Which would you say is better overall out of these two DAPS in terms of build quality, software, responsiveness and sound quality?

Hello everyone! I'm looking for a new DAP and want something similar or identical to a FiiO M3K, I like the look of it and it's simplicity, I don't like android stuff or apple stuff I just want something really simple and would love it if it also has Bluetooth (tho it's not a deal-breaker if it doesn't have it). I don't care about quality or features or prices, I just want something really simple and will also add the image of the M3K for reference (don't care about the colour).

Link to my video review: https://youtu.be/6aHn1dhGWdU

The HIDIZS AP30 Music Boy is a digital audio player with a retro-inspired design (think Game Boy), excellent sound quality, tactile controls, and is a fully offline device. While the hardware is absolutely solid, the software is much less refined. Things like the lack of gapless playback, no M3U playlist support, the inability to control playback when the screen is off, and the small microSD card and library size support all hold this wonderful DAP back from being truly great.

The AP30 will be launched on Kickstarter starting July 23 at 10:30 AM EDT - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hidizs/ap30-music-boy-the-first-truly-wearable-hi-res-music-player?ref=i50q6p

If you have any questions about the AP30 Music Boy that weren't answered in my video review, feel free to comment, and I will try to answer them here.

Pros:

• Excellent sound quality with a clean, neutral presentation
• Impressively low noise floor, even with sensitive IEMs
• Compact, lightweight and genuinely portable design
• Fun retro styling with several plastic and aluminum finishes
• Excellent build quality, tactile buttons and precise volume wheel
• Bright, clear screen that is easy to read
• Includes both 3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced outputs
• Enough power for most IEMs and portable headphones
• Useful USB DAC functionality
• Overall decent battery life
• Magnetic case makes it convenient to attach to a smartphone
• Good unboxing experience and generous included accessories
• Strong value at its Kickstarter pricing
• Bluetooth performance is reliable

Cons:

• Physical controls and volume wheel do not work when the screen is off
• No M3U playlist support
• No gapless playback support
• No dark-mode or alternative interface themes
• Battery level is represented only by an icon, no option for a percentage
• Does not play nice with Apple AirPods
• Magnetic case installation is initially confusing and needs instructions
• Doesn't support large libraries or microSD cards bigger than 256GB

Key Specs:

• Price: $119 USD (plastic version), $129 USD (aluminum version)
  • $85/$93 early bird price via Kickstarter
• Connections: 3.5mm SE output, 4.4mm balanced output, USB-C (charging, data)
• Output power: 3.5mm SE (61mW), 4.4mm balanced (137mW)
• WiFi: No
• Bluetooth: 5.3 (SBC)
• Music Streaming Support: No
• Supported File Formats and Sample Rates: DSD64/128/256 WAV:24bit/192K, FLAC:24bit/192K APE:24bit/96K, MP3/OGG/M4A/WMA
• Internal Storage: None
• Expandable Storage: Yes, MicroSD (up to 256GB)
• Battery: 1100mAh, up to 12 hours of playback
• Display: 2.0 inch IPS HD non-touch display, 296×240
• DAC/Amp Chipset: CS43198 DAC, RT6863 amp
• SOC Chipset: Rockchip RKNanoD
• RAM: Unknown
• OS: HIDIZS OS
• Dimensions: 68mm x 53mm x 17mm
• Weight: 56 grams (plastic), 80 grams (aluminum)
• Notes:
  • No M3U playlist support
  • No gapless playback support
  • External USB-C DACs or USB-C headphones are not supported
  • Controls don’t work when the screen is off
  • No support for in-line controls

- How is the audio quality - I'm not picky just don't want noticeable static or buzzing
- What earbuds would you recommend since it doesn't come with one? (I would prefer wired earbuds)

Recently enjoyed the Backrooms soundtrack. I actually listened to it with a sleep mask on lol. After watching the film it definitely added to the experience.

(Fiio M21 and FT1 Pro)

So, I want to buy my first (cheap) DAP. I'm aware of players like Hiby R1 or Tempotec V1, but I want something with physical controls. I settled on Fiio X1 and Snowsky Echo Mini. I found Fiio X1 in excellent condition (10+ hours of battery life, no wheel problem) for $44. Echo mini for $55. Which one would be better ONLY in terms of sound quality? I plan to use player for FLAC tracks with modified Koss ksc75, so I don't care about bluetooth.

Does anyone know a way to save the stats of listen analog music players? It's the only thing i have missed of streaming services and i want to know if exists any method. Ty

I know, I know, this has probably been asked many times, but I'm really stuck between these two and I need your opinion.

I'm not an audiophile. My goal is digital detox, less scrolling, and getting rid of all my subscriptions. I'll be transferring all my music from a macbook, so good macOS compatibility is important. I only use wired headphones. I don't care about playlists, but I do care about my music library being organized properly (e.g. I want an album's tracks to appear in the correct order, not alphabetically!) Gapless playback is also nice to have, but it's not a dealbreaker.

Now, the snowsky disc is so pretty, and I like pretty things! But I keep hearing people complain that it's a "pretty gimmick," and I don't want that. On the other hand, the hiby r1 seems functional, but almost too functional... I don't need a mini-phone, I'm trying to get away from that...

So I'm humbly asking: is the snowsky truly just a gimmick? Is the r1 too much for what I'm looking for? Which one should I get? (please don't suggest a third option... unless you're 100% sure there's one I'm missing in the same price range that would fit me perfectly!!)

Thank you <33

I'm planning on backing it tomorrow, having already done the little 1$ deposit thing. I've heard this is a fairly normal thing for hidiz so was wondering other peoples experience with their kickstarters, what is their normal turnaround? Do they keep backers updated?
I'm hoping everything turns out well and they get backed because I love the unique form factor as someone who is also very into emulator devices

Hi! I'm a person who lives a pretty crazy life. I'm around animals all day, work with my hands a lot, get dirty/wet, drop my phone 10x a day, etc. I'm looking for an audio player I can load up with a ton of mp3s. My biggest concern is durability and battery life, but I would be thrilled to get good audio quality too(my headphones/earbuds/big speakers are Oppo, Technics and Marshall). I'm a girl, and we're not allowed to have large pockets apparently, so the smaller the better. I'd totally go with something like my old iPod shuffle if I could, but I definitely want something that's supported in case of any issue. Price is not really an issue, I want something that'll really last. Thank you!

Bom eu entrei no hobby entrei muitas aspas, esse ano, quando falo entre aspas, em questão de conhecimento e sobre aparelhos tbm, e tenho meu iem a uns 4 a 5 meses e meu dap a uns 20 dias, eu nao entrei querendo saber sobre som ou qualidade ou separação. Eu queria poder ouvir música de alguma outra forma, uma play ja determinada por min, e músicas que eu sei que serão minhas ate a minha morte saca, e eu queria saber quais dicas vcs poderiam me da pra conseguir áudios flacs e tbm sobre o próprio hobby pra um recruta igual a min, bom dia gente.

I know this is pretty common knowledge but I thought I'd share a little experiment that I did to try and speed up the user interface on my R1.

I went through around 1500 tracks and using MP3tag, removed the album artwork ( exporting it when I needed to ).

I created a cover.jpg of the album artwork and added it to each album folder. With Photoshop I made every jpg 640x640 pixels at 72dpi.

This sounds like a long PIA but when I got the workflow sorted it only took about an hour.

It is definitely a lot more whippy, displaying album art really quickly in album list and more quickly when showing now playing. For me it was worth it 😁

I received my hiby r1 yesterday, and was easily able to drag and drop files from my external hardrive onto the hiby r1; however, I wanted something to manage my library and provide album artwork, so I downloaded Musicbee. When I "send" my created musicbee playlist to my hiby, I can access the music on my hiby by going into "files->SD card". Is there a proper way to do this so my music is accessible via the Music, Artist, or Albums icons, rather than searching through the SD card?

