Cell phone features for audio?

Audio Gear Talk
1

I don’t have a large FLAC library, almost all Tidal streaming. What features should I look for in a cell phone?

  • Headphone jack - Apple has moved away and others may follow
  • aptX - hi def bluetooth protocol support – does that close the gap on wired?

Any other considerations?

Thanks
Rob.

2

The LG V30 is the one most mentioned but a lot of the android phones only play hidef files through their own custom apps that have been built to take advantage of the hardware.

1 Like
3

So you’re getting at whether the phone can decode w/o an external DAC.

My iPhone 6s could not power an Explorer2 but an iPhone8 or higher can. So that’s a consideration too - real world usage with DAC.

4

I was thinking more of whether it can take full advantage of the inbuilt components such as the dual DACs etc. Often apps default to generic Android drivers so miss out on the DACs and amps.

5

Sorry I misread your post so my reply didn’t make sense! I follow you now!

6

You can use an external DAC on your Android phone with USB Audio Player PRO.

It works fine on my Galaxy Note 8 (SM-N950F) with a Meridian Explorer² DAC.

But for some reason it does not work on my Galaxy Tab A (SM-T580) tablet with a Meridian Explorer², although the tablet supports USB OTG.