, have no resistance or other strange effects. Crystal oscillators output their exact frequency. But surely our model of how a computer stores and loads memory is accurate, right? You put data in a particular location and, later, you take it out. The [FEX-Emu] developers have a different perspective. Once you have caches and, perhaps, multiple CPUs, it isn’t that easy.

The basic problem is this: if one CPU (or, more accurately, bus master) writes to a location, will another CPU have access to the new value? X86’s Total Store Ordering model gives programmers strong guarantees about when loads and stores become visible, while ARM deliberately uses a weaker memory model that permits considerably more reordering for performance and efficiency.

An emulator can, in theory, compensate by translating ordinary x86 memory operations into ARM acquire/release operations, but doing that for nearly every memory reference can be expensive. Newer ARM extensions such as LRCPC help considerably, while Apple took a more direct approach by adding an x86-compatible TSO mode to Apple Silicon. That lets ordinary loads and stores behave the way translated x86 code expects with comparatively little overhead.

Things get much uglier with unaligned accesses and atomic operations. X86 software routinely performs accesses that ARM would consider badly aligned, and x86 provides surprisingly strong atomicity guarantees within a cache line. FEX sometimes has to catch alignment faults and dynamically patch translated code with barriers. Split-lock operations are worse still: some require excursions through the kernel and signal handlers and can be hundreds or thousands of times slower than the normal case. Qualcomm’s newer Oryon cores improve matters by supporting coherent cache-line atomics, while Valve has shipped a Linux kernel optimization that handles some troublesome unaligned atomics directly.

There’s another particularly nasty corner involving write-combined GPU memory. PC games frequently expect x86 ordering semantics while writing uncached buffers destined for a discrete GPU. ARM currently lacks a clean equivalent for some of these stores, and FEX measured worst-case bandwidth more than 800× slower, enough to reduce some games to below 1 FPS. UMA systems fare much better because drivers can often substitute ordinary cache-coherent memory.

It’s a long article, but a good illustration of why modern emulators are less about translating instructions and more about reproducing decades of architectural assumptions that software quietly depends upon. Of course, not all emulators or processor recreations are this accurate, and often that’s good enough. But sometimes you need a recreation that is truly cycle-accurate and behaves exactly like the original.

India has extended its anti-spam regime to require caller-ID and call-management apps to share users’ spam reports with telecom operators, prompting spam-blocking app maker Truecaller to call the ruling anti-competitive.

On Friday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country’s telecom regulator, amended rules governing commercial communications, making it mandatory for caller-ID and call-management apps that let users flag calls as spam or junk to send those reports to a blockchain-based platform maintained by telecom operators. The platform tracks commercial communications and enforces anti-spam rules.

The change, TRAI said, is intended to broaden the pool of spam reports available for action against spammers, effectively connecting reports collected by apps with the telecom industry’s enforcement infrastructure.

However, Truecaller told TechCrunch that it sees this requirement as a “one-way exchange” that is “anti-competitive,” arguing that it transfers commercially valuable data from call-management apps like itself to telecom operators.

India is Truecaller’s largest market, accounting for well over 350 million of its more than 500 million monthly active users globally. The Stockholm-based company uses community reports alongside automated detection and other signals to identify and block spam calls.

The rules come as India grapples with spam and fraudulent calls at enormous scale. In its report in February, Truecaller said its users in the country encountered around 42 billion spam calls in 2025, including calls that were blocked, labeled, or ignored. The company also stated that it blocked nearly 12 billion spam calls during the year.

It is not the first time Truecaller and the Indian regulator have been at odds over how spam calls should be handled. The Swedish company previously objected to restrictions preventing call-management apps from automatically labeling calls from certain government-designated number ranges as spam. It argued that the exemption could allow unwanted calls to escape its filters.

However, Friday’s amendments retain that restriction and have barred call-management apps from blanket blocking, filtering, or spam-tagging calls from designated number series used for promotional, service, and transactional communications. Individual users can still choose to block such calls on their own devices, the regulator said.