Meze alba user, was looking for dacs and found the t71 to offer the only standout feature(7.1), the alternatives do improve a bit of this and that but nothing major.

Now the 7.1 feature is confusing for me, can of the you guys who experienced the t71 educate me on this, the t71 is costing me around 115$ used, if not for the 7.1 feature, I'll just get a ka15 for 50$ used and get it over with.

Soy algo nuevo en esto, esperaba un dap barato, estaba entre el R1 de HiBy, el Snowsky Disc y el Aigo Eros Q, me gusta salir a correr asi que busco el Bluetooth y comodidad de interfaz, me podrian ayudar a decidir?

Sorry as this post will get long.

After getting back into the hobby after roughly 10 years of just not listening to much music, I've spent a fair amount of money buying adaptors, Questyle M15i, along with a few headphones and IEMs. After about a month I decided I should have just bought a DAP instead and settles on the XM2. Unfortunately, I've had issues with Amazon and FedEX consistently delivering my packages to the wrong address. (I live in downtown Toronto and it's either delivered to the condo across the street from me or to the wrong person in my building.) Thankfully, I've always been able to retrieve my packages. I bought the XM2 from a local retailer as I didn't want to pay the few hundred in duties that I usually get charged when buying something from the US or overseas. This was delivered using Canada post which I've never had issues with and they either lost the package or it was delivered to someone else. It's not the sellers fault and unfortunately I have zero recourse.

So now I'm looking to buy another DAP and limited my search to physical stores I can buy from to avoid any issues like this from happening.

I really prefer a non-Android DAP mainly because I'm getting older and never owned any Android devices and while maybe ten years ago I would have loved to tinker and explorer a new OS it's not something I want to do now. I really liked the design the size of the XM2 as well.

With that said, I'm fine with an Android DAP even though it was something I was hoping to avoid. To make my search even more difficult I love the gimmicky aspects of the M21 with their cassette case or the fact that I can buy apps like NostalgicPod to get the feeling of an iPod. (I guess running Android does have its benefits.) I also don't mind a battery life of roughly 5 hours but would prefer longer batteries.

The players I've found that I can buy locally are the following:

M21

Song NW-A306

iBasso DX180

Shanling M6 Ultra (I prefer not to pay this much though)

Shanling M5 Ultra

Cayin N3Ultra

I'm also in no rush and can wait until early next year. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hey yall, this may sound very dumb, but I am in need of a dap for my Bluetooth utws5. I’m recently getting back into audio and I’ve settled on a good desktop setup (hifiman ananda nano + ifi zen dac 3) and desire a good portable setup. Originally, I was waiting on the fiio utws17 coming out and the moondrop evo 2 but they seem way more expensive than the utws5. In the past, I used the nw-zx300 with my iems but eventually decided to stick to AirPods because wires just became too much of a hassle when running class to class and having to obtain flac files for a non android device became annoying. I’d use my phone however, I’m on an iPhone meaning I’m limited to aac and not flac or aptx adaptive. I was originally going to get a Bluetooth adapter like the Fiio air link or Sennheiser btd 700 but storage has been an issue on my phone and it seems the Fiio air link has its issues with the utws5. I was looking at the hifi walker h2 mini because of its size but it isn’t an android device so I won’t be able to use the Fiio control app. Any cheap recommendations would be awesome :).

Edit: The main thing I’m looking for is a super small android dap

Looking for a DAP with decent quality, good price, and most importantly, NO Bluetooth/wifi connectivity and no expandable storage. I'm willing to buy something that's old/used but I have no clue where to begin looking. I cannot compromise on the connectivity and storage, unfortunately.

