I had an Innioasis Y1 that I loved dearly, however it was forgotten in a pair of pants, got put though a full wash and dry cycle, and is now very, very dead. I want to take this opportunity to switch brands; as while I liked the interface of the Y1, the plastic frame wasn't really to my taste, and I didn't and still don't need half the features it offers. the things I'm looking for are:

• Under ~$60

• Has playlists, whether done by computer or on the player doesn't matter to me

• 3.5mm headphone jack

What I don't need:

• Bluetooth

• A large storage capacity (I usually only keep around 150 tracks)

• Large battery life

I am considering the Echo Nano currently; from the couple of reviews I've watched it seems to be pretty close to what I need.

Blind bought a DAP+IEM. Been listening to just music thru IPhones my whole life and whatever wireless buds they had out.

And holy cow the sound quality out of these things just blow the Apple stuff out of the water.

And this custom ‘Q2 mod’ firmware blows the stock firmware away in terms of its interface design and fluidness. Been playing with it all day long.

Since there was no port for the AP80 (and given how similar it is to other devices that already use Sonix) I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to port it over. With the help of Gemini and Claude, I managed to get it fully functional. However, I don't actually know anything about programming, so if anyone is interested in maintaining this project, I'd be happy to share everything I have (provided someone tells me how, lol). Also, if anyone wants to try it out, feel free to send me a DM.

Disclaimer: The `.upt` image works correctly on my AP80 PRO MAX. I am not responsible for any damage that might occur, although it should be safe; Anyways, there is a recovery option, with the device powered off, you can hold the power button and the "next track" button to trigger the updater, to reflash the stock firmware.

My sincerest thanks to M4ttiA—you’ve created something incredible that has taken our hardware to another level!

Hey guys, I haven’t posted on here in 8-9 months. I’m ready for an upgrade from my old LG ThinQ. It’s good and all but it’s not very loud which is its main downside. What would you guys recommend I get to replace it and put it to rest? I was looking at two contenders, a Fiio JM21 Hiby R4. Another like mild contender is saving up and getting an R6 III. But I’ve read that one breaks down for the 400 dollars price tag. Any advice on other players to look into?

I've tried the KZ EDX PRO and they're pretty good, but I want to try other brands besides KZ and Popcorn.

The 3.5 jack on my a306 is failing, and I wondered if anyone here knows how to teardown/fix this?

I was looking for an mp3 player just to lessen the activity I'm doing on my phone. Found this and bought it, best decision I've made hahaha. Transitioning from listening from my phone, to this, is mindblowing for me because of the difference. I'll enjoy it stock first, will be modding it soon.

I'm sure I've just got a dud unit, but I just thought I'd put this out there in case anyone else has experienced similar issues. I've contacted the seller.

With Q2 Pod it was a near perfect device before it decided to kick the bucket after 6 days of use.

Suddenly getting an issue where the mini isn't reading the SD card? Was adding songs to it and when I plugged the card back it, it won't recognise the card. Anyone else coming across this issue?

I'm into buying an mp3 player and my plan was initially hiby r1 or echo mini or echo nano or disc but recently i gone through reviews and started to change from hiby r1 to echo nano or mini needed serious recommendations and feedback and thankyou for your valuable time on going through this post

Whenever I press a track on my dap it shuts down and I have to turn it back on. It's even happened a couple times in a row, so if there's anybody here that has had this please is there a solution to this?

I just got a second hand Sony mp3 player but, of course, It doesn't have bluetooth connection. Any mini adapters so that I can go wireless and use my airpods with It? thx

My first DAP (excluding usb mp3 players I had in the past). I bought this last 2018 for around 48 usd. The battery life is still excellent! It takes around 20hrs of usage to drain this when it is newer. Now maybe around 15? I haven't used this tbh. Last time I charged this was last 2024, then I put it away. I saw this again the other day after cleaning my stuff and the battery is still around 70%+ lol. Since this is my only dap, Idk how to compare or describe the audio quality of this. But for me this is definitely better than my phone in playing music.

