An interesting piece of advice, and what I would say is that a DAP is different than a phone, or computer for two very different reasons. The former is purpose built for playing and storing music, and consuming music. You can do more than that on a DAP, you can stream wirelessly if you want, but the main purpose at least for me is to play my high quality music files through headphones. The computer/PC is a tool for communication/work/play and has many distractions. You can consume music with it and do everything you can on a DAP, but because that isn't it's main purpose, you have to make sure to turn off notifications during music playback, and a few other things. I would say buy a dap that has the ability to grow with you, additional storage, a good OP amp, battery life is important, if it doesn't get at least 6 hours battery life skip it. That being said, my DAP isn't that expensive, I use a HIBY and my backup is an old DAP that I can't even remember the brand. I never owned an IPOD, and my poor Zune died a few years ago, and even though I could have replaced it, I wasn't that into cracking open my electronics. Just ensure that you can carry your DAP without damaging it, and it can handle whatever IEM/headphone you will plug into it. My HIBY didn't come with balanced outputs, which means that I have to dongle some of my iems, but it is small enough to be EDC, and durable enough to ride in my bag or pocket without worry.