Great question (well asked) and the main answers are covered by the first few replies (yay ‘head-fi’!)..
I will reiterate some of what has already been said and give some feedback on info which MAY APPEAR contrary to the first opinions given...
Firstly the ‘bad news’;
A phone WILL NOT TOUCH a dedicated Digital Audio Player (DAP).
This doesn’t matter if it is some ‘legendary’ phone (as a DAP) product like an LG ‘audio’ model with 4x DAC chips, or the aforementioned Sony phones that some even included dual DAC chips etc... at the time they were on the market they certainly held their ground, and were definitely a step up from ‘other phones’, and I won’t deny that the audio that can come from a phone is ‘good’. But it isn’t GREAT.
TO qualify your question with regards to an honest answer- for the quality of sound that your speakers can give, you would do well to give them a great source and ‘front end’ array...
As this can be done quite reasonably using a DAP, the legitimacy of the OPs question is perfect- Will a better DAP net a justifiable benefit (quality improvement that can heard)?
Using great IEMs (already bought) you will have a reliable speaker for picking apart differences that most others would miss.
The wider headfi community is filled with many sorts- many are budget conscious types who want to believe that every purchase north of $1000 is voodoo trickery that ‘only a few rich deluded silly people buy into’, and all the rest of ‘us’ (not me) enjoy spending a few pennies and getting ‘better bang for buck sound’.
We all want ‘best bang for buck sound’. (Especially those spending mega bucks!)
Where we each draw the cutoff line/‘line in the sand’ for achieving this goal varies greatly.
Certainly the lionshare (of coin) should go to the headphones....
Beyond that it comes down to ‘how many compromises’ are we willing to accept.
If my headphones were ‘easy to drive’ IEMs, I could certainly spend less on an amp (or make do with an ‘okay’ amp in a decent DAP), and if I was only listening via bluetooth in noisy environments then my task is made ‘super easy’.
A cheap dongle as mentioned above will do bluetooth, be lightweight/easy to carry for jogs; will pair with any accessory that the OP already has (eg a smartwatch or existing phone etc)...
Will it net ‘ultimate sound quality’ or anything better than previously experienced. No. (convenience?!)
If those IEMs are to be used to listen critically (eg those moments where we ‘close our eyes’ and simply listen to music), and the OP does intend to source some well engineered audio files - then the sky is the limit...
So where does ‘best bang for buck’ kick in with DAPs?
First of all- how effective is the money going to be?(!)
If the DAP is doubling as a decent amp, AND does bluetooth duties, and supports whichever digital/streaming services that the OP may wish to try, AND if it doubles as a DAC for the laptop (then becoming an external DAC/amp combo..); in this scenario the DAP is the entire rest of the build for the OPs ‘high end’ stereo rig.
I’d certainly spend the minimum on getting each of the parts right.
eg I bought my child an Activo CT10. It cost next to nothing (as DAPs go), and was perfect for the kid, whose hands are smaller and who had heard good DAPs (and a few handfuls of DACs/amps and now realised that my Questyle QP1R flogged the old Fiio X5(III) DAP so much that listening to anything ‘less’ was a case of ‘why bother’(?).
The Activo CT10 was going to do ‘one thing right’; the clock/DAC module (Teraton) is made by Astell and Kern, and it was going to have A&Ks clock ‘goodness’.
Overnight it rendered my previous half a year of CD rips as ‘near useless’. It revealed so much jitter in the source files (that I then took to ‘other players’ and, due to ear training and ‘expectation’, was easy to hear on ‘other setups’.
So this is a good thing, right?
No. Not for everyone.
Some players will aim to play anything and do everything. Some players will do one, or maybe several thing(s) well.
The problem with climbing the ranks on hifi kit is that eventually you will be able to buy into a ‘transparent’ rig that will play (Superbly) what you feed it.
If you feed such a rig garbage it will sound garbage. This is where a lot of
entry level kit reviewers get caught out.
I see it all over the web and mostly with kit that is on the fringe of the price bracket below (that is a tier less in quality), that the reviewer fails the ‘better kit’ because it rendered their system less likeable. (may be smoothing over the feed in the cheaper kit with the ‘more nuanced’ (expensive) kit making the warts of the recording ‘really obvious’- the low res glamour shot might look better (With squinted eyes) vs the hi resolution ‘street shot’ which might have wrinkles and boogers... taste in listening preferences wasn’t taught in school so we all have different ideas here as to what we should seek)
South of a certain pricepoint reviewers need be careful when dismissing equipment as not giving ‘good value’ (over lesser costing kit) simply because IN THEIR SETUP the testing piece of equipment was being held back. (some of the cost upgrades not yielding any noticeable improvement until paired with matching quality kit)
Now those nice IEMs that the OP has are ‘good enough’ to feed REFERENCE SETUP to them and they will reveal differences...
