Audiophiles have long looked down on digital music because the sound quality was notably inferior for golden-eared listeners with distinguishing tastes. The development of lossless file formats (such as FLAC) and cheap ample multi-gigabyte storage have made portable high-fidelity music a reality.
At this point, there are really only two major players in the high-end portable music space: Astell & Kern and Sony (where the Walkman brand still lives on). We’ve used earlier versions of each brand, but not the current models. Astell & Kern players start at $1,000 and are strictly for true enthusiasts.
If you have hard drives full of uncompressed music audio files — and can hear the difference between those and comparatively low-resolution MP3 and AAC files — then, by all means, pair up one of those players with your wired headphones of choice.
Nearly all of the streaming music services now offer lossless or high bit-rate options; that’s nearly all the big players, from Tidal and Qobuz to Amazon and Apple. (Spotify HiFi, weirdly, remains a no-show.)
If you like what you hear, consider upgrading to a decent headphone DAC (that’s “digital to analog converter”) like the Audiofly Dragonfly or iFi Audio Go and a serious pair of wired headphones. Then you’ll have a solid audiophile option that’s good for the road, without the need for a standalone music player.
