help me choose a dap.

[NOoneWillknow]

My family travels quite a lot. I want to use a different device other than my phone. I'm considering these:

- Hiby r5 II // r6 II
- shanling m3 ultra
- fiio m11s

Or should i get an Ipod? my majority of listening is on streaming not own files.

(Don't want to research myself. )

 

[earmonger]

Ipods don't stream.

 

[NOoneWillknow]

Ipods don't stream.

lol, I know, I do have my favourite playlist downloaded locally, but in mp3 320kbps files.

 

[HiFiWar]

My family travels quite a lot. I want to use a different device other than my phone. I'm considering these:

- Hiby r5 II // r6 II
- shanling m3 ultra
- fiio m11s

Or should i get an Ipod? my majority of listening is on streaming not own files.

(Don't want to research myself. )

My preference is the Shanling or Fiio. Both are great.

 

[CelestialArk]

I'd go with a tube dap from cayin as it differentiates the portfolio. Most daps nowadays sound pretty much identical to your regular iPhone + a good dongle.

 

[NOoneWillknow]

I'd go with a tube dap from cayin as it differentiates the portfolio. Most daps nowadays sound pretty much identical to your regular iPhone + a good dongle.

My priority is more battery life and ease of use, not really the sound, My family frequently flies and travel between countries. like in about 2 weeks i'm going to asia (13 hour flight)

 

[BS5711]

I have an M11 Plus (not S) and an M3 Ultra and overall I prefer the FiiO by a good margin. I assume the M11S is essentially the same just a little smaller

The FiiO (at least the Plus) is much more premium feeling and to me nicer to use. The screen on the M3 Ultra is quite small which is a little less convenient but it works OK.

The headphone jacks are on the top of the M3 Ultra with those on the FiiO being on the bottom, that might make a difference to your convenience in use. I prefer the volume rocker on the FiiO versus the somewhat cheapish feeling but OK functioning wheel of the Shanling.

The SD card slot on the Shanling is on the bottom and it has a cheap feeling plastic hinged cover versus the slide out side located alloy holder of the FiiO. I assume for travel you probably download from the streaming services. For whatever reason the Shanling is quite slow downloading compared to the FiiO. I use Tidal and Apple Music and for whatever reason Tidal is much faster even with similar CD and Hi Res files. Apple Music is appallingly slow for me in the M3 Ultra despite pretty decent WiFi speeds, much slower than the FiiO either to the card or built in memory and absolutely painfully slow compared to my iPhone 15.

I found out the hard way when using the M3 Ultra travelling late last year that Apple Music downloaded songs disappear if Apple logs you out for any reason. Tidal doesn’t behave like that and I am not sure if the FiiO does the same thing or not, might be something to investigate because it is a real nuisance when travelling to find all your music has gone !! Trying to log into hotel public Wifi to download music was also a headache and needed a little trick search for a typical router address which did work. Not sure if the FiiO would be the same.

The Shanling battery life is better.

 

[o0genesis0o]

My family travels quite a lot. I want to use a different device other than my phone. I'm considering these:

- Hiby r5 II // r6 II
- shanling m3 ultra
- fiio m11s

Or should i get an Ipod? my majority of listening is on streaming not own files.

(Don't want to research myself. )

HiBy R4 has just been launched. I think it would be a good idea to wait a bit for reviews before picking up any of these, especially the R5 Gen II.

 

[arifgraphy]

If battery life is important to you, then why not check some DAPs from Sony, like "NW-A45/A45HN/A46HN/A47"