So getting back to what is the minimum to spend?
Depends on the end goal and predicted ‘future budget’ towards the hobby..
The rabbit hole most on headfi seem to suffer is that we keep catching upgrade-itis.
As someone who has owned many reference systems and has the ears to pick apart sound quality quickly (and I cannot turn that ‘training‘ off, sadly), I cannot endure budget DACs.
I suppose I ‘can’, but I chose not to do so. There are other things in life to enjoy, so I’d rather move on until I can enjoy the hobby again.
As an example- a person can eat a finite amount of pies or pizza in this lifetime. I do my best to only buy good examples of each so that I can fill my life with enjoyable moments.
I’d suggest spend what is needed, once, and ‘be done’. It will save you a LOT OF TIME & MONEY in the long run & it will net you a really enjoyable run from right out the gate.
For the record, and to give some perspective- bluetooth into a GREAT DAC will seriously flog the best reference file on the best phone. (and the ‘great DAC‘ I refer to doesn’t need be super costly). The best reference sound file on an entry level DAP is a ‘ho hum’ affair.
This is because entry level kit is built to be compatible, and not capable.
Ever noticed ‘back in the day’ how a $30 DVD player from the supermarket would ‘outplay’ a $3000 DVD player that was flagship and ‘reference’.
That is because the $30 player is built to be compatible, where as the $3000/‘megabuck’ unit is built to be capable.
-when the megabuck unit comes across a scratch, or has a ‘lot of errors’ in the feed, it will cease playback. The $30 (super budget) box is just happy pretending it can play back the disc and so will continue to feed anything on... (we can argue this comes down to programmed logic in each device, and this is somewhat the truth, but belies that there is a difference in the design intent for both products- the budget part simply has to do a thing (and not necessarily well), whereas the premium part will be held up to the light and ‘inspected’ for perfection. (It had better give it!).
Being happy with forming an output wavelength is different to outputting a great wavelength that matches what was recorded in the studio.
Buying the minimum to deliver something better than ‘entry level’ is the best value proposition I could state. Everyone WANTS to upgrade from entry level cwap that any parts you buy ‘better than mainstream/mass market’ will have a resale value due to others wanting to try out ‘better’. (one mans’ trash is anothers’ treasure)
And that is how the market lies-
All those BUDGET ‘five star’ reviews. They are five star, sure, but they are generally ‘five star’ at the budget/entry level (cough TRASH cough).
I find most ‘five star’ kit that I buy (from budget sector) unlistenable. Even with breakin. Even with great cables. Even with a bottle of wine....
So not all DAPs are created equal. Five star rated ‘entry level’ DAPs are built to ‘do everything’.
Getting back to that Activo CT10- its DAC board (circuit) is solid, and the output that gets to the amplifier is pretty incredible. Is it the best budget DAP I have ever heard? (probably...)
but it isn’t a ‘do everything’ device, has a lot of ‘jank’ that would make many pass over it.
So if we ‘widen‘ our budget by a little bit, what do we get....(?)
Can be a range of things and will depend on the direction that the end user wants to go in as to which they focus on...
High end DAPs seem to not know where to spend their Bill of Materials to net ‘improved sound’, so we are seeing multiple units on the market that offer dual circuits/pathways for ‘tailoring’ the sound. (like differing schools of DAC chips or a valve in line) This is nifty and if a person lived from ‘one box to rule them all’ (and had the budget to burn) then these ‘novelty’ features might prove incredible and a ‘reason to upgrade’.
For the rest of us there is the second hand market that is filled with a plethora of pricepoints and may be filled with technology that can outpunch modern ‘junk-fi’ (parts built to be cheap and have a specification sheet that reads well).
I’d take a Questyle QP1R over every other DAP (any day) if I needed a transport of high quality. Feeding digital out to an external DAC is this little boxs’ trick. It has no radios or any aspect of its build that compromises straight two channel sound. We could even argue that for driving sensitive In Ears - the ‘current mode’ amplification method might give it an edge over other DAPs as a ‘one box’ hifi affair.