“While our data and user sentiment clearly show that spam has skyrocketed due to this free pass to spammers, we have been compliant with this since late last year,” a Truecaller spokesperson said.

Sumeysh Srivastava, a partner at New Delhi-based consulting firm The Quantum Hub, who leads its telecom-regulation policy work, said the latest change bridges two distinct layers: Telecom operators provide the underlying network and run the blockchain-based anti-spam system, while caller-ID apps operate on top of the network to identify and filter calls.

That raises technical and jurisdictional questions, Srivastava told TechCrunch, including what reporting standards apps will have to follow and how the requirement will be enforced against companies that are not themselves telecom operators.

A March draft proposed (PDF) using India’s IT laws to enforce the requirement. However, Srivastava pointed out that the new announcement did not say whether that enforcement mechanism was retained in the final rules.

It is also unclear how much information the apps will actually have to provide under the updated regulation. Kazim Rizvi, founding director of New Delhi-based policy think tank The Dialogue, told TechCrunch that requiring an app to transmit a specific spam report made by a user is materially different from requiring it to share the broader datasets, reputation signals, or analytical systems it uses to identify suspicious calls.

The rules will need clarity on what information must be transmitted, how users are notified or asked for consent, and how that data can subsequently be retained and used, Rizvi said.

TRAI did not respond to TechCrunch’s questions about what information apps would be required to share and whether the rule would also apply to spam-reporting features built into smartphone operating systems and dialers such as Android and iOS.

New rules for AI-powered calls

The amendments also address the growing use of software and AI voice agents to make calls. Calls made automatically, without a person directly dialing the number, will now fall under TRAI’s application-to-person (A2P) framework. That includes robocalls and calls using prerecorded or artificial voices.

Companies using such systems will have to declare their use and the phone numbers involved to their telecom operators in advance. Undeclared A2P calls will be treated as spam, TRAI said.

The key test, Srivastava said, is how a call is initiated, rather than simply whether it uses an AI-generated voice, leaving some uncertainty around AI-assisted calls that involve human initiation.

Satya N. Gupta, a former additional secretary at TRAI, told TechCrunch that the new rules do not restrict businesses from using AI or other automated calling technologies, but instead require them to disclose their use to telecom operators.

Telecom operators will also be allowed to levy a termination charge of up to 5 paise (about 0.052 cents) per minute on A2P calls. However, calls made using certain designated number ranges will be exempt.

Rizvi told TechCrunch that the new definition could also cover calls made using software even when a person is still involved, such as calls from contact centers and click-to-call services. “Without that distinction, the A2P category risks becoming broader than the regulatory harm it is intended to address,” he said.

This week was a little quieter than last in the tech news space — if you ignore the hullabaloo caused by various AI companies that their models might one day kill us all if regulation doesn’t arrive.

A bit heavier than an Apple iPhone event, but important nonetheless.

Microsoft reminded customers this week that devices running Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro editions will stop receiving updates next month.

However, under Microsoft’s lifecycle policy, Windows 11 24H2 Enterprise and Education editions remain under mainstream support until October 2027.

“On October 13, 2026, Windows 11, version 24H2 Home and Pro editions, and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 will reach end of updates,” Microsoft said in a message center update.

“After this date, devices running these editions will no longer receive monthly security and non-security preview updates containing protections from the latest security threats.”

Customers are now advised to upgrade to Windows 11 25H2, the latest Windows 11 version also known as the Windows 11 2025 Update, which became generally available in September 2024 as a minor update installed through an enablement package.

Microsoft also warned that systems running Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro that aren’t managed by IT departments will automatically upgrade to Windows 11 25H2, while still allowing customers to choose when to restart or postpone the update.

“If you have an eligible Windows 10 or Windows 11 device, you can check whether the update is available by selecting Settings > Windows Update and selecting Check for updates,” it said. “If your device is ready for the update, you’ll see the option to Download and install Windows 11, version 25H2.”

