ARC bit-perfect in Android phone! [To External USB-DAC]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH Roon Labs. Please, take my money for a lifetime subscription. This feature and my new NAD C399 with BluOS Roon Ready, make me no longer have any doubts. Again: THANK YOU for this feature

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Currently enjoying lossless DSD (via DoP) from my home Nucleus streaming to my Pixel 6 feeding an Oppo HA-2 while at work. This has been a day long awaited. Kudos, Roon team!!!

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I love the pace of development with Roon, can’t imagine how things would look like without Roon to be honest. Kudos for that.

Out of curiosity, why wouldn’t the Android Roon app support bit-perfect USB driver too?

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DSP in Arc would be amazing! Also MQA unfold would be awesome. Landscape mode would be nice to have. Also more granulated volume control(with more steps).

Excellent move in the right direction.
Now we just need bit lossless playback without an external dac!

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The process for attaching / detaching the DAC, managing the lifecycle of the USB driver, surfacing the correct info in the UI, integrating OS level volume controls, etc is totally different for the two apps since they do playback quite differently. I would say that these integration aspects took up 80% of the calendar for this project, and the USB driver development was the other 20%, so we are talking about a near doubling of effort to get both apps working.

Roon Remote only works at home. ARC works at home and on the go. The only significant gap is DSP, and we’ll close that with ARC as soon as we can, so it made sense for us to do this in ARC and let the Roon team focus on interesting stuff for Roon, instead of duplicating similar functionality that is already possible in ARC.

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There are multiple warnings about this from AK - on the HC2 box, in the quick start guide included with the HC2, in the product manual downloadable from the AK website, multiple places on the AK website including the product pages for the HC2 and on most of the dealer pages where it is being sold. Happens by default when connecting some USB DACs to a computer or phone. From AK’s product page - Make sure check the volume on your connected player device before using headphones or earphones. Some devices may automatically set the output level to maximum volume when the cable is connected. Listening to headphones or earphones at maximum volume may damage your hearing. Please verify the volume level before each use.

I believe there are lots of DAP users out here that would appreciate some love towards bitperfect output on Android without an external DAC. Might sell a few subscriptions as well…

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Yes, this is planned. This is a multifaceted problem, however. It’s not just about bit-perfect output–many DAPs have flash storage that is not fast enough to run ARC with acceptable performance, and others run very old versions of Android. So it’s likely that whatever result we are able to deliver here will only work well on a subset of products, which is always a bit disappointing for people.

Nonetheless, this is in our plans. DAPs will get faster over time, and they will likely remain popular.

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3 posts were split to a new topic: ARC: weak connection

On Questyle M15 dongle, usb Android, no Mqa

Max volume using Android phone into Focal Bathys inbuilt DAC via usb.

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Is DSD native possible on IOS?

No. Apple does not provide the needed access to the device. Without major changes from them (unlikely), it will never happen for any product.

I get the same error with ifi go blu and S22 Ultra

Cheers, yeah I thought there was something with Bluetooth codecs but my phone uses Samsungs Scalable Codec which I was led to believe gave Hi Res above 48k when using my Samsung buds.
Anyway I dug out a pair of wired earphones and hooked up to my Mojo 2 DAC and still only get 48k sample rate with Arc when playing tracks of 96K - the light on the Mojo 2 is orange which is for 48k. I have selected the setting Original Format. However play the same tracks via Qobuz and I dont get downsampled to 48k, the light on the Mojo 2 stays at blue for 96k. Am I missing an update for Arc? I am running the latest version of Roon.

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It’s possible you are missing the update. Your phone should prompt you to use the USB device with ARC, then ARC takes over control of the DAC. You should see “USB” under “Output” in Signal path.

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I think you are assuming that I did not check the level and reduce it before listening. the actual problem I am encountering is, the output is at max no matter what you set the volume at.

how do you further lower a volume which i already reduced to zero, but the sound that is coming out of the iems from the attached dongle is at 100?

Same highest volume while connected via Questyle M15 dac, which has no hw volume keys.
RoonArc 1.0 (94)
Latest early access Roon components’ versions.
S22 ultra android phone.

Note: the new Lossless USB feature, when it worked ok was really sublime.

I can’t get bit perfect to an Android Digital audio player. Any way to do that?