They come in so many different shapes and sizes. You have some that look like classic iPods. Some look like modern smartphones. Some look like bandless smartwatches. And you even have super-unique form factors like the SnowSky Echo/Echo Mini or Colorfly C4. They can go for ultra budget to ultra expensive. And it feels like every week, I come across a new brand and/or style of DAP. And even on the software end of things, it's very busy. I think that's so amazing for such a niche product category.

Just wanted to take a break from going through review posts and such, and just take a moment to appreciate the hobby as a whole.

Anyways, since I had to include a flair, I've included a picture of my Snowsky Echo and Koss KSC75s. They're simply fantastic!

My favorite portable setup consists of the Limited Edition iFi GO bar Eclipse, the Intime Hyacinth, and an iPod-modded Shanling Q2. I really enjoy using the GO bar's XBass and XSpace features to tweak the sound depending on my mood or the genre of music I'm listening to. The Intime Hyacinth—with its balanced sound, rich, punchy bass, and huge soundstage complements the clean sound signature of the iFi GO bar perfectly.

Because I wear glasses, I absolutely love that the Hyacinth doesn't wrap over the ear. They don't build up any pressure, allowing me to comfortably wear them all day long. In terms of power efficiency, the iFi GO bar consumes about 15% of the Q2's battery per hour. Given how compact the Q2 is, I find that battery drain completely acceptable

Hello everyone, I’d like to know if this music player is a good choice in terms of battery life, storage, and Bluetooth—thanks!❤️

Hiby’s RS2II just showed up today and I am pleasantly surprised at how good this tiny device sounds!

DAPs from left to right are: JM21, Snowsky Echo Nano, Snowsky Echo, iPod 4th photo and iPod 5th video.

I originally started at the beginning of this year on buying my first DAP, since I didn't want to pay for Spotify anymore. I just didn't expect myself to get into collecting DAPs.

iPod 4th gen photo is technically the oldest one I have since I bought it "broken" from a garage sale in 2011 and only around last month I got around replacing the battery (surprisingly the HDD still works like a charm, although I replaced it with flash storage).

Edit: I forgot to mention that the headphones I typically use are the Koss Porta pros or KSC75. I do own a pair of Sennheiser HD560s but I prefer using those on my PC.

Spent the gaps in my day recompiling spotatui ( https://github.com/LargeModGames/spotatui) to run in termux on my cheap low powered Android Dap. With the right patches and a few custom buttons in termux its actually highly useable. Fun little project too. Havent found any features that don't work yet. Yes only 320kbps streaming put I cant hear the difference anyway and on this low powered device its alot more peformant than the official android app.

Hiby r1!

• Android 16
• 5.0in Full HD screen
• 64GB
  • microSD support
• Should have 8GB of ram based off the Geekbench leak
• Battery life
  • MP3 128kbps – 40 hours
  • Streaming – 30 hours
• Dimensions – 139.8 x 77.2 x 17.5 mm (ZX700 – 132.2 x 72.5 x 16.9 mm)
• Weight – 345 g (ZX700 – prev 227 g)
• S-Master HX
• aptX adaptive support
• LC3 support
• DSEE Ultimate
• DSD Remastering Engine – in W.Music app and other music apps
• Look head shaper
  • balanced type
• Japanese price of around 210,000 JPY.

Personally not a fan of all the buttons all being underneath each other. I often use my ZX707 in my pocket and it's not intuitive for my use case. Would've preferred a volume knob, or the volume and skip buttons on opposing sides. Price is also high, 1300~ dollars or 1200~ euros.

I want to buy my first DAP. After reading this sub for days, I decided to go with the Hiby R1 due to its excellent price/performance ratio.

The only places I found where I can buy a Hiby are Aliexpress and store.hiby.com.

As I am located in Austria, I wanted to ask about your experience of buying a Hiby. Are these options reliable in terms of delivery?

Do you know of any better shops or models in this price range?

Thanks!

Z series will cost around 4k usd!

Is it possible to change the settings on this device from Japanese to English? Any tips appreciated!

Got it a couple years ago and love it. I knew that I didn’t want a model that ran on android. I like the original os.

Not seen any mentions of the Coverflow addition in Sonix Player, cannot praise the project Devs enough for their hard work 🥰😁

Hiby R3 Pro ii

Hello I'm looking for my first DAP. I like retro styles like the Hiby Walker H2 and Surfans F20. Between those two, I need honest reviews from users and if you have DAP recommendations similar to those two, please recommend them. Oh yes if I can, I also need a 3.5mm and 4.4mm connection. Thank you!

The trusty Rio Nitrus lives again. Unfortunately it cant connect to my computer so my music is frozen in the past.

I’ve been looking for a portable music player lately, just something with Wi-Fi and a touchscreen. I want to keep my phone and music player separate so I can focus entirely on the music.

I’ve been lurking in this community for a few days, but since opinions on every product are so mixed, I’m having a hard time deciding. Today, I stumbled upon a brand called Hiiiman; it looks like a very new player in the market. I really like the design, but there is very little information or reviews about it online.

Has anyone used this product?

Getting music onto my DAP from a Mac was always a chore. Finder plus manual copying, Android File Transfer being Android File Transfer, playlists breaking because the paths were wrong. So I added proper device sync to the music player I've been building.

How it works:

• Plug in the DAP (USB disk mode) or the SD card and it shows up in the sidebar.
• Pick what goes on it: everything, or specific playlists, artists, albums, genres.
• It shows how much space the sync takes before you hit the button.
• Only new or changed files get copied. Only files it put there get removed, never your other stuff on the card.
• Writes cover.jpg in each album folder (size is configurable, smaller loads faster on some players), .lrc files for synced lyrics, and M3U8 playlists with relative paths that actually work on the player.
• File names are made safe for FAT32 and exFAT, and files over 4 GB are skipped on FAT32 cards.

For Android DAPs there's a small companion app (Groovelight Sync, Android 12+) that syncs over Wi-Fi, no cable or MTP needed. You pair it once with a code, pick the folder (SD card works), and it can sync by itself when it's on your Wi-Fi. I've been using it with a FiiO and it's been great so far.

Free and open source, Mac app needs macOS 26: https://github.com/irwingbraga/groovelight

im thinking on buying this MP4, for $40, is it worth it? any tips, does it have good sound quality, good battery life?

Hallo, guys!

3 years ago I became an owner of Fiio M3k and am still using it. It's a really cool thing, but it stays a little.. old?

I try to choose between HiBy R1 и FiiO Snowsky Echo/Echo mini

Which one should I prefer after my M3k?

If that's a bad options you can advise me some other models.

I came across this one while looking for the Shanling M0 and it apparently supports Tidal which is my main source of Hi-Fi music. Any opinions on this DAC?

"Cycling is like music. It is always forward. It is free, it is outside, it is the weather, it is the planet, it is energy. Cycling has parallels with certain aspects of music.” 🎵🚴

Ralf Hütter

(Fiio M21 and Juzear Nimbus) 🎵🎧

I've been trying to get a small DAP so that I can listen to music easily while rollerskating and have heard good things about these two but I'm just not sure what to go with

Lots of people seem to like the HiBY R1 but I have consistently heard people recommend the TempoTec V1 over it. The V1 doesn't seem to have as much of a following though and the Firmware issues I've heard about have made me skeptical.

Is the R1 the way to go or has the V1 made it obsolete?

Also unrelated but I'm a tad scared of falling and breaking it but it doesn't seem like any budget DAP is particularly durable so I'll just have to be careful