Best portable high-res music player for Roon with good WLAN and Bluetooth 5.X

I am looking for your advise:

I would like to invest in an high-res music player (must be Roon Ready) with good WLAN and Bluetooth 5.X (aptX Adaptive …). Any suggestion?

THANKS and have nice day :slight_smile:

As luck would have it, I’ve just taken delivery of a Fiio M11 Plus today. Far too early to be making any kind of recommendation, but it makes for a perfectly good Roon end point and ‘Just Works’ with my NUC running Roon ROCK. I’ve been listening to Roon on it with a pair of HD650s this afternoon and was pleased with performance.

I don’t stream to devices using BT at present, but this review seems to think it works OK:

Hope this helps.

1 Like

Thanks - Is the unit Roon Ready? And can Qobuz be used? (I don’t use Tidal)

WLAN?

There is no Roon Mobile at the moment so how would that work as Roon is limited to a single home network. Or do you mean WiFi?

Bluetooth 5.x

Well, instead of typing a lot, take a look at this: The ultimate guide to Bluetooth headphones: LDAC isn't Hi-res - SoundGuys

Roon Ready?

Most DAPs are running modified Android OS and as such using the Roon Android app and the Qobuz Android app. Roon Ready is different as it requires going through a certification process.

Only one manufacturer makes mobile solutions that are Roon Ready and that’s Astel & Kern. They are overpriced, ugly and use outdated WiFi chips so the experience is not great. I sent mine back after a week. Android DAPs if they have access to play store can use the Roon mobile app. It does come with limitations of resampling to a fixed rate Roon believes the DAP only supports but apart from that they work well.

I don’t know whether or not it’s certified Roon Ready. Haven’t noticed anything in the documentation or on the box saying that it is. That being said, it just works 100% perfectly over Roon on my home WiFi network. I looked at the signal path and it’s RAAT all the way.

It has Qobuz support. You have the option to use the FiiO App Store from the device (which I did) or the Google App Store or APKs to install Roon, Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music, Deezer, etc.

Will update here if encounter any problems with it over the coming week or so while I put it through its paces.

Or an iPhone with an adapter like this for DAC, SD cards, and charging, etc.

1 Like

There’s some pretty good and cheap dongle options for iPhone and Android discussed over at Audio Science Review. Bit of a learning curve with those guys for non-engineers, but it’s a very worthwhile site.

My thinking about getting a DAP was largely digital hygiene related. I want a device which is not my iPhone so that I can go chill out somewhere with headphones or IEMs and not be constantly going for the messaging / social media dopamine hit with the device controls my music.

I will do some testing when I get this unit (USB Bluetooth 5,2 - APTX Adaptive Transmitter)

This is a bit disappointing - Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz) :frowning:

I did order this unit as well. Lets see what is best :slight_smile:

Bluetooth version: Bluetooth V5.3
Codec mode: aptX Adaptive/aptX HD/aptX LL/aptX/SBC

PC1996-500x500

Be interested to hear what you think of the sound quality. Can I ask which Bluetooth headphones you plan to use with it?

Are you saying that it does play hi res without Android resampling?

Dang… Now that you mention it, Roon is doing a sample rate conversion to 48kHz after it does headroom adjustment and before doing PEQ. It does this for 44.1kHz Red Book as well as for higher bit rate first unfold MQA.

So looks like a bit of a bummer.

That being said, as far as I can tell, the Tidal app bypasses the regular Android sound system.

Some discussion here:

The device also has a dedicated Music Mode (non-Android) for playing local files which supports Hi-Res.

Thanks for raising this issue. I hadn’t thought to check. Will be investigating this further.

Addendum:

You can access the Pure Music mode from the drop-down menu on the M11 Pro, which force-closes all other apps in the background to allow the FiiO Music App to run at full throttle without being disturbed.

The M11 Pro already skips SRC but if you want the least interference from other apps, turn off WiFi and switch this mode on.

So seems like should be able to avoid resampling. I’ll have to see what I can do about Roon app though.

Astell & Kern AK UW100 + Bowers & Wilkins PI7

1 Like

OK, so I found out how to enable sample rate display in the status bar. Can confirm that Apple Music Lossless Hi-Res and Tidal MQA tracks played through the respective apps are giving correct > 48kHz sample rates.

Roon: To be Continued…

There are a couple of threads on here about Roon doing the resampling on these DAPs. Apparently this is something Roon needs to sort out.

Can’t remember the subject of these threads so you may want to run a search :slight_smile:

1 Like

Looking forward to it :slight_smile: Thanks

Unfortunately per the threads RBO pointed me towards in a reply above, seems that Roon will always re-sample to 48kHz when an Android DAP is the end point. Unfortunate.

That being said, I can always listen to Tidal Masters or Apple Lossless via their respective apps which override the Android Audio Subsystem 48kHz issue if I really feel the need to listen with actual album bit-rate. Problem then is that neither of these apps are nearly as good as Roon for music browsing. Same would apply for Qobuzz which I don’t subscribe to at present.

If I do use Roon, the re-sampling to 48kHz is fine and happens inside my Roon server, and I’ve always got some generous headroom dialed in to obviate inter-sample overs anyway given that I use PEQ with all my headphones. I don’t have any complaints about audio quality in this use case so far. Really it’s just the lack of 96kHz or higher bragging rights which bugs me.

1 Like