Need to choose a portable media player.

[David1521]

I just got my Shure 846's and they sound great but not as perfect as the reviews indicated, and definitely not better than my Audeze iSINE 20 but I knew that going in since they're smaller, and noise isolating. Which is what I wanted and they do quite well.

 

I do Not want to use an attachment dac and amp because I currently use the oppo HA-2 along with an iphone 6 but it's very inconvenient to carry around both and recharge both all the time and deal with apple constantly asking me to reverify my apple id. I have a note 8 as well, but apparently with any android smartphone with usb type c using a specifically advertised usb c to micro usb for dac otg cable it will work, but it will also drain my phone's battery and charge the dac/amp at the same time which is annoying and I googled it and there's no fix yet. And I don't feel like waiting around for something likely to never be fixed because there is such a small demand because I'm in such a small demographic of specific kind of audiophiles, ie I travel a lot.

 

So I'm looking at portable music players, that would best fit both the shure 846's and the audeze iSINE20, also preferably the oppo pm-3s.

 

I have found 2 so far that I like, I'd like to keep the price under $1500, I want something that works specifically with downloaded songs on both Tidal and Spotify that sounds the best.

 

Astell&Kern AK240 @1279 on amazon and the Onkyo DP-X1A at 488.97 on amazon.

What I really want to know is whether or not astell&kern players in that price range are mere snake oil or are actually noticably better.