I recently purchased an Onkyo DP-X1 DAP and am really enjoying it. I’m fairly new to the Android platform and have discovered one of the quirks of Android is the inability to bypass the up-sampling built into Android when using 3rd party apps (i.e. Tidal) through USB. I find the same limitation using the Roon app for playback on the Onkyo. Right now I’m using the UAPP app with tidal for bit perfect USB output but would love to be able to use Roon to do this.
Has anyone had any success using Roonplayer in Android for bit perfect output via USB OTG or are there future plans to add this functionality in a future release?
I have not attempted to try this yet, but a USB OTG cable has been sitting in my Amazon box for a month now. I’ll get one and see if I can get it to send bit perfect to a dragonfly.
USB DAC’s eat Phone Batteries for breakfast…so even if Roon were to develop a solution for Bitperfect replay on phones, I’m not sure it would be practical for most people
UAPP allows you to bypass the Upsampling / Restrictions of Android even when not using a USB DAC, allowing native sample-rate replay…and especially as it allows Replay of stored files and Tidal…I think it offers the best overall solution for Android devices
Worth bearing in mind that IOS / iPhone will ReSample everything to 16/48 and it appears that there is no work around available
@danny@vova Given there is a ticket in for the stuttering issue I’d like to bring this forward as a feature request. It would be awesome to have Roon manage the USB output on android devices similar to the way uapp currently functions. Thanks for your consideration.
I fully agree. I am using a chord mojo dac with its own battery which doesn’t drain the phone. USB audio player pro works great, but without the ability to use Roon. If Roon output could be piped through usb audioplayer that would also be great. Still better ofcourse would be if android native treatment of usb audio would be improved, that is, without the silly upsampling etc.
Hmmm. Anyone know if this applies to Sony phones?They have a major marketing point that their devices fully support 24 bit audio in and out. I assume Sony have modified the kernel or something if there is native up sampling in android as it is a selectable option on my Z5… I have to physically turn upsampling on if I want it.
Sony phones with the option ‘hi-res audio via usb’ don’t have this restriction and allow output of hi-res audio straight to the dac.
That said, Sony have decided a year ago to remove this option, in favour of the native support in android, which is inferior and has the restrictions mentioned above.
I have gone back to 4.4.4 to get this option back in my z3c so I can output directly to the dac in hi-res.
The trouble is Roon and others don’t often see this option and so don’t utilise it fully in my view. In that spotify sounds better via hi-res usb than roon does on my phone.
It would be good if Roon could optimise their playback for devices that support this hi-res output.
Yet another reason to not purchase a Sony phone next time. They’re becoming quite disappointing losing all their unique benefits out of laziness it seems. Their battery saving mode is a waste of time now too when it used to be a leader.
So is it all phones with versions after 4.4.4 support 24 bit audio then? That would be quite an advantage in the Android camp with Apple only supporting a max of 16bit 44.1.
I don’t know about the latest phones from Sony as I have refused to buy them now, due to them removing this type of functionaility from previous phones like my Z3.
You can get some third party devs to add hi-res via usb back in, like the marshmellow version I am using at the moment, but Sony officlaly removed it back in 5+ which is a shame.
Perhaps the Z5 and XZ have the option back in, as they still advertise the devices as hi-res, which is a nonesense when they rely on android native support for that.
@Ronnie, it is possible to charge the phone in a wireless dock and send audio to USB outlet, so this is a working solution to which it would be great if Roon could offer compliance.
It turns the phone into a wireless DAC, like a glove on hand for Roon jobs flying around in the wifi network. This is indeed an excellent solution for your old phone that has been fired as that; a phone.
Practical example: On a LG V10 with Android 6, connecting an external USB DAC, the Onkyo HF player and the USB Audio Player pro both ask permission to be the default usb player. They both work perfectly. So this is where I would like to see Roon offer the same.
This may be correct in some cases, but not here: A LG V10 with built in HiFi DAC and very powerful analog amplifier (can take ANY headphone with ease), still do not use too much battery. It is more like a mainstream smartphone. It is not a problem at all. The LG V10 contains the ESS9018 and the 9602C headamp. This is similar to e.g. Dragonfly which uses ESS9016.
Hopefully, Roon users will soon be able to switch from Android mediaplayers offering USB compliance. Roon could e.g. implement the Superpowered SDK (or similar).
Hello mads,
Hope I don’t bother you, I saw your post and wanted to ask you a question if you dont mind. I am using a similar setup for mobile listening, Samsung Note 5 with Chord Mojo and it also woks flawlessly with UAPP. Ive been going out of my mind trying to make Roon work on my phone + external DAC setup, searching the net, trying different settings and all. From your post I understand that is impossible, right? As if Roon doesnt have the internal audio USB driver. Am I correct? I play my PC tracks with this setup by starting MediaMonkey on PC and then, in UAPP I go to music browser, UPnP/DLNA music servers and see there MediaMonkey library. Is there any way to do this with Roon library also? Like a workaround to have at least some of Roon functionality included in UAPP? I wish Roon would simply play on Android with external USB DAC... Analog output is out of question as I dont want double amping the same DAC, internal one.
Am I missing something here setup wise or something else?
Thank you so much!
I just bought an Android to listen to Roon as I have so many albums tagged and I enjoy listening to the tags I create. I could use Jriver or another server to listen, but Roon really has more of a curated experience which I love. I also like using a phone as I can listen while I walk around with the phone and the Chord Mojo in my pocket. A bit bulky, but it works.
I was really disappointed to learn that with all the great things Roon does–the fact that it can’t output to USB audio on an Android seems insane to me. This is an app that prides itself in audio quality and we got other smaller apps doing it. Also - I could see if the iPhone was fine, but iPhone output doesn’t work at all as an endpoint. It’s so sad to see my Chord Mojo’s sample rate stuck with a 192/24 blue color on the Chord Mojo when I don’t even own any 192/24 audio. It’s just there to let me know Roon doesn’t work.
Lastly - this does not seem like a terribly hard thing to fix. I think that may be the most disappointing part of all this.