Android DAP with Roon?

Excellent. I take it you like the player? How does it sound?

I really like, more than I thought I’d would

I’ve used it with the AM3 module and mostly using the balanced output,
It sounds pretty good, clear and neutral and no hearable background noise with one exception.
I’ve used Shure SE535, Hifiman HE560, Audeze LCD2 as well as Sennheiser HD 600 & HD 700. It works well with all of them execpt the HD 600. Given the impedance at 300 Ohm of the HD 600, I think it was to be expected.

The exception with background noise is related to using Wifi and buffering. Occasionally with Tidal, there can be some short noise just before a song begins to play. Although it can only be heard with my Shure S535s, which are infamous for picking up any noise. Otherwise it is dead quiet on the noise even with the SE535s.

Also use it in the car, where I can either use Bluetooth and then control it from the steering wheel and Navi/Entertainment, which is convient, or through Aux in. The latter sounds a little bit better but is not so practical. In the car, I also have an USB disk and my iPhone hooked up through USB. The X7 sounds best but the others are easier to use.

Finally, I’ve tried as a DAC and DAP in my office but Roon from my Mac Pro to my desktop DACs sounds better, at least as long as listening through speakers. Then again, the desktop DACs costs a lot more than the X7 so not that surprising.

To sum up, I think it’s pretty darn good, especially taking the price into consideration.
With headphones, it sounds great and offers a lot of functionality.
As a bonus it works well in a car and combined with a docking station, it is a decent desktop amp and player.

Just for the record and before scaring off other users, the Impedance of the HD600’s is 300 Ohm :wink:

Sorry, yes it’s 300 Ohm, was a typo. :blush:

@support Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Hi @qdtjni – while our Android app uses RAAT like other platforms, right now we don’t support lossless high res streaming on Android.

It is something we’re hoping to add in the future, but I don’t have a firm time frame to share right now.

2 Likes

Hi @mike,

Thanks for clarifying.

Note that the Fiio X7 (with FW 3.x) and X5 3rd gen Android DAPs bypass the Android mixer by default so it could be possible for Roon without having code that bypasses the Android mixer.

Alot of these dap apps do, but they then don’t allow access to those same drivers for other apps on the device.

Does fiilo allow tidal to bypass the android mixer too?

The only device that I have seen is my Z3 Compact using their hires via usb option, which works great with Roon in hires.

Unfortunately sony has done their usual thing and removed hires via usb from their new firmwares, stating MM and N have better support for hires, which is not the case, in this case. So I am using earlier firmware to keep the functionality.

If you have access to the Play Store from your device…then you can install Onkyo HF Player or USB Audio Pro Player…both of which have their own Driver, which allows them to bypass the Android OS restrictions of resampling to 16/48

UAPP has the advantage for me, because it allows you to access Tidal from within the App and play Lossless files via streaming at their native rate, without Android OS resampling…as well as local & SD Card files etc…the Onkyo app is local & SD Card files only

I already have full hires with roon to my hugo on android so those options are a backwards step for me, but thanks.

I just tried the Onkyo HF unlocker (I like the interface better than the Fiio music app) on my X5 3rd gen and it converts everything to 48khz. Are you saying it should be able to play higher PCM rates and native DSD also throug HF player on headphone out or only with a USB Dac?

Unfortunately, it resamples to 48k on headphone and line out.

Mike - I know this is an old thread, but is Roon Labs any closer to getting the android app to access the internal DAC of an android based DAP.
Very frustrating as I recently bought the excellent and budget priced FiiO M11. Oobuz works fine but Roon continues not to work fine :frowning:
As so many people must have adroid based DAPs, having the roon app lacking this core functionality is very frustrating. I’d pay for the android app!!!

1 Like

Hi, hi i have too FiiO m11 and i use Roon rock system on NUC8i7BEH. Yes i don’t understand why roon cannot make native dsd on this device. Its Android mistake All mix to 16 bit. I am so happy use this Fiio-m11 but roon make not support for this dac. Pls make it something with. Thx

1 Like

I can play HiRes and DSD Native up to 512 (I tried 64 & 128) on my iBasso DX220 using Mango Player and UAPP. Tidal unfolds MQA up to 192kHz, UAPP 96. Qobuz playback up to 192kHz. There is spec info on notification bar. Roon Remote playback can do only 48kHz. I hope it will change in near future.

Another request to resolve this Android issue. I just got my first DAP (a DX220) myself and am disappointed that Roon is the only app anymore that seems to have issues with Android resampling.

Well, this statement is 3 years old … I’m not sure if anything is going to happen any time soon …

Hey I’m using a HiBy R6. The Qobuz app is able to play at 192KHz, so I do not think that the Roon app will face this limitation. I hope Roon will quickly release the option to play not just at compatibility settings but at much higher resolution too.

Kai Chong

image image

1 Like

This is not new…Been around a long time :nerd_face: