Hi, so I’ve been on the lookout for a good budget DAP to go along with my KZs that haven’t arrived yet. Anyway, I piled 3 brands up to battle:
IFI
FiiO
Shanling
IFI does not offer DAPs but their portable solutions like the Hip Dac v2 or Ifi Go Blu both look like a good buy, and I have their Zen Dac V2 for desktop and it sounds really good.
FiiO offers multiple choices and I like the fact that they’re mostly all independent, so I can use them even when my phone is dead. Although they are quite hard to get, since their 100€ DAPs are either out of stock everywhere or not in production.
This is where Shanling caught my eye, price is under 200€, multiple models are obtainable, but then again, some people report them breaking for no reason.
And we got Sony, well… This wouldn’t be budget at all, 300€ is quite some money for a music player… And their 100€ model apparently doesn’t even have HiFi drivers…
For FiiO I’ve looked at their M3, M6, M5, but all are out of stock everywhere. But I have looked at their DAC/AMP solutions like the KA3 which are available.
For Ifi I have a local store I can walk to and get the goods.
For Shanling I have the M0 Pro in mind.
I have no idea what would be the best buy, since I really love my sound to be high quality, but sacrifising features like a whole independent system along with a touchscreen for sound really breaks the deal sometimes, especially in situations when my phone battery is low and I don’t wanna listen to the bus engine for hours… But when it doesn’t have a screen, atleast be bluetooth so I don’t have a dongle hanging from my charging port.
Literally any suggestions are welcome.
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For budget portable DAC/amp’s it’s hard to beat the Qudelix 5k. Bigger question is, do you need streaming? That’ll limit options
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I’d also check out Hiby’s R3 Pro. I have one for on the go. Single ended and 2.5mm balanced, small form factor, non-Android, Wifi and bluetooth (although I prefer wired so can’t vouch for the bluetooth connection/stability). Also has Tidal and Qobuz services baked in to the Hiby firmware if that’s of use.
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yeah I would say the first question is how necessary is being independent from your phone? If its not than you are gonna get better cost/performance from a BT DAC/Amp like the Qudelix 5K.
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Well the only thing I like about that is that if my phone dies I can still listen to music, I hate streaming and just buy FLAC files, so I just need quality, but it is really good if that can come at a budget price, and be independent.
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If that’s the case I would drop ifi as an option since you will need to be tethered to your phone (wirelessly or wired). The Hiby R3 pro mentioned above is hard to beat and it’s new so should be supported for a while. You can find a lot more options if you look used too
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Ifi has really grown to heart, sad to see that they don’t have any DAP options. But hey, what can you do? I see Hiby also has the R2 (Gen II) which looks catchy, although about 2x weaker than the R3, still looks like a decent choice. The R3 Pro is offsale, but their newer Saber 2022 model actually has a newer chip. I will definitely look into this brand. Thanks a lot.
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Under 200 Euro and since you already have your own lossless library, I would recommend the HIDIZS AP80 Pro-X. It would probably be better than smaller DAPs like R0 Pro & R2 Gen II. The R3 Pro is also a good option.
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Sorry, yeah I was thinking of the R2 gen2 and not the R3 pro. Power is not super high and it’s only SE but should drive IEMs no problem. Having said that I personally would look at used options
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I also really wish it would make a dap but it seems like they are focused on hardware offerings so I doubt they will come out with one
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Yeah so this is interesting, I have heard of this one, and I actually had a local store selling their products, and now I can’t find it… The player looks absolutely mad though. But from their website look and their specs, they look like an another branch of Hiby. Too many options now, this one for under 200$ looks quite catchy, although not as strong as the R3 Saber. I’ll stay at Hiby for now, very nice product though. Thanks!
Well, people here in Croatia don’t really sell these on a big enough scale, so I’d probably wait more for something to pop up than for this to travel around the world twice. It’s hard to choose things that look good and perform good at a budget, because they’re all mostly sold out. I had no damn idea that people today still would absolutely make a music player out of stock in under a year.
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The GO blu and Hip DAC V2 are both incredibly great options for the price. The convenience and versatility is hard to beat.
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