I am using Tidal as my streaming service and I am paying for the Masters MQA files.
I own LG V40 ThinQ phone and it has a built-in Hi-Fi Quad DAC that has MQA compatibility for both decoding and rendering if I understood correctly. I would like to take advantage of Tidal Masters MQA technology, but a known issue with Android is that unless an app is able to bypass Android SRC the output will always be at 16bit/48k. I am not sure whether Tidal has that capability as there is no indication for that or any information regarding the actual specs of the source file or the conversion/decoding/rendering signal path. For example, when using Tidal with my desktop setup through a MacBook Pro, Tidal had issues switching the sample rate of my external DAC (MOTU Ultralite mk4) with its exclusive mode, and for that reason I chose trying Roon on my desktop setup, so I could get bit-perfect conversion using my external DAC (which does not has MQA compatibility BTW and in that regard Roon is doing a great job).
But, when using Tidal on my LG V40 ThinQ mobile phone I have no idea what it is actually doing or not doing and when using Roon Remote app with Private zone it is unable to bypass Android SRC so the output through the device DAC is at 16bit/48khz no matter what source is being played…
I know there is an android app called “USB Audio Player PRO” (UAPP) that is able to do bypass Android SRC and, unlike with Tidal, there is indication and exact details regarding the source bitrate/samplerate/MQA data as well as info regarding the conversion process along the signal path as well as the actual output through the device DAC.
So, as it seems that at the moment Roon remote app is not capable of bypassing Android SRC it will be great if such a feature will be implemented either by using UAPP driver or by in-house development.
The necessity of such a feature was already discussed in previous Roon community threads:
Any thoughts or comments by LG V and G series will be welcomed