More information about Windows servicing dates is available on the Windows Lifecycle FAQ page or can be found using the Lifecycle Policy search tool. Microsoft also provides a list of all products and services that will be retired or reach the end of support this year on its support website.

Last week, Microsoft also announced that Windows Server 2022 is rapidly approaching the end of mainstream support and that it will switch to extended support on October 13 until October 14, 2031.

Earlier this year, Microsoft also quietly extended the free Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for home users until October 2027 and stopped rolling out security updates to devices running Windows 11 Home and Pro 23H2 in November 2025.

Join Mikko Hyppönen and security leaders from the NFL, CHANEL, and Atlassian for a two-hour digital summit on what AI-speed attacks change, what defenders should stop doing, and how to validate, decide, fix, and re-validate at machine speed.

Save your seat

FiiO showed us the M25 and M25 R2R at CanJam London in July, but both digital audio players were still pre-production models with provisional specifications, no confirmed pricing, and enough unanswered questions to keep the Head-Fi forums occupied for months.

Two months later, FiiO has officially launched both models in China for ¥7,499, and the final production specification looks considerably more interesting than another expensive Android music player stuffed with flagship DAC chips.

The standard model is now officially called the M25 VERITA and uses AKM’s flagship separated-DAC architecture with one AK4191EQ digital processing chip and two AK4499EX DACs. The M25 R2R takes the opposite route with FiiO’s proprietary 24+5-bit segmented R2R PRO resistor-ladder DAC. Same player platform. Same Chinese price. Very different approaches to converting bits into music.

FiiO could have changed the finish, added another anniversary logo, and charged more money. Nobody would have been particularly shocked. Instead, it is giving buyers two genuinely different conversion architectures without forcing them into two different product tiers.

Related Reading:

One Platform, Two Very Different DACs

The M25 VERITA uses the AK4191EQ + dual AK4499EX architecture that has become familiar in some of the better premium DACs and headphone amplifiers. The AK4191EQ handles digital processing separately from the AK4499EX conversion stage, allowing FiiO to build its own analog and amplification stages around AKM’s flagship platform.

FiiO is also introducing four selectable AKM-based sound profiles with the VERITA. We have not heard the final production version, so we are not going to tell you that one setting suddenly makes poorly mastered music sound like Rudy Van Gelder was behind the console. We will reserve judgment until we actually listen to it.

The M25 R2R is substantially different. Its proprietary 24+5-bit segmented R2R PRO architecture uses a segmented resistor-ladder topology rather than conventional delta-sigma conversion, following the direction FiiO has already taken with products including the K17 R2R.

The upper five bits use thermometer coding, an approach designed to reduce the cumulative errors that can occur in conventional R2R ladder implementations. FiiO also provides selectable voicing options for the R2R version.

R2R does not automatically mean warmer, more analog, or better. The DAC architecture is only one part of the signal chain, regardless of what somebody with 47,000 forum posts might insist.

What makes the M25 family interesting is the ability to choose between these two architectures while keeping almost everything else constant.

More Power Than the Prototypes

FiiO has also revised the output specification since the prototypes appeared earlier this summer.

Both production models can deliver up to 1,700mW + 1,700mW into 32 ohms from the balanced output in Super High Gain mode, with THD+N specified below 1%. High Gain reduces that to 1,000mW per channel into 32 ohms, while the 4.4mm balanced output delivers 220mW per channel into 300 ohms in Super High Gain mode.

The single-ended output is rated at up to 500mW per channel into 32 ohms in the same maximum-power operating mode. Four gain settings are provided, ranging from Low to Super High.

That is serious output for something intended to leave the house. Sensitive IEMs obviously do not require anywhere near that level of power, but the M25 should have considerably more flexibility with demanding full-size dynamic and planar magnetic headphones.

