Roon does, what the OS sound device shows him.
For example when using bluetooth with LDAC as sound output, then Roon shows 24/96.
By the way: For me the mobile is a remote for Roon, but never an endpoint.
Roon does what it thinks the OS supports. My dap for instance reports it only supports up to 41/24 to Roon so I get 44.1 untouched. The DAP supports way higher. So it’s the way Roon gets this info from the Android Audio stack which is not used on these DAPs that makes it resample. It’s a very tricky as likely each DAPs os does it slightly differently. But then the others apps seem to work fine as they leave it to the os to decide what to do and on these devices they pass through. This is how it used to work for Roon but they decide to change it as it was a very flakey experience with stutters, dropouts or no audio at all on basic Android devices. I remember it well as it was terrible.
Same goes for Chromecasts. Roon insists that the hires metadata flag be present for it to support higher than 48/24. I don’t know of any devices that support that except the official Chromecast audio so you get gimped audio on devices that do actually support higher rates. I get why they use these standards as it cuts down on support requests and gives higher comparability. But would be nice to allow the user to navigate around them with caveats. But I dont see that happening.
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Indeed since Android 9 improved HiRes playback support, but Roon have no response to the change, I can accept dropping the native sampling rate support on older Android, new Android should be putting more afford .
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Sorry to jump in here with a question…but it seem related.
If you were to buy I high end DAP (not a phone) like an A&K that you could possibly spend 2 or 3 thousand on and is listed as Roon Ready with Roon’s partner program. Will it not play High Rez files without downsampling via Roon? My understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) but the A&Ks use Android as their operating system.
In 9 January 2014, the company debuted the AK240 for CES 2014, with it debuting Wi-FI connectivity, and an operating system based upon Android instead of Linux directly
The Roon Ready A&K are fine they are using Roon SDK no other DAPs do. . It’s only using the Android app where this occurs. Not all A&K are Roon Ready though so be careful choosing. Also he wireless implementation on A&K DAPs I found to be subpar resulting in a frustrating Roon experience loosing connection, not roaming around access points. It also took a very heavy toll on battery. I returned my Kann Alpha as it just wasn’t worth it.
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Thanks for that and the Android info. How did you find the Roon usage, minus the wireless issues? I’ve been on the fence between the Kann Alpha and the Dual DAC SE200. Agree it is important to know which are Roon Ready.
When it It worked I suppose it was good and It sounded very good but It wasnt enough to justify the expense when it was let down by a fundamental poor network capabikity. It’s a premium device with age old tech in it. My Hiby which was 3x less in price, works well over WiFi
and doesn’t sound a slouch. It’s not worth the money to be used as a Roon endpoint if you ask me and there are way better value DAPs out there.
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Yes, waiting patiently for Roon Ready for my SP1000M but only DSD64……. So I go back for wired DAC for higher sampling rate and drop the SP1000M
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For me personally, this is the #1 item at the top of my wishlist - bit-perfect output from Android devices to external DACs.
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Why? A $45 Raspberry Pi solves this.
What does a Raspberry Pi have to do with Android audio?
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A pi isn’t particularly very handy as a mobile device even with a batter y pack, won’t fit in my pocket whilst gardening or cleaning . Also to have parity with iOS would be nice.
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I agree with this but I’d rather Google get off their rear and fix this in the OS. Personally, I’ve almost completely switched to BT listening off my portable devices so I’m not fretting about the resampling.
Just tried Qobuz on my THX Onyx, according to that Qobux and Apple Music are now passing through high res.
Only just updated to Android 12, did Google fix this or did both Qobuz and Apple Music roll out updates on android for this?
Google did fix this on Android 10 and up (192kHz). Roon hasn’t caught up.
I thought all audio on Android was resampled to 48k? UAPP was the only way to get around this until Tidal rolled out their workaround.
Seems like either the others followed suit or Google fixed it. Or maybe I’m just misunderstanding 
Newer Android devices (and DAPs with SRC bypass) can handle high-resolution music just fine. Roon just needs to send it to the device. Roon is limiting the bitrate at the server/core for Android, probably for maximum compatibility.
Do you need a new Android device or Android 10 with an „older“ Android device would work also?
For me, I had android 11 and only Tidal worked bit perfectly. Now on 12, Apple Music and Qobuz work.
I didn’t change device so I assumed it was an OS change or software updates on the apps as they did not work pre 12.
Either way, would be good to see Room follow suit given the apps we use to stream now work this way.
Sorry, I don’t know that answer. I only have one Android 10 device and it came that way. I would like to think that if the DAC is capable, the OS update would take advantage.