What it is

One important part of the setup I've been working on this year is the Digital Audio Player (DAP for short). A DAP is the modern successor to the iPod ¹. They come in various shapes and sizes depending on what features you want, but fundamentally they have storage (often via microSD cards) and they'll play music. Mine in particular is the Hiby R6 Gen 3, but there's several some models from Hiby and plenty of nice options from other companies. I've been using one now since the start of this blog (now about 8 months?) and I can't see wanting to get rid of it any time soon.

Why have one

I guess the default these days is simply to play music from your phone, however:

• iPhones aren't super convenient to use with a self-owned music collection as you'll eat up the storage easily ² and you'll need a dongle to use headphones.
• Androids can have microSD slots, but the operating system's audio system re-samples all audio going out, so youre hi-res and/or lossless files will be resampled (maybe you won't notice, but if you do it'll bother you for all time).- Depending on the Android model, you'll also need a dongle to use corded headphones.
• Your phone comes with notifications and distractions you don't always want from its nearly-constant connection to the internet.

A dedicated DAP solves all those problems and give you lots of options for expandable storage, bit-perfect audio output, and use of whatever headphones you like.

Inputs

Getting music onto a DAP is pretty simple. Many have some amount of internal storage you can access via USB and all (at least that I've seen) have microSD card slots (some even have two!) so you can load a terrabyte or two of music from your computer and enjoy.

Mine is a version of a DAP that runs a modified build of Android. This custom Android bypasses that resampling nonsense and allows for your music to go out to your headphones without resampling or modification. Because it's running Android, it also allows you to use Apple Music or Qobuz or whatever other streaming service you'd like over wifi.

For me this is handy during my year-long plan to own my music in case I want to hear stuff I haven't bought yet. My end-goal is to delete Qobuz, the streaming app I'm using for now.

Outputs

Most importantly, every DAP I've seen has a 3.5mm jack for your headphones. This is the standard headphone jack you're proabbly used to unless you've used those super-thick 6.3mm plugs commonly found on studio equipment or guitar amps.

Many also come with a 4.4mm plug, which is also called a "balanced" connection. It's technically supposed to allow for less noise than the regular plug but you'll maybe never notice. The nature of this "balanced" circuitry also has the effect of allowing more power output. If you like to listen with over-ear headphones that need extra juice, this can help. I picked a DAP with a 4.4mm option mostly cause I like to try random headphones and some have 4.4mm connections.

Even fairly small and cheap DAPs have bluetooth if you're into wireless headphones.

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