FiiO M25 and M25 R2R Key Specifications

• Models: M25 VERITA and M25 R2R
• Processor: Qualcomm QCS6490
• RAM: 8GB
• Internal Storage: 128GB
• Expandable Storage: microSD up to 2TB
• Display: 5.5-inch, 1080 x 2160
• M25 VERITA DAC: AK4191EQ + dual AK4499EX
• M25 R2R DAC: FiiO proprietary 24+5-bit segmented R2R PRO
• USB Controller: XMOS XU316
• FPGA: High-capacity FPGA with customized femtosecond clock
• Headphone Outputs: 3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced
• Maximum Balanced Output: 1,700mW + 1,700mW into 32 ohms in Super High Gain mode
• Balanced Output Into 300 Ohms: 220mW + 220mW in Super High Gain mode
• Maximum Single-Ended Output: 500mW + 500mW into 32 ohms
• Gain: Low, Medium, High, Super High
• Equalization: 31-band PEQ and Auto EQ
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.2
• Bluetooth Transmission: SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, LHDC, LDAC
• Bluetooth Reception: SBC, LDAC
• Local/USB DAC Resolution: Up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and native DSD512
• Battery: 6,500mAh
• Charging: Up to 30W fast charging
• Desktop Mode: Supported with battery isolation
• Chinese MSRP: ¥7,499 for either version
• European MSRP: €1,249 for either version

FiiO rates battery life at approximately 9.5 hours single-ended and 8.5 hours balanced for the M25 VERITA, while the M25 R2R stretches those figures to approximately 14.5 and 12.5 hours, respectively. Actual endurance will obviously depend on gain, output level, screen usage, wireless connectivity, and the headphones attached.

Why Are These Different?

The most interesting aspect of the M25 is not the processor, power figure, or increasingly inevitable wall of PEQ options.

It is choice.

Most manufacturers decide which DAC architecture belongs at a given price and sell you that implementation. FiiO is effectively offering two versions of the same automobile with completely different engines and charging the same amount for either one.

That is particularly interesting because the DAC market has become far more diverse again in 2026.

We recently covered the $289 SMSL R100, which uses a pair of Analog Devices AD1861-J multibit DAC chips, alongside the $649 SMSL D400 MK2, which goes in the opposite direction with AKM’s AK4191 and AK4499EX platform. Schiit has just introduced the $699 Bifrost 3, abandoning the previous True Multibit architecture for its proprietary Mesh digital processing feeding ESS modulators.

FiiO itself has been particularly aggressive with R2R. The $989.99 K17 R2R combines its 24+5-bit segmented resistor architecture with 31-band PEQ, network playback, and up to 4 watts per channel from a desktop chassis. Its K13 R2R, BR15 R2R, WARMER R2R, and even DM15 R2R portable CD player demonstrate that FiiO is no longer treating resistor ladders as some exotic technology reserved for people who own cable elevators.

The M25 brings that argument into the premium portable category and makes the comparison unusually clean. Buyers can choose AKM delta-sigma conversion or FiiO R2R without changing the processor, memory, storage, display, EQ platform, or basic amplification capability.

Whether they actually sound dramatically different is another question, and one we would prefer to answer with headphones on our heads rather than a block diagram in front of us.

The Bottom Line

When we saw the M25 and M25 R2R at CanJam London, the most compelling part of the concept was FiiO’s decision to offer two fundamentally different DAC architectures inside essentially the same player.

The production models make that idea even stronger. Both receive a fast QCS6490 platform, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, powerful headphone amplification, 31-band PEQ, Auto EQ, desktop operation, and enough connectivity to function as portable players or serious USB DAC/headphone amplifiers.

The decision comes down to the conversion stage: AKM’s flagship delta-sigma architecture in the M25 VERITA or FiiO’s latest segmented resistor ladder in the M25 R2R.

And because FiiO is charging exactly the same price for both in China, choosing between them may finally come down to something refreshingly old-fashioned in high-end digital audio.

Which one actually sounds better?

Pricing & Availability

Both the FiiO M25 VERITA and M25 R2R are listed for €1,249 pre-order on FiiO’s European website, with availability expected in mid-to-late November 2026.

FiiO has not announced official U.S. pricing or a North American release date.

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