Sadly ‘in the modern world’ the QP1R doesn’t have a home or ‘place’- majority of audiolovers do not know how ESSENTIAL a transport is to the notion of good sound playback.
Remember ‘spec sheets’ were practical until around twenty (something) years ago when manufacturers started to tailor builds to make the numbers ‘look good’. Now it is a science unto itself; where a manufacturer targets an arbitrary set of numbers, often killing good sound to net a few more ‘pico‘ points of uselessness that make the part ‘compare well in a statistical table’.
Show me the metric that correlates the delta in sound pressure given from EACH band member in a rock band.(?)
I can read signal to noise ratio; but that doesn’t cover the subtle wrist movements from a thirty year practiced flute-ist whose trained breathe work exacts change on the output pitch/performance, but would not even measure 0.1dB on any graph (anywhere). The science of the equipments ‘numbers’ is archaic and all to often misses their ‘reason for being’.
In the mid nineties I found that each time I ‘downgraded’ my hifi (to worse spec sheet numbers) the massive quality improvement was a wonder to me how it couldn’t be quantified.
By the spec sheet I ‘three times in a row’ bought ‘less spec’ (and outlayed many times more money to do so..) and each time I did the ‘spec sheet downgrade’, believing instead in other aspects of the equiment and its end goal to deliver- the more I went from ‘mass market’ the closer I filled my room with sound that was becoming lifelike. (And this was a decade before I discovered CDplayer transport quality and ‘valves’)
So ‘spec sheet’ warfare: It is an odd battle!
Either build something that does everything and cover the box with patent licenses and ‘features’, or build something well and let it stand on its’ own merit.
The first wins out everytime, mostly because ‘little johnny internet warriors that want to convince everyone how their $200 tech is equal (or better) than stuff five to ten times the cost’. And if it isn’t for the misrepresentation (on the net) that a certain demographic bring, it doesn’t help when the audifool zealots (like myself) do blanket statements like ‘you just haven’t got the ear training to tell’ (or ‘equipment to tell’ etc). The zealots get tired of having the same arguments day in day out, and ‘on all fronts’ (still have to argue with the neophytes that haven’t discovered that amps are for more than just volume or what difference a cable brings (ironic that a USB cable makes more value proposition (for improving sound) than majority of other cables out there- but that is a ‘discussion’ best saved for a thread where people can argue SCIENCE (0s and 1s/‘digital’) against real world (0s and 1s are transported as a WAVELENGTH). (never let the facts get in the way of a ‘good story’).
Regarding spec sheet warfare; most manufacurers simply want to stay in business, which means they need to sell product. In order to sell product it has to be ‘attractive to buy’ (either brings happiness or is a ‘solution’ to a problem). Manufacturers tailor spec sheets cause it nets sales (and interest). They will continue to do so whilst ever we consumers, as yellow belts, continue to buy based on the aforementioned reasons (spec sheet numbers).
To be fair it is hard to sell a ‘wax lyrical of poetry‘ vs ‘cold hard numbers’. Numbers anyone can understand. big is better, unless it is golf, OR, the person at the audio store said to ‘aim for small numbers’ with these metrics....
Problem is ‘some of the small numbers’ are beyond human acuity to appreciate. Improving them might make the part more scientifically ‘accurate’, but does not ensure more musical or pleasing.. (often it is the exact opposite).
So a second hand part, initially built for ‘best/pure sound’ will probably be an untouchable value proposition. If you can do without MQA or some other metric that pushes the industry ‘forward/off a cliff’, then (just like forgoing HDMI on surround receivers) you can net a flagship device for peanuts that will hugely outpunch the price to performance ratio ‘norm’.
BASICS/ “Common misperception” (DAC chip vs circuit)
DAC chip has a white doc that lists the SPECIFICATIONS of the chip. These white docs will state what the capabilities are of the part ‘in a basic arrangement’.
Seldom will the chip net those ‘specs’ /results in an implemented CIRCUIT.
Some white sheets go to length to explain how the DAC chip needs be at 90 degrees orientation on the circuit board to (insert other bits here).. They will list the playback capability at different sampling rates (generally not the best numbers at ‘the top sample rate’, but come back a little from the top and the part looks to perform better. And then there are other methods for implementing a chip (outboard HDCD filter/decoder, ’multiple’ chips/multiple chips ‘per channel’, configing a specific chip to be used in a ‘non standard’ way..).
