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Does anyone actually use digital audio players?

Does anyone actually use digital audio players?

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Photo: Pioneer

Does anyone use digital audio players? Anybody? Pioneer and Onkyo are both releasing new DAPs in the UK — the XDP-30R and the Rubato DP-S1, respectively — but who actually listens to music on the go on anything other than a smartphone?

With the notable exception of an iPod Shuffle for those who work out, I haven’t seen anyone listening to music on any other device in at least five years, and I’m willing to bet you haven’t either, unless you live in a high-res audio compound with Neil Young acolytes.

Photo: Pioneer

Both the Pioneer XDP-30R and the Onkyo DP-S1 come with aluminum chassis, expandable storage up to 416GB, and work with every popular high-res audio format with DSD 5.6 MHz and 192 kHz/32-bit playback. Both devices can also stream music over Wi-Fi from built-in services like Tidal and TuneIn, and both will receive support for MQA via a firmware update later this year. The XDP-30R and the DP-S1 will both be available in the UK in May, for £349 and £399, respectively.

All that sounds nice, but who actually buys these things? Show yourselves.

Onkyo DP-S1
Photo: Onkyo