Dongle DAC (USB-C) with DAP and iPhone? Roon Ready?

Audio Gear Talk
1

I am somehow stuck :slight_smile: and need some advice :slight_smile:

When home in Hamburg I use my Fiio M11 Plus in combination with my IEM and headphone. Great DAP that is Roon Ready.

The only problem I have is ARC - I am NOT happy with the SQ when using ARC with my Fiio M11 Plus. It is not bit perfect. ARC works just fine - but not the SQ.

So how to fix that?

I was thinking about buying an dongle DAC (USB-C) that I could use with my Fiio M11 Plus and with my iPhone 15PRO. Does it has to be Roon Ready? Or tested? Maybe MFi-certified?

Any suggestions and comments in general are more than welcome :slight_smile:

THX

Torben

2

No it doesn’t need to be roon tested, but one that’s known to work with ARC on Android would be advisable. ARC on Android with external DACs isn’t out of Beta and isn’t as reliable as using iOS where pretty much any DAC works. Roon Ready is for network connections only it has nothing to do with USB. Not sure adding a dac to the DAP will improve things greatly. You use DSP for your headphones and iems anyway don’t you so it’s never going to be bitperfect.

1 Like
3

Let my than rephrase it: I “just” want enhanced :slight_smile:

So there is no way to get that with a DAP?

Torben

4

Not at the moment no as it will change rate to whatever the os reports the DAP supports, which is find is the max pcm res most of the time. You can kid it to be what you want by playing something in another player at the correct sample rate then ARC may then switch to that. There is something on these daps that locks the sample rate default to max pcm and changes it when apps change sample rate(but not Roon as it’s coded to resample to what it’s told by os). You can try an external dac but it seems daft to spend money on one when it has a perfectly good dac in it. Can’t say I notice any difference in quality with it upsampling to the source via another app.

5

THX. Than I will “have to” to buy a dongle that I can use with my iPhone to get the SQ from ARC that I want.

The new KA17 could be an option as is has “Desktop Mode” (Powerbank)

Torben