This is where things get tricky-
some manufacturers have such practice with a particular chip that they would be MAD to ‘give it up’. There are so many ways to improve the ‘white doc “spec sheet” ‘ numbers by creative implementations that the white doc spec sheet (whose numbers seldom are ‘real world’ in an IMPLEMENTED CIRCUIT) are worth ‘very little’ to anyone who cares to read them...
Again these numbers give little meaning to any notion of musicality. (I have never seen a live show with 140dB peaks, nor have I seen much electrical equipment DELIVER more than 21.5bit of sound ‘quality’. (Electrical implementations generally limit all equipment to <22bit capability))
‘DAC’ as refered to by many long time head-fi’ers; is the circuit/implementation.
Getting the circuit right is so important that many manufacturers opt for a ‘lesser’ DAC chip so they can allocate proper BoM/funds to the reciprocal aspects, like the power delivery for ‘said circuit’.
In the recent few years manufacturers had to make decisions such as: Sabre had higher accesory circuit costs that made using a ‘lesser dac’ (eg non sabre) and ADDING the better accessory circuit ‘the norm’.. (the TOTAL CIRCUIT is THAT significant, and manufacturers sagely opt for what makes better sound (hopefully)). Now that the alternatives (eg AKM 4499) also require said cost spread (now on current mode amplification/‘high power output’), the option to use ‘highly rated’ (consumers eyes) built for ‘spec sheet warfare’ parts is back on again.. (now that the lesser AKM chips that removed need for expensive outboard power design are GONE)..
So getting back to the OP-
The DAC chip in that ASUS phone might be a great DAC chip. But it is still ‘in a phone’. (best DAC chip on the planet running inside a laptop would be a ‘hard pass’ from me as well- I’ve been building PCs for more than three decades- hopefully the DAP a person uses can double as an external DAC for their PC sound
). Circuits that are built to be small and ‘do everything’ are happy to shoehorn the chips onboard to any method that allows them to work. A dedicated ‘audio first’ DAP has multilayer circuit boards that run signals at 90 degree angles to minimise interference etc with other circuit flows. Board layout gives utmost attention to EVERYTHING that aids high quality audio output. People MIGHT buy a laptop (or phone) based on a chip that is inside of them.. a music player(?): needs to prove itself in review circles. That audio player better deliver something ‘better’. (entry level DAPs usually offer functionality only as no one needs to compete regarding sound quality in this bracket)
So what is a DAP that isn’t in a phone?
This is the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the question- the real ‘why bother’(?) of it all...
Digital Audio Players are purpose built to do a task. To that end every design intent revolves around some core strategy to output high quality sound.
No aspect of phone design is to this end goal. (yes i have acknolwedged that SOME PHONES did attempt to be a DAP as well (eg the Sony z3 was it?))
One of the most important parts of a modern world ‘hifi‘ system is passing digital.
To pass digital well requires a few things done right.
Fortuantely a DAP that is the DAC and the AMPLIFIER combined negates the need to transport 0s and 1s offboard (no cables are needed, no ‘handshaking’ either), and nulls some problems before they can prove of concern.
A decent transport pushes 0s and 1s in a way that is reliable. A large part of this is the ‘clocks’ involved.
Truly high end kit allow using external clocks between the transport and the DAC. I have upgraded my clock chips previously and am familiar with the benefits of running world class (reference) transports and NICE DACs. (and the importance of the clocking to said playback)
Getting the clocks right is the one area that a (DECENT) DAP can seriously FLOG any and every phone that has ever been built (in terms of audio tranport duties).. (making phone calls is an area that EVERY phone ever built seriously flogs all DAPs!)
Clocks. 44khz sampling rate (eg Compact Disc) and its’ multiples: 88khz,176khz etc generally benefit from having their own isolated clock chip. Not every device does so, as the TOP FREQUENCIES are all multiples of 48khz (DVD), being 96khz and 192khz etc.. and are arguably ‘more’ than the base rate, so ‘can probably handle’ wrapping the lesser rates, yes?
To save money many manufacturers like to use one clock and have it handle BOTH branches of sampling rate.
