• Registered: 2020-01-20
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Android phone as transport

Hi RME team. I’m curious if there is any sense to use Android phone as transport to ADI-2 DAC. Manual only mentions Apple devices. Indeed I’ve tried my iPhone 8 with Lightning to USB 3.0 adapter and it worked great both through Onkyo HF player and Qobuz native app. However I can hear slight improvement switching to Windows ASIO with the means of Foobar 2k. In regards to Xiaomi Android phone and the same Onkyo HF player (also UAPP further) have to say that sound degraded and I was able to discern that clearly. Tried several cheap OTG adapters as well as separate USB-B to USB-C cable from Belkin. I’d highly appreciate your proficient advice whether I should buy more expensive USB-C adapter (e.g. the one from iFi) to your cable, change cable to some HiFi option (Furutech, Chord etc.) or forget about Android due to internal limitations. My curiosity is coming with more flexible storage options (micro-sd cards) available on Android compared to iPhone. I could also think to buy some second hand HiFi player (i.e. from Astell&Kern) capable of USB audio production. Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you.

2 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 24,860

Re: Android phone as transport

We recommend Neutron as audio player for mobile devices. On Android it tries to speak to the external hardware directly, and should be able to achieve the best sound quality. But each Android phone is different, so we can't give infos that are valid for all models.

Just using a different cable will make zero difference.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2020-01-20
  • Posts: 3

Re: Android phone as transport

Ok, I will try Neutron as well. But as far as I remember it is not able to switch sample rates automatically based on file native value. Btw I’ve tested bit perfect transmission with Onkyo and UAPP using your files. Both were reported by DAC as passing true stream. Thanks

4 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
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Re: Android phone as transport

nokiamade wrote:

Ok, I will try Neutron as well. But as far as I remember it is not able to switch sample rates automatically based on file native value.

Of course it can do that (really, this is kind of an insult for Neutron's programmer) - unless the phone prevents that function for whatever reason.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2020-01-20
  • Posts: 3

Re: Android phone as transport

Thanks. Got it finally. I somehow mixed the app name with another one called “Poweramp”. Indeed Neutron works great and sound improvement is obvious over Onkyo and UAPP, despite both are reporting bit perfect. Assume I should use internal driver and not “generic” one? Also switch off all software bells and whistles within? Btw the sound from iPhone is anyway slightly different and is more close to ASIO.