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portable DAP or not: can you help me?

moscamax

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Hi
i am new here and this is my first post, so first of all "greetings to you all and thanks for your help"!!

next issue, please forgive for my bad english. english is not my mother tongue, i am italian and i am writing for Italy (and it's pretty hard here in these days....).

I need our help to make a decision about my portable music devices...

I have an iPhone 11 Pro and Bose 700 Headphones and I use Apple Music or spotify to listen to my music while I am at work or while I commute, but I am not satisfied with that setup.
I used to have in my office an Headphone amp and Sennheiser HD650 and I used my PC to listen to a vast library of FLAC files that I have, but then, due to a few changes at work, I sold everything...

I am thinking to buy a portable Digital Audio Player (DAP) and a good pair of closed headphone (a confortable one...) to listen to my FLAC files and to TIDAL, since I am too addicted to a streaming service.

I have read tons of reviews and discussions, but I can't make up my mind

So, here are the doubts:
1) is a DAP really much better than my phone? since those devices cost a lot of money, I'd like to be sure that they are whorty
2) I couls easily afford the Fiio M9, I could buy (with a little sacrifice) the Fiio M11 or I coud wait, save some mony and buy the ASTELL & KERN SR15.
Which one would you suggest??
3) which headphones should I pair?? should I continue using the Bose? or should I buy a new pair? I have listened to a pair of beyerdynamic dt 770 pro and I loved them (are they any good?? they are really cheap...)


I listen to rock music and folk music and a little bit of electronic music

thanks in advance for your advices
Max
 

maxxevv

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You're probably bettee off with a battery powered DAC such as the NX4 DSD if the battery life on your phone is important. Or any of the various dongle based DAC amps that have been tested to be good here.

I'm not sure how is the compatibility of the NX4 is with Apple. So best is to take a closer look first.

Headphones are a lot harder when it comes to budget ones as one's personal preferences play a huge difference as to whether you like them.
 

Jimbob54

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I have the sr15, it's a nice device for IEMs but I believe it struggles with higher impedance /lower sensitivity full size headphones. Also, streaming on it hammers the battery.

I was going to say try one of the many well measured new dongle dacs on here as far cheaper than a standalone DAP but not sure how well they play with Apple phones. Meizu Pro and hidizs s8 seem to be flavour of the month.
 

Fluffy

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There are certain phones that have good measureable performance, and include quality audio chips. The issue mostly is the amplification, and you need to check if the headphones you are plan on using can be driven efficiently with your phone (assuming they are passive – active phones like the Bose 700 can be driven by anything). Amir has tested some phones over the years, so you can get a general sense of how they compare to DAPs. It's a simple matter of comparing the efficiency+impedance of the headphones to the power output per impedance of the device.

I personally am using the Fiio x3 2nd gen for several years now, and it's very competent and reliable. In their line up it's in the middle tier and don't have networking capabilities (I only use and internal sd card). Fiio generally makes well engineered devices and I trust them. ASTELL & KERN are more of a boutique brand with exaggerated prices, and sometimes disappointing measurements.

The headphones I am currently using could probably be easily driven from a phone. There are a couple of reasons for me for using a separate DAP – first, I like the separation between having a device only for music, and the phone that is a major distraction most of the time. Having a separate DAP allows disconnecting from everything else, at least for a while. Second, it's much better for battery life. I turn the DAP on when I need it, and off when I don't, so it lasts weeks on a single charge. And also it doesn't drain the phone's battery. Third, because it is made specifically for music, the overall interface is more convenient for music playing. Browsing through folders is easy, volume is divided into small precise steps, and dedicated physical buttons means I sometime don't even need to get it out of my pocket to change the volume or click next track.

On top of that, the dap has a much more powerful amplifier than most phones, so if I would use a more demanding headphone, that would come in handy.
 

majingotan

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So, here are the doubts:
1) is a DAP really much better than my phone? since those devices cost a lot of money, I'd like to be sure that they are whorty
2) I couls easily afford the Fiio M9, I could buy (with a little sacrifice) the Fiio M11 or I coud wait, save some mony and buy the ASTELL & KERN SR15.
Which one would you suggest??

1.) Soundwise, you'll only perceive better drivability with lower efficiency headphones. With IEMs, it's more of an output impedance advantage to DAPs where most phones with jacks would have a terrible 3 ohm or higher OI (which would alter the frequency response of the IEM for subjectively better or worse)

2.) If you're ready to sacrifice stability, sacrifice fluid UI (unless it's the Astell and Kern SP2000 that I have which is pretty smooth for a DAP), limited streaming, WiFi that don't work on anything with a web-login (no web browser) from airports, coffee shops, etc. One big reason one would use a DAP is they have hundreds of gigabytes of music files and would like to carry that, but don't want to take phone memory space rather than streaming. If your source is primarily streaming, just get a BT DAC/amp instead of a DAP
 
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