Generally when a product does use ’only one clock’ it will purport to how bruteforce that clock can be (ie it is operating at such a high rate that it can easily adjust to one branch or the other and be ‘good enough’): “Femto clock”
I can’t give any ‘rule’ for choosing clock design/implementation.. sure asymetrical USB ‘bypasses’ the need of quality up front clocking; what I do know is that having dual clock chips is a good thing AND having Femto clock accuracy is ‘a good thing’. Surely having dual femto clocks would be ‘ultimate’
So why such a longwinded message to write and reiterate facts that the OP no doubt knows and introduce *potentially* one facet that may be new? (clocking)
- because it is important to qualify why any of this MIGHT matter.
If I was ‘starting over’ and was building an entire chain from scratch- with hindsight for what works and ‘what doesn’t‘ AND in terms of netting ‘best bang for buck’; I would simply state -
FIND YOURSELF A USED FiiO M11+
I have never heard a transport cost so little and get so much right.
To be fair I have bought multiple Questyle QP1Rs, and the most expensive one (new at retail) cost less than the M11+..
but the QP1R is OLD! it is slow and antiquated/sluggish. It has no radios and therefore lacks support for much that is MODERN.
The QP1R
is an exceptional transport and WILL deliver sound quality that is a jump up from most everything below it... (It IS a good buy, from a ‘sound quality’ is everything perspective)
Whereas the M11+ will do all modern streaming (runs a modern android OS, which has been heavily modded to remove the operating system ‘built in’/defacto “sample rate conversion” etc), can install most modern apps, has re-eq, has ‘convert to DSD’ (on the fly) (a way to bypass cheap PCM filters/get that ‘smooth’ sound), and for all the brilliant things that are standard to DAPs- it also has shielding over internal components (from outside AND each other), has clever placement of antenna (to avoid audio issues), has multiple power taps to requisite circuit areas and allows a very isolated ‘dual output’ design. (either true balanced output, or clean methods for Single Ended..)
The fact that is uses a top tier AKM DAC chip (x2, one for each channel), which is only bettered by one chip -that chip ‘diehards’ state is basically just more power capability (vs the noticable sound improvements that they experienced going from 4490=>4493=>4497)..
The included 4497s have a musical sound to them (not all implemented DACs do); whether that be the THX amp modules or ‘whatever’; the voodoo of this little ‘one box to rule them all’ affair is brilliant.
I’d take it over the M17 or M15 (money where mouth is; I did!)
Right now, using the M11+ into EVERYTHING in the house (I bought it as a transport only, mostly to feed into an iFi Diablo for power hungry full sized headphones.. or for bluetooth duties)
What the M11+ does as a transport is CRAZY (for this budget outlay).
My bluetooth devices sound significantly better.
This isn’t just ‘using a better CODEC’ etc; this is what happens when 0s and 1s are read and transported CORRECTLY (a hard task that ‘error correction’ mostly makes right, in most ‘mass market cwap’).
I learned a lesson regarding transport quality a few years ago.. I had had this lesson multiple times in life (having often bought flagship parts); better/more costly parts ‘do a better job’. Sure- we can believe that, but it is nice to also EXPERIENCE this assumption first hand..
A NETGEAR ‘digital entertainer elite’ (hifi component) put out such a clean TOSLINK feed that surround sound had MUCH BETTER PLACEMENT and imaging. (running the same files from a range of other devices just didn’t sound as good and is why I have a $500 sound card in the PC for simply outputting ‘toslink’)
I had experienced this previously when comparing a midrange HD DVD, vs a midrange bluray player- what Toshiba were giving away with HDDVD format was A BARGAIN. Watching movies from the better transport (for sound) was so substantially better that going without modern picture upsampling or whatever the alternative player may have offered ‘was easy’. (playing an old DVD on both; have also seen this running dolby digital (lossy) sounding better on flagship amps than dolby true HD on consumer cwap)
The third reference to ‘transport quality’ I can easily think of is the TOSLINK outputs on modern TVs - the flagship TVs always seem to yield a vastly better surround feed.
again; I have been a ‘pro installer’/ have qualifications and enough ‘know how’ to ensure we are not talking different CODECs or ‘some variance’.
All things being equal, a better TRANSPORT is so essential to hearing quality differences between kit (and recordings) that it should be on the must buy list for people who are trying to build ‘reference’ sound.
My NEED for the M11+ (DAP as a transport) came about after playing with firmwares on an iFi Diablo, the ‘GTO filter’ only worked on the USB input of the Diablo DAC/amp..
I had to go from feeding TOSLINK (eg from the Questyle/CD player/PC etc) to using USB.
