DAPs, do you use them?

Oh yeah! I took two junk 5th gens recently and made one working one out of them with a new battery and a flash board in place of the hdd.

Battery was like $10.

Just need patience and a tutorial and you can bring it back to new. They’re not hard to work on at all.

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I’d just assumed the batteries would be obsolete these days, so this is great news. From the youtube videos out there, it seems as though I might manage to swap out the batteries in spite of my ham-fisted ways. Is there a battery (or vendor) you’d recommend?

This is the one that I bought, but it looks like it’s out of stock right now.

I don’t think you can go wrong though if it has good reviews.

If you want to go down the rabbit hole, you can get bigger batteries and other modifications.

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Thank you very much - I really appreciate the recommendation. I’ll give this some thought. I might see if it’s possible to add storage space… yes, I can see how this might become a rabbit hole!

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My Sony DAP has a “beyerdynamic, Grado” 2k spike setting :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:.

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I owe great thanks to you @Panzer_Applehusky for the excellent advice you offered way back in May. We were posting above about my 15-yr-old iPod classic (5th gen) and its dying battery. You suggested that I replace the battery myself and you kindly recommended a replacement battery. Well, I’m delighted to let you know that I finally plucked up the courage to do it.

I’d procrastinated as I’m not all that good with electronics or confident about doing things like this. I finally decided that there wasn’t much point in holding on to iPod if I didn’t use it, so I figured it was worth the risk of attempting surgery. I’m happy to report that the patient made a full and fast recovery and that I’m now enjoying music again with the iPod without being limited just to an hour’s use at a time.

I’ve got a soft spot for this old device. It was my first ever mp3 player - I was late to the iPod party thanks to grad school pennilessness - and I’ve long cherished it. It’s given me a great deal of pleasure over the years, and I’m tremendously grateful to you for giving it a new lease on life. Thank you!

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Awesome! Glad to hear it went well.

May it sing to you for many more years.

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Hiby R3? R3 Pro? Those aren’t very expensive, I don’t think.

Well, after tons of (costly) bouncing from portable to desktop using DAP amped (and yes, including that whole tube rolling stuff–which I’ve leaned tons from BTW) I’ve decided the portability of my DAP is important. With my desktop setup, I’m confined. Plus SQ (I use lossless, balanced, and decent cans) is so good these days…

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This is an interesting topic for me, as I have been considering a Dap. I have had the iFi IDSD micro black label and loved it for portable use but it requires me to be plugged into my phone by a apple cable that eventually always seems to go bad. In addition it’s pretty bulky for on the go. With a pair of very portable lightweight Focal closed back headphones in coming, I will now have the ability to listen on the go, or even in my backyard relaxing. The Dap becomes a serious thought for me. I am very intrigued by the DAP that also allows for Roon streaming as well. For those of you DAP masters any thoughts, lessons learned, or features you think are must haves for a DAP? @Torq @TylersEclectic or any other DAP masters 🥷

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If you find a Pioneer XDP 300R it could be great for your purposes. Old DAP that can be found for very good price and with great features. Check @antdroid for detailed infos

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I still use DAPs, with an increasingly specific set of requirements.

If I am going to use a phone (i.e. the situation doesn’t warrant/allow carrying a DAP and suitable IEMs or headphones), then it’s either going to be fully wireless Bluetooth, via a $9 dongle (one stuffed in every IEM and headphone case I might use on the go) or in rare cases the Lotoo PAW S1.

And the chances are I’m using lossy content from Apple Music in that case, as the 3rd party streaming options are all too fond of deciding they need an internet connection to validate my offline content right at the moment I don’t have one.

None of the Android-phone-as-a-DAP solutions are even on the table for me. Most of them are stuck with Android’s rather lacking forced ASRC (resampling to some multiple of 48kHz, using a low-power optimized filter rather than a quality-optimized one).

While you can get around this with some phones using UAPP (USB Audio Player Pro), it will sometimes tell you it’s working bit-perfectly when it isn’t (an acknowledged issue by the developer - it’s doing the best it can given the abstractions and limits of Android). And I do not like the UX there at all.

This is notwithstanding other issues I have with Android-phones-as-DAPs which usually includes piss-poor AAC support, lowest-spec-without-fucking-around-and-then-not-very-reliable LDAC support, and comparatively atrocious battery life.


So for proper, focused, listening for please/critical listening … i.e. when I’m not just using having music “on in the background”, I still use a DAP. And as I said, my requirements have become more focused over time.

As much as I love various aspects of the Cayin N8, it’s inability to stream natively has become a MAJOR inconvenience. Exacerbated by the fact that you cannot use it as an external DAC/amp from an iPhone unless you use Bluetooth (as the N8 requires power on USB in USB DAC mode, and draws more than an iOS device will allow). And if I’m going to use Bluetooth at all, I’m not carrying a big, heavy, DAP around!

So now, requirements must include:

  • Support for at least 1.5TB of on-board storage (so 512GB internal, and a slot that can run 1TB cards, or multiple card slots).

  • Proper meta-data driven UX that can address both internal and card storage seamlessly.

  • Native streaming support (this usually means an Android “core” OS) for TIDAL and Qobuz.

  • 100% bypass of Android’s audio subsystem in ALL situations (some DAPs bypass it for their “default” music players, but not for third-party streaming clients).

  • 100% silent background with all of my IEMs.

  • Enough power to drive reasonably sensitive full-size cans directly.

  • 10 hours of battery life with IEMs and lossless content.

  • Fast charge capability.

  • WiFi connectivity that doesn’t shit the bed if you’re more than 20 feet from your AP.

  • Proper balanced output.

  • USB DAC/amp support.

There are lots of other nice-to-have features (e.g. Roon end-point support, no-power mode for USB DAC/amp operation from an iPhone, proper MFI support, longer battery life, multiple output modes, decent integrated EQ) and so on.

Right now, only the A&K SP2000 fully meets the requirements that I’m aware of, as well as hitting some of the optional stuff.

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Thank you Ian, I always value your opinion and expertise! I was thinking the same thing either the A&K SP1000 or 2000. The question is how do those units sound? They have the right features, do they have the right sound? Thanks again for leaving me such a detailed response appreciate you @Torq ! I will check the forum for info on those units!

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Thank you man! I will ping @antdroid

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As good as I’ve heard from any solid-state DAP.

My SP1000M comments are here (which is fundamentally the same as the SP1000, just smaller and without the materials options) and SP2000 are here.

I do have a love for the N8’s tube output, but it’s definitely colored vs. the A&K units. And the A&K’s are the quietest (i.e. lack of noise/hiss) units with fussy/sensitive IEMs I’ve ever heard.

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Just ordered an SE200 from headphones.com. Should have it mid week. Upgrading from an AK Kann, which by all rights is still a great player.

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I would probably love the N8 too as I prefer a bit of color when listening for enjoyment. The lack of streaming seems like the hard part with that unit though.

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Awesome let me know what you think of it.

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I didn’t think much about it not being capable of native streaming when I bought it. That hadn’t been a big, prior, use case for me. That was nearly two years ago, though. And it’s been a progressively bigger issue ever since.

I thought I might sell it, and replace it with the Cayin C9 (to pair with the SP2000 when I wanted some extra power or tube-flavor), but the C9 turned out to have deal-killing charging issues for my (trans)portable use cases. So for now, at least, it stays (it’s largely immune to the “HE-1 effect”).

There’s still no single DAP I think is perfect, however.

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For me a Dap must be able to use various Streaming apps both on and offline.

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