Pioneer, the manufacturer of home entertainment and personal audio products, has announced the launch of its latest Digital Audio Player, the compact XDP-30R, set to make its UK debut in May.

Priced at £349.99, and available in either black or silver the XDP-30R, say Pioneer “combines remarkable compactness with a wealth of features normally only found in much more expensive DAPs.”

When it comes to music, owners can enjoy DSD 5.6 MHz and 192 kHz/32-bit playback of popular Hi-Res Audio formats. Support for MQA format will also be delivered later this summer (via a firmware update). A touch interface, in conjunction with a scratch-resistant 2.4in touchscreen, allows owners to easily navigate large music libraries of anything up to 416 GB (including expandable memory). A knurled volume control, and tactile, side-mounted controls make on-the-go operation easy. Inside the DAP’s lightweight aluminium chassis are twin SABRE ES9018C2M D/A converters and ESS9601K amplifiers, arranged in a symmetrical layout. As well as a 3.5 mm output, there’s also a 2.5mm 4-pole jack which enables BTL or ACG balanced output.

Dual-band Wi-Fi lets you stream from built-in services such as TIDAL and TuneIn with more leading services set to be added via a firmware update. Owners can cast to their home hifi or car audio system over Bluetooth, or use headphone jacks for a hard-wired line output to their audio components. With twin SABRE (ES9601K) high-output amplifiers providing onboard, the XDP-30R will drive headphones of 16–300 Ohms (or 32–600 Ohms when used in BTL Mode). It has around 15 hours of playback time and weighs just 120g.