Having a ‘few phones’ to toy with; I found that using a combination of specific android software and ‘good hardware’ could only go ‘so far’.
The immediate take away was: the best phone, tweaked to an inch of its’ life, couldn’t touch an entry level DAP for digital transport duty. (or IT COULD TOUCH IT- it was EQUAL AT BEST (to sound not worth bothering to put effort into achieving (no one should have to work this hard for this little))).
With the Samsung Fold (series), using ‘HF Player’ software (from Onkyo) I could skip androids sample rate conversion. (I could also on the fly convert to DSD and other upsampling options)
Tweaking a metric tonne of Android and Samsung settings I could nearly get the phone to a ‘base level’ or reliance.
I ran the same software from various Samsung Notes, and without doing all the system tweaks (stuff like turning off ‘swipe hand over screen for screen grab’ to ‘flip phone over to ignore call’ to ‘double tap screen to wake’) the sound quality was below ‘average’ (in my eyes (ears?)). All the phone features required small power draw to a tonne of sensors and chips and even things like the screen digitizer being active was affecting DIGITAL output quality. (makes sense to many who have owned a CD player with a defeatable screen)
With the highly tweaked Samsung Fold, a phone that has dual batteries and MIGHT have better than average power supply setup (although I doubt it), the phone was equal to an entry level DAP (at best).
I still had to constantly fight Android over who owns the device. (I factor my time as more important and the device SHOULD serve me, although Google disagree with this; fair cause they did give us free Operating systems for over a decade- (Time to recoup costs!!))
Moving to a DAP gives the other benefit of freeing up a phone to be a phone (incoming call doesn’t take the music from the room)(battery life increases noticably), and most importantly - being able to run a meditation audio track without having to take my phone ‘off air‘ to try to enforce ‘no interruption’.
Now the M11+ is SOLD OUT.
It is the cheapest DAP I know of with dual femto second clocks.
This is $3000 worth of transport for ‘peanuts price point’ (in a market where bang to buck drops off quickly, in raw value, above $500 price points)
I believe many ‘flavour of the moment’ types (Who constantly move on to ‘the next big thing’) will happily sell an m11+ on (probably due to the ‘spec sheet on a new unit‘ about to release).
A few prefer the sound from ‘other boxes’ at similar price points, and when we look at what a few of these people describe; they mostly acknowledge the detail levels that can be retrieved on the M11+ ..
As an amp it wouldn’t be as good as the (sony) PHA3 or the (iFi) Diablo when driving large driver unit headphones. (that yield benefits of doubled slew rates that ‘going balanced’ give towards driver control) (so the benefits of these big external amps is not necessary for IEMs)
An
M11+
As a transport it nets me low notes I haven’t heard even through the Diablo (until I feed it into the Diablo)
As a transport it plays back nuances in music that I simply go without most of the time.
As a transport it basically makes delta sigma DACs sound so close to ‘cheap ladder’ DACs that it is crazy good value.
(Oh and ‘as a transport’ if you feed it into better kit it will always yield more detail/info from that kit, so it is the gift that keeps on giving)
A good DAP doesn’t need replacing -generally whatever you buy it for, it ‘can do’. Meaning: years from now it should still ‘do it’.
That Questyle QP1R ain’t ever going to be sold by me.. (the equivalent transport is too costly, and good front end/‘transport’ duties are ALWAYS NEEDED)
I do believe that any money invested in a great DAP will net years of enjoyment, and likely a good resale value if it was a costly part...
but I would definitely go ‘second hand’ high end territory so as to make those great IEMs sing to their best.
Won’t make one iota of difference when in busy public places (eg public tranport) or casually listening.. (unless you attune to what better transports can do, at which point even bluetooth on public transport can shine glimmers of improvement when we are familiar with whats’ in the mix, and what is newly found (due to transport pickup/quality).)
Right now I am listening to Floyd songs performed by the London Philharmonic- I have heard this album MANY times before. Even on the Diablo DAC/amp...
Right now, having changed SOURCE DEVICES (to a midmarket DAP), the clock improvements are so noticeable that it is ‘very improved’. I am getting whole layers of ’more instruments’, better placement and (on other recordings) backing vocals that are clear to hear ‘every word’ (on tracks that for decades I have strained to hear)..