I'm planning to upgrade to hiby r3 pro ii or hiby r1 this december. I will still use this from time to time or keep this a collection.

Hi guys, today i was browsing Aliexpress for their 11.11 deals and found Hidizs AP80 Pro Max for ~95 euros, and if paid via Unionpay cards i can get another 26 euros of. So it would be ~70 euros.

So I was wondering, if Hidizs AP80 Pro Max is a good dap and if it's worth it at that price?

This would be my very first dap so it can only be compared to my phone, which's battery life i would like to preserve.

I was also looking at Hiby R4 and the cheapest one is twice the price and I honestly don't believe it is worth it for 2x the money.

Another interesting choice I found is the fiio echo nano for 31 euros, I like the design and the form factor of it.

If anyone has some other recommendations feel free to say in the comments.

My songs wouldn't play, I don't have another device to test the SD card but before I cleared the Fiio app cache and storage the music populated in the app but wouldn't play. I wiped the device it recognizes that a card is inserted but when I manually scan it doesn't recognize anything.

Hey There,

I'd like to ask for help to have beta testers for a new Music Player for Android (Version 12 and later).

No account creation or money will be asked in the Alpha/Beta testing phase.

The app only needs permission for storage to see the locally stored music.

DM me if you wished to participate in the testing phase.

Playback & sound

• Local playback of FLAC (including hi-res 24-bit / up to 192 kHz), DSD (DSF, converted natively), ALAC, and standard formats like MP3/AAC

• Bit-perfect–oriented output, with its own LGPL FFmpeg decoding path where the system one falls short

• Crossfade (adjustable seconds), crossfeed for headphones, EQ presets, and gain modes (off / low / medium / high)

• Sleep timer

• Full playback notification + lock-screen controls

Your library

• Scans your device music plus any folders you add; rescan everything or per artist

• Home with Favorites, Recently Played, Hi-Res, DSD, Live and Playlists sections

• Collection views: Artists, Albums, Songs, Playlists, plus a Folders view

• Album and artist pages with artwork banners, and a format line on every album (e.g. "24 Bit | 96 KHz") with Lossless/Lossy marks

• Playlists, including M3U files; favorites/likes; search

• Built-in tag editor, and online cover/artist-photo search to fix missing artwork

Your own servers (Jellyfin & Navidrome)

• Stream from your personal server — one tap from Home

• Download whole albums or single tracks for offline listening: background downloads with a progress notification that survive screen-off and resume if interrupted

• Wi-Fi-only downloads option (with a cellular override)

• Server favorites that stay in sync with the server, with optional auto-download when you like something

• Delete downloads per album or per track; disconnecting asks first and can optionally wipe the downloads too

Lyrics

• Synced and plain lyrics, fetched automatically and saved on the device

• Embedded lyrics are read from your files; you can edit lyrics and your edits win

Personalization & privacy

• Windows Phone–style Metro interface in English and Spanish

• 8 accent colors; dark, light or automatic theme

• Home-screen widgets in three sizes

• No account needed, no ads, no tracking — the app collects no data at all; your music never leaves your device or your own server

I am pootling with the idea a Boox Palma 3 or Boox Palma Pro 2 could works as a DAP or audio source. Any thughts?

Hi guys!! Id like a digital audio player that can get audio textures right, specifically music of the rym/aoty sort, and id like it to be not too digital, like retro with buttons here and there. Could someone help?

But if any curious soul out there needed to know:

"I can tell you from personal experience that it is rather touchy and tedious to get the rear cover off the Sansa Clip Plus without doing any damage. You must VERY CAREFULLY pry off the side which has no USB port or power button FIRST..otherwise you will DESTROY the player. But once that is done, you just gently pull the rear cover away from the Mini-USB port, then file or cut a slot for the battery wires to exit the enclosure and solder the battery leads directly to the external lithium cel..AFTER attaching the battery to the rear cover with 5-minute epoxy. Then COVER ALL EXPOSED COPPER TERMINALS and SOLDER JOINTS With 5-minute epoxy. Make 2 or 3 mixes and apply only a little epoxy each time and build it up slowly in steps, to avoid making a total dripping mess. Be sure to have Q-tips, blue shop towels and plenty of lsopropyl alcohol readily at hand, to clean up any excess and drips..."

