$3,000+?! I hope it gives you surprise reach arounds too? I guess if you are rich or like piling on your credit card bills, to each his own, but $3,000 for a DAP? for me....PASS.
The trick here is to keep stuff long term. I purchased my WM1Z for $3200 on November 7th 2017, and it is still good? If anyone would have told me I would still like it almost 8 years later I would have not believed them. It comes out to $375 a year, roughly.
WARNING:
Let me just put this photo here. This is what can happen if the obsession takes over. And no this is not AI, this photo is from April of 2018. AI wouldn’t get the details or knobs correct.
The trick here is to keep stuff long term. I purchased my WM1Z for $3200 on November 7th 2017, and it is still good? If anyone would have told me I would still like it almost 8 years later I would have not believed them. It comes out to $375 a year, roughly.
And you can sell your 1Z for close to $1,000 to further reduce the cost. Of course, it's a rabbit hole, you need to find a newer DAP as a replacement, probably cost you another $3k . You can also wait for one year and buy your stuff second-hand so that your total ownership cost will be further reduced.
And you can sell your 1Z for close to $1,000 to further reduce the cost. Of course, it's a rabbit hole, you need to find a newer DAP as a replacement, probably cost you another $3k . You can also wait for one year and buy your stuff second-hand so that your total ownership cost will be further reduced.
Well, a lot of this hobby is getting the new car smell, in a new toy. You can’t argue the fun factor there. And truly I can’t argue that is a pleasure to those that can (afford to) continue to get new DAPs......especially to investigate the curiosity at hand. But the other thing is I need a certain sound and have to be close to my gear to understand the DAP ramifications upon the new IEM test-subject. So in a way I don’t care how old my gear is, as long as it sounds good.
Bought them a few years ago for about $25.00, and sold them. No bass and the stage is small. My RE00 smash them in pretty much all ways, so I kept those, and dumped the RE400
I have a hunch that you can get the same if not better sound from a good desktop stack that is $1000 or less. After all, squeezing things into a small box and preventing it from exploding is kinda expensive.
As I sometimes mentioned, don’t buy DAP with expectation of improving the gear that you currently have. The expectations you build up due to the price tag and the flowery image that others (myself included) describes would never be met by the actual performance, no matter how good that performance is. Highend DAP also has the worst price/performance because they don’t have economy of scale, and they tend to have lots of R&D costs, which you bear. I guess what delights me is “really? My same IEM can sound even better than how it usually sounds?” That difference that is so rare to see at the level of gear I have (not the most TOTL, for sure) that it is kinda mindblowing.
I can’t understand some folks in the other thread who borrow money (credit card, mortgage, whatever) to buy audio gear. To me, save up and buy what I can without debt. But if I have a chunk of money, I want this giant brick of a DAP.
So true, my desktop rig (around 1000usd) been my goto for critical listening, and most DAPs dont have the same quality. Specially when you use harder to drive stuff like earbuds or headphones, but for me being able to get the same quality sound with R8 II make it worth it. Could have wished for a little more power for headphones, but I dont see any reason to use my 600ohm Beyerdynamic on the go. And when the R8 II can drive my 300ohm earbud without loosing its dynamics I'm more than happy.
What is worth something is also very different from person to person, very understandable people dont want to use a lot of money on a DAP when you can get seriously good sound from a cheap dongle.
I am also one who would never take up depth to buy, I usually save up or sell something beforehand.
I met a local audiophile recently, he bought a 2nd cheapish smartphone, and paired a midFI dongle (Questyle M15) with it, in lieu of a DAP. He still has his first phone for calls and work, so he got this 2nd cheap phone for music purely. He got rid of his DAPs after that.
So, it turns out this combination is cheaper than a higher end DAP, but the phone still keeps the streaming/BT functions. After all, the limiting factors of a dongle+phone combination are the drainage of battery life, and the lack of memory space (for phones without SD card slots, lossless files can eat up the memory pronto). So a 2nd phone fixes these issues, and instead of carrying a DAP around, this guy just packs a 2nd phone along for the ride.
Only thing, is the dongle dangles off the phone, and might cause wear and tear over time, but this is an option for sure.
I met a local audiophile recently, he bought a 2nd cheapish smartphone, and paired a midFI dongle (Questyle M15) with it, in lieu of a DAP. He still has his first phone for calls and work, so he got this 2nd cheap phone for music purely. He got rid of his DAPs after that.
So, it turns out this combination is cheaper than a higher end DAP, but the phone still keeps the streaming/BT functions. After all, the limiting factors of a dongle+phone combination are the drainage of battery life, and the lack of memory space (for phones without SD card slots, lossless files can eat up the memory pronto). So a 2nd phone fixes these issues, and instead of carrying a DAP around, this guy just packs a 2nd phone along for the ride.
Only thing, is the dongle dangles off the phone, and might cause wear and tear over time, but this is an option for sure.
I met a local audiophile recently, he bought a 2nd cheapish smartphone, and paired a midFI dongle (Questyle M15) with it, in lieu of a DAP. He still has his first phone for calls and work, so he got this 2nd cheap phone for music purely. He got rid of his DAPs after that.
So, it turns out this combination is cheaper than a higher end DAP, but the phone still keeps the streaming/BT functions. After all, the limiting factors of a dongle+phone combination are the drainage of battery life, and the lack of memory space (for phones without SD card slots, lossless files can eat up the memory pronto). So a 2nd phone fixes these issues, and instead of carrying a DAP around, this guy just packs a 2nd phone along for the ride.
Only thing, is the dongle dangles off the phone, and might cause wear and tear over time, but this is an option for sure.
yeah, I also did that in the past. Absolutely hate every moment of having to pocket that tangly mess of cables and trying to control playback Now I just use TWS earhooks. The R3II is more like a transportable use case.
I haven’t heard the Questyle, but to my ears, with my limited sample, none of the dongle can give me what I expect when listening to large orchestral pieces comparing to a battery powered amp. Given that FiiO is also giving up on the external DAC amp sector to focus on dongle, I guess I'm ignorant when it comes to the performance of the current gen dongles.
I just said I didn’t need more sets but this one speaks to me on some sort of primal level I don’t quite understand… had some birthday funds that needed allocating so eff it, Kinera Dark Phoenix on the way.
I gave up struggling with dongles because I like EQ and the way it works right now - through software - is only okay for lower bitrate music.
Then I got truly interested about Moondrop DSP, but lost it fast. It seems they are still baby steps to implement PEQ through DSP decently. Engine 4 stays the champ for features and convenience and I think I wasted too much time and money understimating TWS. Even if its a product tied to its battery life cycle, I think its a bearable downside. The sound is better than I imagined and I stopped buying dongles, cables and IEMs for a while, focusing only on eartips.
But I still watching for when the DSP gets improvements
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
. You can also wait for one year and buy your stuff second-hand so that your total ownership cost will be further reduced.
Now I just use TWS earhooks. The R3II is more like a transportable use case.