Oh and a heart beat note that makes me feel like I upgraded my 2700Watt Sunfire Subwoofer. (not sure what I would have upgraded it to, given it already sits at the lowest point on its‘ volume dial) The enhanced bass note running through a familiar DAC, is simply because the DAP is
TRANSPORTING a more accurate read of the source digital data. (‘Try it’, ‘you might like it’!)
A clock chip might just be the difference between a phone and ‘a good source’.
So -’in a nutshell’ - YES, A DAP WILL NET A BETTER SOUND.
How far you are willing to go, is up to you...
But my feedback is the higher up the ladder you can buy (don’t be afraid of second hand) the better your source becomes, the more those IEMs can realise their capability.
The day I put some Audeze Sines on a Quetyle QP1R & Chord Hugo (combo) I was in tears. I didn’t know that recorded music could sound THAT GOOD.
For many moons prior to hearing that pairing, both bits sat seperate to each other and I was oblivious to what could be heard.
Holding back high end kit (eg those nice IEMS) with poor parts is fine - so long as you are not reviewing anything nor believe that the ‘buds’ are SOUNDING THEIR BEST.
Whether that last 10% (or 30% if my rave implies anything) actually matters is a choice of coin and budgeting (obviously we would all have the ’BEST’ if cost was no objection)
If I had to get by on a super budget (and determined that using a phone as a transport was my only/best option); then spend a few dollars on some android software that might improve output cabability (eg avoiding Sample Rate Conversion) & buy a nice DAC/amp. It will not deliver anything that will beat a dedicated DAP (even with time investment to squeeze the most from it). Phones are a jack of all trades device that have added extra aspects and generally only come down in price (until around 2017 when they shot up in price and went down in build cost).
(buying a phone) feels to me like you are spreading your investment in many ways that wouldn’t net pure sound, so I’d argue is more costly/less efficient use of funds.
Again: those IEMs are ‘low powered’ so it sounds like a nice transport and DAC are where the lionshare should go.
A mid tier DAP is certainly going to have power to burn/power to spare when powering such ’small transducers’.. whether it sounds good or not might come down to other aspects. (not necessarily file quality or whether it is bluetooth xfer’d)
Bluetooth to and from the M11+ is a step up than any other devices. Digital conversion done right, even on a poor quality source or file, will sound incredible. (incredibly bad too.. but delivered so perfectly bad that you will instantly know it is the ‘badest’ you have ever heard it
)
A good DAP is the gift that keeps on giving (even for uses that you may not have thought about), and when you are done with it- give it to a nephew/niece or ‘loved one’ that might be setting out on a journey (without the budget or knowledge to know where to start).
My child began with a good set of cans and has enjoyed trialing many DACs/ amps along the way.
They don’t use the CT10 (much) and will often ‘borrow’ the QP1R (“I can hear more of everything!!”)
The M11+ is just about on permanent rotation between home duties -feeding the Proceed Preamp/hifi, playing back multimedia, streaming, and feeding whether digitally or via analogue a range of stereo systems.
Or else it is in a bag ‘out and about’ with me,.. or resting in the car (hidden from the sun)..
If I had to start from scratch the M11+ DAP would be my default ‘go to’.
If only for those ‘dual femtosecond clocks’ and design built with consideration to shielding, isolation and ultimately SOUND QUALITY.
Those Sony IEMs are a good investment and will make hearing differences between source files on a low end piece of kit a possibility. Low end kit does make noticing differences often subtle or ’hard’ requiring
ear training. Good kit makes the playback differences night/day.
So either save ye coin now, and enjoy the benefits that those IEMs may additionally offer down the track when you can buy the appropriate (matching) kit, or ‘go hard’ and be done!
By ‘going hard’ I mean to potentially go without the phone upgrade it SOUNDS like you want (ideal being that ‘transports are all equal’) OR listen to a random stranger give SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES and OPINION and ‘buy into the hype’.
(either way-) Good luck!
Make sure any advice you care to follow is in alignment with your goals. eg I am working from perspective that reference sound (including warts) is the goal, whereas most musicians swear by Chord gear (it homogensies all sound to be ‘pleasant’). Listening between an iFi Diablo vs Chord Hugo was one of those ’interesting’ hifi crossroads where we had to make a decision.
(We typically air on the side of clinical reference sound in front end kit, with ’sound tailoring’ using the speakers (headphones)). Many paths to the summit.....
hey if you went the effort to read that- then you have my services via PM anytime
Cheers
