Prior to being told about the quite wonderful Hakai I bought two of the Neil Young Pono players.

The Pono player is still a very good portable player for me but I think it will be outstripped by the portable player I intend to build using an Asus Tinker Board S, DAC and a flac packed SSD.

The Pono player was first designed by Meridian and then redesigned by Ayre Acoustics. So it had some serious audio designers.

It outperformed my Linn Ikemi easily but it will be outclassed by a mini Hakai set up. I would love for people to join me on a journey to get Hakai quality on the move. The first issue for me is the choice of a DAC. A smallish ESI is my immediate thought. But I would love input on portable DACs.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/foru ... fier.3507/

Does anyone know or have experience of how this or any equivalent sounds? I'm likely to use a portable DAC and amplifier with the Tinkerboard S loaded with Volumio for music on the go.

I've got a few portable USB DACs/headphone amps, as it happens. Rather underutilized as I almost always go the easy Bluetooth route when out and about.

- Hegel Super (discontnued so it would be very much in the spirit of the Hakai if it turned out to be a fantastic choice haha)
- Audioquest DragonFly Black

- (arguably the Gigaport HD+ is also 'portable')

All of the above require volume control on the player device, not sure if that would be an issue with your intended setup.
Another issue is how to record comparative clips of musis playing through headphones...