If I didn’t have an obvious, personal, need for a DAP I wouldn’t try and find a way to justify having one.
I like my iPhone as a multi-purpose “80% solution” for convenience and flexibility; this is true for music, the camera, GPS functionality (not just in the car), personal metrics and so on.
For music, with either Bluetooth TWS IEMs or the Apple Lighting to 3.5mm dongle, it’s good enough for non-critical listening in most cases. Especially as if I’m using it for music, I’m likely in an environment where there is enough noise (or distractions) that “critical” listening isn’t possible in the first place.
To go beyond non-critical listening, I’m either limited to IEMs, due to the lack of power from the dongle, or I have to carry a 2nd device, and additional cables/adapters, anyway.
If want to listen to full-size headphones of any note, which I often do, even when not at one of my fixed rigs, the smaller external DAC/amps, like the DragonFly units, or the NextDrive Spectra, don’t cut it (either in terms of power or quality). So, now I’d be carrying a “2nd device” that’s as big as a DAP and a lot less convenient if it has to be connected to my phone (think iFi Nano or Micro iDSD BL units, Chord Mojo, etc.).
That can be for something as simple as listening on the deck on a nice day. Or for extended listening when I travel on my own, either for work or pleasure.
Right there, a DAP makes more sense for me. It’s all in one. It’s only cable is to the headphones. It’ll easily drive any headphone I’m ever likely to want to listen to away from my main rig. Qualitatively its a big enough setup forward that it is immediately obvious. It has far more storage than I can get on a phone (1.5 TB on one TAP, and more than 1 TB on the other) and which isn’t shared between tasks.
Yes, some will argue that I can put microSD cards in a phone. But that means Android, which is a whole different set of issues, and something I am not interested in.
Having useable EQ is nice to have - which is a mess on phones. To be fair, it could be better on DAPs too, but it is still better than the phone options I’m aware of (even if I was willing to run Android there).
I do enough dedicated listening (i.e. focused on the music, not just background listening while doing something else), in situations where I want real headphones, that a DAP makes sense … and even then it probably sees 20% of the listening time I get on my phone. It’s just that I can easily hear, and definitely care, about things that the phone doesn’t match for that 20%.
That infuriated me and was the last time I ever plugged one of my iPods back in. Goodness has to be at least 8 years since then…
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