I’m sure there are others beside me that enjoy music OnTheGo. But most people probably use their smartphones.
I have a Pioneer XDP-100R which is basically an Android phone without the phone-part, but with a pretty decent DAC built in instead. (Lollipop OS)
As an Android i have full access to apps such as Tidal, Spotify, Bubble UPnp etc I also have and use Roon on it. This is great as it works really fine and sounds remarkably good. Only issue is i need to manually transfer content to the MicroSD cards for travelling without internet access. And this process is a bit clunky… A traditional file transfer performed on the iMac, but nevertheless a boring operation…
What do you use for travel and how do you populate its library?
And while i’m at it, what kind of head phones?
I use mainly my Hifiman HE-400i and sometimes my old trusty Sony MDR EX90 InEars.
(I do have a Chord Mojo for occasional use but its to much cabling and crap to bring along, not worth the hassle)
On the road I use the Audeze Sine head phone with lightning cable on my iPhone 7. DAC and AMP are integrated in the cable. I have a TIDAL account and use it in offline-modus with my travel playlists. Works fine for me. I also have an Audioquest Dragonfly Red, which is also a great AMP/DAC for mobile use.
I use a sennheiser momentum 2 over-ear headphone, bluetooth connection to my samsung phone. Streaming tidal in standard quality (mp3 I guess). Good enough for on the road.
I’ve got the Pioneer too but mainly use my smartphone with Tidal and Spotify as I can never guarantee that the Pioneer battery won’t have freaked out in the night and be completely drained.
When I do use the Pioneer I use my FLACs but also off-line Tidal for stuff not in my collection and off-line Spotify for new playlists and albums as Spotify knows more about my tastes than I do!
Headphones are Etymotic er4s as they have the best isolation for the trains and London Tube so I don’t have to deafen myself to hear the music.
I use Echobox Explorer at work with eGrado. On the road I use AK380 or Questyle QP1R or the Explorer depends on what I bring. I have JH Roxanne’s v1 and 2, UE7 pros, Sennheiser PXC550, 64audio A8s. I also sometimes use a Leckerton UHA760 DAC/Amp. Heck I have even used my HD800’S on the road, but only in the hotel room so I would not disturb the other travelers. I’ve also bought my UE Boom 2 speakers on some trips.
Started the journey with a Cypher Labs AlgoRythm Solo DAC/ALO audio Mk3 B+ amp connected to an iPod as a player and JH 13 Pro custom-fit IEMs. Good, but not great sound and a pain to load music onto, not to mention limited storage and a very heavy combo. I replaced that with a Chord Mojo (and saved a ton of weight) and upgraded to the custom-fit JH Roxanne with Moon Silver Dragon cables. I recently replaced the Mojo/iPod with the AK1000 and I’m very happy with all aspects of this system. I tried the Onkyo DP-X1 but sold it fairly quickly.
I’m using my Iphone SE with a Dragonfly black when commuting with Shure SE215 or Sony MDR 1a. Because of the impractical minimal output level of the Dragonfly (what is that about?!) and the limited space of my Iphone which forces me to transfer music back and forth every week or so I have considered getting a dedicated DAP. The problem is they seem to be difficult to find in physical stores where I can try out the OS and with more demanding headphones if I ever wanted to use them at home. I had my eyes on the Fio X3 and X5 of the latest generations as well as the Pioneer XDP-30. I’m can’t seem to understand if the latest generation of Fiio X5 have DSD-support though, which would be fun as my collection is growing. And Andriod based as integration with Roon could be very handy!
On the go:
DAP: Sony WM1A.
Headphones: CIEM, HD700. (at home; Sony MDR-Z1R)
DAC: PHA-2A (Don’t use much of it these days since I got wm1a. Dealing with cables and attachments to laptop is a bit of a nuisance especially since Mac Os is constantly resulting in disappearing usb DAC these days.)
Excellent! Seems a lot of people is using their phones, and that is fully logical.
I also use my phone (or iPad) for caching Tidal in offline mode and using in the car.
Interesting to read about peoples choice of headphones!
I use FiiO X5 3rd gen DAP+USB-DAC player together with FiiO F9 balance hybrid armature earphones. It uses a custom modified Android OS that bypass the SRC; so any music app, such as Tidal and Spotify can be play back bit perfect without converting to 48kHz. It also a Hi-Res certified able to playback up to 24/384kHz and up to DSD128 natively.
It also act as a USB-DAC too and I use on my Surface Pro 4 together with Roon.
I ordered one yesterday and hope it will arrive in the beginning of this week! I’ll be happy not have to transfer and switch songs on my iPhone anymore!
I’m very happy with my X5 iii so far. It is not the fastest Android experience I have had but that seems to be the case also with its competitors. After being quite irritated by the fiio music app on 1.1.0 firmware I updated it and all issues were resolved.
My happy travel companion while listening to Avishai Cohens (The trumpeter) latest.
Very nice! While i do enjoy my XDP-100R i am not as amused by the Android OS on it. It does give me the opportunity to run Tidal, Roon etc though so i’ll hang in there!