I want to ask for a new DAP for my birthday soon. I've had a few different ones $20-60 off Amazon before, they all ended up cracking and breaking or just blacking out one day.

I prefer something slim, I've enjoyed the sanDisks I've had that had a little clip as well. Battery life is important, not much else matters to me. I don't care for a digital screen, and I don't care to be able to stream music or have other apps on there. I just want a device to download my mp3 files onto so I can plug my headphones in and listen throughout the day. The only other app/service I'd appreciate would be radio, but more of a want than need. Something durable since I'm known for dropping things and I'll probably use it while working, which can be messy and hazardous. Waterproof might be a thing too but not all that important. Looking for something under or close to 100$. I'm asking for other stuff like shoes so I don't wanna go too crazy on the price.

Thanks for any help!

is this option available to some music apps or streaming services? if not, will this be ever be an option?

kinda ridiculous, but if you think about it, it could make the album library very organized. or maybe i need to see a doctor. what do you guys think?

I must admit to having a bit of an addiction to buying MP3 players that take tf cards. I'm an older guy, and it still blows me away that you can fit hundreds of hours of audio on something the size of a fingernail, that you can easily put into different players.

For the cost of a few beers, you can have literally thousands of hours of entertainment. It's amazing really.

Anyway, saw this player online, and it looks cheap, and probably it'll be very basic, but I like the retro look of it, and it's cheap enough to risk.

Maybe one of you has it already?

Hi everyone! I’m planning on doing some traveling soon and really want to do a digital disconnect—planning on just bringing a flip phone and music player. I’d really like a music player that just plays music, nothing else, and ideally connects to wireless headphones. Does anyone know of any products like this?

Maybe looking for a unicorn here, but here's the bullet points:

- 1TB expandable. Collection is about 700GB FLAC

- Bluetooth unfortunately :-(

- Wired jack

- Some analog controls, touchscreen only will cause problems when in use (outdoors).

- Software that does well with large collections of artists / albums.

- m3u support?

- Do any of these support album art downloads?

Last player I had was a Zune, LOL. The Zune Software was actually nice IMHO for it's time. Like it better than iTunes.

I did find this guy but it appears to support only 512GB and I've been reading bad things about Surfans: https://www.amazon.com/iRULU-F20-Bluetooth-Lossless-Resolution/dp/B07VWK4FP3

Any help or guidance would be appreciated!

*UPDATED FOR USE CASE*

I have a pontoon boat that me and my friends chill out on multiple times during the week during the season (I'm in Texas so it's basically May-Oct). Cell reception is spotty and will always cut out. All my friends have different tastes in music. Me throwing 20 albums that I like on a smaller player ain't gonna cut it, but I do appreciate the feedback! I already have a Navidrome server hosted in the cloud along w/my personal Plex server hosted at home. Just wanna give my friends options .. After mucking w/a touchscreen on my phone I realize analog controls would be the best while out on the water.

I recently got interested in both MP3 players and headphones. I also recently bought a pair of Tangzu Wan'er SG 2nd Gen IEMs, and I've realized that listening to music on my phone isn't the best experience. Notifications from some apps either lower the music volume or pause it completely. Honestly, I also just like the idea of carrying a small dedicated music player in my pocket with my headphones plugged into it, instead of having a huge smartphone sitting in my bag.

I'm looking for a simple MP3 player that can play my local music library. I don't need a stripped-down Android phone (and as far as I know, those start at around $100 anyway).

Ideally, I'd like it to have:

- Physical playback buttons (preferred, but not required)

- A microSD card slot, or at least 32 GB of built-in storage (that's enough for me)

- A 3.5 mm headphone jack

- Sound quality that's at least roughly comparable to my Poco M6 Pro—it doesn't have to be better

- No noticeable hiss when music is paused or during very quiet parts of a track

- At least 6–8 hours of battery life

- I don't mind used ones.

Do you think there are any good options that fit these requirements and budget?