Rewind a couple of decades, and I have the glorious era of the Apple iPod flash right in front of my eyes. A time when music was so personal, and the best way to step into a magical world of tunes and the emotions they carried. Fosi Audio’s DAP Neo instantly took me back to that golden era where less was more. In a way, this audio player takes a leaf from the book of the Shanling Q2 pocket-sized hi-fi player released a couple of months ago.
The compact little audio accessory is targeted towards the minimalist audio lovers who want to keep off of their smartphone – even streaming music services for the much-needed’Me Time’. Even though it doesn’t offer the luxury of relaxing back and listening to curated playlists on services like Apple Music or Spotify, the portable hi-fi player includes respectable internal storage for your favorite tunes.
Designer: Fosi Audio
This retro-modern classic player wants to curb your doomscrolling habits on social media apps for good by going completely offline. Sure, you can listen to music on modern flagships that support lossless audio, but the distracting notifications can hamper the listening experience and prevent you from feeling the emotion of the melodies. DAP Neo, with its classical yet modern appeal in a full-metal body and tactile controls, wants to bring back “timeless character to every musical moment.”
DAP Neo portable music player is not competing with brands like Fiio, Sony, or Astell&Kern, which offer serious audiophiles flagship features. The USP is its compact size to enjoy music anytime, anywhere – at an affordable price, well under $100. The digital audio player is a part of the Fosi Moment range designed specifically for intentional listening. The idea is to put high-quality music back in focus, complemented by the tactile feel of rotating the iPod-inspired dial and buttons.
Coming on to the specifications, the DAP comes with a 12-hour playback time, which should be enough to get through a day’s music. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth connectivity, but fanatics of balanced audio will not be able to connect their 4.4mm-compatible headphones or earbuds to the player. The CS43198 DAC chip does the heavy lifting for lossless playback, and the player supports MP3, FLAC, WAV, APE, M4A, and DSD audio files. Of course, the music files have to be manually uploaded to the player, which is another deliberate attempt to relieve the yesteryears.
Fosi Audio DAP Neo comes in two metal body finishes – Galaxy (silver finish) and Obsidian (dark grey). Given the audio player has no streaming option, the 16GB memory model comes for $80, while the 64GB variant costs $120. There’s an SD Card in the mix, expandable to 256GB for both variants, so you’ll have quite a lot of space to store your sizeable FLAC files and other audio formats. The only question is, will Gen Z be willing to go for this audio player that literally disconnects them from the rest of the world, but ultimately connects them to their music?
