Just bought a Fiio JM21 and a 1TB card so I can take my entire digital music collection on holiday and listen to it by the pool. Also got a set of Sennheiser IE 100 Pro monitors to replace my old Shure earbuds.
Anyone else using a portable DAC/music player? Are they worth the hype?
derek badger wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 7:11 pm
Are they the new iPod?
Just bought a Fiio JM21 and a 1TB card so I can take my entire digital music collection on holiday and listen to it by the pool. Also got a set of Sennheiser IE 100 Pro monitors to replace my old Shure earbuds.
Anyone else using a portable DAC/music player? Are they worth the hype?
Never heard of them - so why would you use rather than phones - or is that just down to the volume of music you have on file?
Is it just an updated version of an iRiver MP3 player that i had in 2002?
derek badger wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 7:11 pm
Are they the new iPod?
Just bought a Fiio JM21 and a 1TB card so I can take my entire digital music collection on holiday and listen to it by the pool. Also got a set of Sennheiser IE 100 Pro monitors to replace my old Shure earbuds.
Anyone else using a portable DAC/music player? Are they worth the hype?
Never heard of them - so why would you use rather than phones - or is that just down to the volume of music you have on file?
Is it just an updated version of an iRiver MP3 player that i had in 2002?
I think it's down to sound quality. They do lossless stuff and cope with FLAC files etc. At the lower end they're pretty much like the old MP3 players I think. (I've still got an iRiver somewhere!).
Mr Moofo wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 7:23 pmNever heard of them - so why would you use rather than phones - or is that just down to the volume of music you have on file?
Is it just an updated version of an iRiver MP3 player that i had in 2002?
Kind of much better DAC than you would get in a modern phone, iRiver or old iPod. Plays lossless formats and can stream from Tidal, Spotify etc.
Updated all the MP3tags and album art on my library and robocopied it to the SD card overnight. Updated the firmware on the player and set it up. Just under 900 albums and about 12,000 songs. Sound quality is good, like noticibly different to listening to music on my phone with Bluetooth headphones.
I don't doubt that a standalone DAC would be better than built into a phone. However, whether my old ears could hear the difference or not compared to a standard lossless file through good BT headphones or not, I couldn't say without doing a test.
Either way, that's good enough for me and I definitely couldn't be arsed to sort through all the files etc, or pay for anything more.
