Great points and I agree. I use the original Samsung Buds Pro and those sound fantastic using LDAC with my S21.
We live in a great time for portable audio to be able to get this kind of sound and performance out of something we can carry with us everywhere we go. I really only listen to my full size non-bluetooth headphones at home, and usually I am using my SMSL desktop headphone amp for that.
Yes, the SW on the HiBy devices can require careful handling to get around issues. I mainly use USB Audio Player Pro and it seems to work fairly reliably on my R5. I also often use Plexamp for playing my Plex stored FLACs and that also works well most of the time.
My worry with these devices is how long HiBy will continue to support it with OS updates and security patches, not that I use the device for anything sensitive, but it does use my Google account for the app store.
For Bluetooth, I have the original Samsung Buds Pro and the SONY WH900N’s, which I love and using LDAC for the connection, the sound quality is very good. I also just got the Soundcore Liberty 4 NC as my daily use buds for music and Teams calls and I am very impressed with them for the price. They multi-point connect to my phone and my iPad.
It’s probably worthwhile to differentiate between “MP3 Players” and DAPs (Digital Audio Players) that are designed to play high resolution music (mainly FLAC files) through high-end wired headphones. Companies like FiiO and HiBy make these and they sell for $500 and up. I have a HiBy R5 Sabre that has a balanced output for driving my decent Dan Clark Aeon headphones. This all sounds spectacularly good playing high res files or a service like Tidal. It runs on a special version of Android, so you can install apps, etc.
Having said all of that, I do 90% of my portable music listening through bluetooth earbuds driven from my Samsung phone, so not sure the money I invested in my DAP setup has been worth it, and I probably wouldn’t do it again.
Yes, late 50’s US and I drive a 6 speed Jeep daily. Taught my 23 year old son to drive a stick and he just bought a Tacoma stick shift.
I learned on my grandfather’s 3 on the tree 1968 Dodge camper van. If you can drive a 3 on the tree, you can drive anything.
This is a great post - I agree with your take.
10 years overall for me. I still browse some niche subreddits by RSS only and no longer comment or vote.
All of these providers need to cease operating in the UK - it makes no sense to compromise security for the rest of the world just because one country wants to make it easier to spy on citizens.
I’m definitely not disagreeing with you, but Lemmy has grown so large since the original “tankies” started Lemmy.ml that I don’t think it is really an issue for the larger community. I’ve only been here for a month or so but I have not seen many (if any) communistic related posts on the feeds, and if they are trying to spread their leftist messages they are not doing a very good job of it.
I have found Lemmy.world to be the most active platform, so I wanted to help out with server costs, thus the $2 per month. I have also donated to Ernest at Kbin and the Beehaw folks as well. I’m not going back to Reddit, so I want these communities to thrive and feel I need to pitch in the cost of a Latte every month to help out. Having said that, if I ever get the feeling that I am donating to some authoritarian cause I will stop donating immediately.
Just throw $2 a month toward Lemmy on Patreon! Well worth it.
I had one of the old black plastic Walkman cassette players and what a P.O.S. that was. Amazing how far we’ve come 😊