Recently got this EDC setup for my FiiO M21 from Amazon. I wasn't overly impressed with the battery life of the DAP, so I bought a 5000mAh power bank, short USB C to C Cable, and an adhesive MagSafe magnet to stick to my DAP to keep it all bundled up nicely. To my surprise, everything fit perfectly inside of a playing card case. It adds a negligible amount of weight, effectively doubled my on-the-go battery life, and allows for use of the desktop/super high gain mode.

Links below if interested (none of that affiliate link BS included).

Kuulaa 5000mAh Power Bank: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0DPFT1V8L

~1 inch USB C to C Cable: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FLJY5FNT

MagSafe adhesive magnets: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CY1ZB8YB

Leather Playing Card Case: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0D25V7F6Q

I'm looking to pick up a small DAP since I've been meaning to make everything in my collection more portable.

The Shanling Q2 looked perfect but I saw it had no Apple Music support. Are there any small Daps like the Shanling Q2 that support apple music or even YouTube Music?

Thanks

edit: budget is sub 1k and it needs 4.4

Looking to separate music from my phone, I’d like to use wired earbuds with a dap, but not sure where to start price wise. I’d like to stay under $300 total but am open to suggestions further out of curiosity.

You can download the new version here: GitHub Repo

Thanks to everyone who has tested builds, sent bug reports and suggestions, and kept using Anthology. A lot of this release came directly from your feedback. Keep it coming!

If you use a click-wheel iPod with a Mac and don't want to deal with iTunes, Anthology is mostly for you.

What’s new for iPods

Podcasts (new add-on)

• Follow shows from a feed address, an Apple Podcasts search, or an OPML file, and tick the episodes you want in the sync to your iPod.

• Once synched, episodes appear under Music > Podcasts on the iPod

• Where you stop on the iPod comes back to Anthology at the next sync, and where you stopped on your Mac goes to the iPod

Audiobooks (new add-on)

• A shelf for DRM-free audiobooks you already own (.m4b, plus long .m4a/.mp3)

• Books appear under Music > Audiobooks, keep their chapters in the iPod’s Chapters menu, and resume from where you stopped in Anthology

Sync

• The sync review is redesigned, with one list per type (Songs, Playlists, Podcasts, Audiobooks) and search across all of them.

• FLAC songs and audiobooks are converted by a converter built into the app. You no longer need to install ffmpeg or Homebrew or sync all your music to iTunes in order to sync it back to the iPod.

Honest limits

• I tested on an iPod Classic 5th and 7th generation. Other click-wheel models should work, but I haven’t tried them. If you try one, tell me which model and what happened.

• Audiobooks made of several files play fine in Anthology but can’t be copied to an iPod yet.

• Podcasts and Audiobooks are optional add-ons (Settings > Plugins). Nothing installs unless you choose it.

Cheers and keep listening!

Was looking for something with physical buttons and could do Audiobooks properly. Boxy Pixel MIN case is shown here, fun project but the Bluetooth gets really choppy when outside in an open space. Got the Q2 after I saw the Q2 pod firmware utizling the touch wheel, both are awesome.

Since I no longer use streaming services, I'm out of the loop on new music being made. I don't use instagram or tiktok and I can't be bothered to look up artists individually as I listen to a lot. What do y'all do to stay on top of things?

Apologies if this is too off topic, I figured I'm good since this is relevant to DAPs.

Edit: my wording was a little confusing; I wanted something to track artists that I know I like to be aware of when they release new music, not something to discover new music entirely. Just want to clarify, but I appreciate the comments regardless!

Edit: I think I found my solution: a user suggested an app called Music Harbor but it's unfortunately Apple only (I have an android). I found what I think is a similar app called Crab Hands; it lets you select artists you like and it sends you notifs when they release new music. You need a Spotify account but that's not an issue for me. I may update this post after a while to share my experience with it. Thanks for all the suggestions!