Mobile Device as Roon Endpoint into an External DAC

Audio Gear Talk
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There are many posts on this Community about inexpensive Roon end points and yet very few posts about using a mobile device (phone or tablet) as an end point feeding an external DAC. With that in mind, I decided to test some of my many mobile devices to see how they would work as Roon end points.

Here are some of the basic ground rules for this little experiment:

All of the mobile devices are using Wi-Fi

All of the mobile devices have a USB-C output which provides a digital output.

All of the mobile devices will be connected to an Oppo HA-1 headphone Amp/DAC (which has a display that indicates the incoming digital signal’s bit depth and sample rate) using a USB-C to USB-B cable. USB-C to USB-B cable

Once connected to the DAC each mobile device needs to be enabled for playback in Roon (Settings → Audio → Enable Device)

The following three bit depths and sample rates were tested: 16bit/44.1kHz, 24bit/96kHz and 24bit/192kHz

With these ground rules in place here is what I found out.

iPhone 16 Pro and iPad Air (4th generation): all three sampling rates were played back the original sampling rate, i.e. 44.1kHz played at 44.1kHz, 96 at 96 and 192 at 192. However, the bit depth for all sampling rates outputs at 32 bit regardless of the actual bit depth of the original source.

Amazon Fire HD 8, 10 and 11: 44.1kHz and 96khz sampling rates were played back the original sampling rate, however 192kHz sampling rate was resampled to 96khz for playback, and as with the iPhone and iPad, the bit depth for all sampling rates outputs at 32 bit regardless of the actual bit depth of the original source.

In the case for all of these mobile devices the digital signal output via USB-C to the DAC was not bit perfect (the bit depth and sometimes the sampling rate are being altered), I leave it to you to decide if this is deal breaker.

An inexpensive Roon endpoint with a display is available for well under $100 (the Amazon Fire HD 8), although without bit perfect playback.

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Might be a bit more common than you realize tbh.
I know both myself and @Rugby have been using old Android phone for years in this fashion.
In my case even simpler as I just used the headphones out to aux input of an old Sony boombox to get Roon in my external garage building.
Sounded pretty good.
Total cost… well bugger all really :rofl:

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A small signal path comparison - both with my iBasso D16 DAC/AMP

PCIPAD
PCIPAD2673×2312 340 KB

Torben

PS: Did forget to set volume leveling on my iPad

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I was using a Chromecast Audio output into the aux input of a Bluetooth boombox for tunes out on the deck until I upgraded to a B&O Beoplay A6, which I stream to using its built-in Chromecast function.

Roon is so much more flexible than many Roon users realize and hopefully this thread will give them some ideas on how to put that flexibilty to good use.

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