MUSE & ARC bit-perfect in Android phone!

Roon Software Discussion Android
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Hi all!
Once @brian and his fantastic team have fulfilled their promise of providing a DSP for ARC (and what a DSP! :star_struck:), I think is time to start another thread about how MUSE, a game changer, has improved the issues we have been talking about in the previous thread.

First of all, I have to say that MUSE has surprised me with a lot of impressive functionalities I don’t know I will know how to use (equaliser, cross-feed, sample rate conversion, sigma-delta modulation, …) :face_with_spiral_eyes:

Furthermore, once you connect the external DAC to the phone, iFi go-link in my case, it gives you the possibility to configure how ARC will deal with it (max PCM sample rate, max DSD sample rate, DSD reproduction method, MQA device capabilities, …) and how capable the DAC is, showing sample rates the device can work with.

All this is truly impressive, I mean it. And my question is: why, having reached so far, there are some issues that remain unsolved, at least for my iFi Go-link dongle:

  • Volume control remains unstable: some times doesn’t work and gives a fixed volume output (high), sometimes starts at full volume or, in the best case, the volume steps are too big.

  • For DSD reproduction method, DSD Native is not an option :astonished:, although de iFi Go-link can handle DSD256. ARC convert all DSD files (including those downloaded to the phone) to PCM 352.8 Khz / 24 bits.

  • Despite the DSD256 capability of the iFi Go-link DAC, only DSD64 and DSD128 are recognised as capabilities of the device in the configuration app mentioned before,

I hope that @brian, once the team has overcome the big deal that MUSE is, there will some spare time that could be used in fixing these issues that, once MUSE is up and running, are the last gaps to close before ARC reaches (bit) perfection. :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin:

Thanks for the big effort I’m sure MUSE has represented. Best, Manuel

2 Likes
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It’s kind of exciting to get Hi-Res out of my Galaxy S21 Ultra. I just joined the bit- perfect mobile club yesterday after getting delivery of a Fiio Q3 MQA DAC/Amp.

I seem to be getting a similar issue with DSD. I think the Q3 MQA is supposed to do native DSD512* but ARC is showing DSD128 via DoP as the highest option. It is playing DSD files just fine at that level.

Still playing around with it.

  • Maybe it’s only capable of DSD256, the info is kind of confusing.
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Hi, denydog!

Thanks for your comment.

As I’m looking various options to improve my DAC dongle, I can confirm you that the Fiio Q3 MQA goes “only” to DSD256 and PCM 384/32. However, Fiio Q3 (without MQA) goes to DSD512 and PCM 768/32. At least this is what is said in its web page.

Any case, I understand from your post that for your Fiio Q3 MQA, you also haven’t the DSD Native option for all DSD rates and DSD files are always converted to PCM, right?

That’s for me the main issue, that having DACS capable of handle DSD files (no matter if they are 64, 128, 256 or even 512), ARC doesn’t send them directly to the DAC to be played in native format.

Instead it converts them to PCM 352.8/24, and without any difference if you select in the configuration of DSD Playback strategy, “Convert to PCM” or “DSD over PCM v1.0 (DoP)”.

I hope @brian and his team could solve this issue, with the volume one, as soon as possible.

Best, Manuel.

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Thanks for the kind words.

The team is looking into the volume issue.

ARC does not do “native DSD processing” on mobile devices. It’s not that we can’t, it’s that the phones often don’t have the horsepower needed, don’t manage thermal performance very well during these heavy workloads, or (in the case of iOS), the ARC app gets “dinged” for being inefficient.

This means that if any processing is enabled in the MUSE section, even mundane things like volume leveling or headroom adjustment, ARC will convert DSD to PCM during playback. We’ve seen bit-perfect DSD playback work on iOS and Android with many DACs, but it does require turning off the other processing elements.

Native DSD modes are not implemented for the Android USB driver yet, and people have not been bringing it up nearly as often as I expected. We plan to implement it at some point, but when that happens depends mainly on how many people we think will use/benefit from the feature. I would suggest making a request in the feature requests section of this community site, since that will help pull all of the interested people out of the woodwork and show us how much demand there is.

2 Likes
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Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for your detailed and reasoned answer. :+1: Its clear that you are using a lot of your free time answering questions of your users in a so detailed way, even in your weekends. :wink:

I understand very well that your priorities should be marked by the interest of the users. And, in this issue of native DSD, you haven’t received so far a “riot” of users claiming for it.

Let me then share with you and the community some points about these, to see if they are shared or not by Roon users interested in very HiRes mobility audio (that could be also at home but far from the main audio equipment):

  • The first thing I would like to point out is that, in my humble opinion, there are two different approaching ways to the best musical experience (understanding it as the nearer to “live” music in all its possible meanings):
    one is applying different kind of filters to shape what you hear at your preferences;
    the second one is to get the most refined and detailed recordings and play them with the minimum changes required to be as near as possible to the original recording material.
    I think is quite clear at the time I belong to the second approaching way. :star_struck:

  • Having said this, it is also clear that, if I’d have to choose, I’d rather have the DSD native option for DSD original recordings than very sophisticated DSP features, that, as I said in my first post, sometimes I don’t know how to use very well.

  • And regarding horsepower and heating issues of Android phones, you know they are getting better and better. And, if your phone cannot bear the heavy task (that it is heavy, I know) you can always select to handle it as PCM or DoP (or improve your phone :blush:).

Conclusion: my vote is to prioritise for ARC DSD native option for DSD capable USB DAC’s, using them to the best of their capacities, over giving more DSP features. And volume control, of course.

I will follow your suggestion and will include this issue in the feature request section (I will find it, no wories) to see if it is only my opinion or other users share it with me.

And thank you again for hearing all our requests, in particular mine, and taking your rest time to explain us what you are doing and why.

Best, Manuel.

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Running ARC with MUSE on Android (Pixel 7) with Mojo 2 as USB DAC, and songs incessantly stop mid-stream with “Allow ROON ARC to Access Mojo 2” prompt on-screen OR playback mode spontaneously switches from Lossless to High Quality.

I realize the Android “Enable USB Driver” is a beta feature, and maybe this is a coincidence and the root cause is unrelated, but this setup worked extremely reliably for several months prior to this ARC update. Now it’s nearly unusable.

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Hi all,

Thank you for your answers and likes.

Only a quick note to say that I have created a feature request, asking to enable DSD native option in ARC MUSE.

This is the link: DSD native option in ARC for Android phones with USB DACS

If you think this is a feature to have, please vote the feature request to show the interest of the community in this issue.

Thanks to all for the attention. Best, Manuel.