The logical next step in your music streaming journey should be to take a look at DAPs if you're interested in keeping your streaming portable. DAP stands for Portable Audio Player and are essentially like iPods on steroids. They're made with premium components, high-end DACs, amplifier circuits, and can handle hi-res local and streaming files and formats with ease. More power, better sound, and having a device solely designated to making your music sound the best it can result in huge gains in fidelity over your smartphone. DAPs can range a lot in price as well, and they can range from around $500 for an older or less powerful model to $3,000 and up. Some of the best brands that we recommend are Astell&Kern, iBasso, and Sony. It’s not just about what they can play, but also how they are designed that makes a DAP outperform a phone or consumer device when it comes to music playback. DAPs by design are typically quite similar to phones, which makes sense because they’re touch screen devices and pretty much every consumer handheld device on the market is designed this way. Rectangular, touch screen, ports, buttons and knobs - it’s in no way a foreign device in itself. It’s designed to be intuitive.
Here’s what you’ll find on most DAPs: a touch screen interface, a built-in headphone amplifier with a selection of ports for your headphones, local and expandable storage options - like a micro SD card, and the real star of the music show - the high-end DAC, or digital-to-analog converter chip or chips. DACs do the heavy lifting of converting your data to an analog signal. Your phone and computer have DACs in them too - basically every consumer device out there that plays music or sound and has speakers has a DAC chip. The only thing is that these factory chips aren’t great and essentially just get the job done. DAPs have high end DAC chips that efficiently and accurately convert your music data to sound the very best it can - oftentimes with the help of the amplifier circuit and other high-end, audiophile-grade components inside the player.
The great thing about digital audio players is that they can handle high-resolution audio streams with efficiency. Playing hi-res files on your iPhone with some Airpods is quite frankly ridiculous because the technology of those Apple products will not yield quality results for high-resolution audio. They do however work in much the same way as a smartphone, so likewise, you'll need to download your streaming apps (or in some cases, they come preinstalled) and press play. An audiophile-quality DAP paired with a nicer pair of headphones will provide a better listening experience all around. DAPs can also act as an access point for an external library. For example, Astell&Kern DAPs have what they call BT Sink - "BT" stands for Bluetooth - and can essentially connect to a device like your phone where you have a music library stored locally, connect via Bluetooth, and stream it through the much better internals of the music player. Why do this? Well, if you don't have the storage space on your DAP or want to supplement your existing library with an external one, then BT Sink is a great option to give you access to even more music. In the end, DAPs are a great first step in upgrading your music from your phone. It's time to get your music back to a standalone playback device like an iPod, just something a little (okay, a LOT) better than your phone.
Getting a DAP, or even just using a portable USB DAC, is taking the next step to better sound, and you can be sure by using one, you’re getting the most out of your streaming experience as well. Take advantage of those higher resolutions and bitrates. If you’re already paying for the high-res service, make sure you’re getting the real high-res listening experience when you’re on-the-go. Next we’ll take a look at desktop streaming options which will give you some more options when it comes to listening to your hi-res music at home.
