Has there been any progress here on a DAP that “just works” for ARC (good internals, can access SD card for downloads, streams at full res, not buggy / inexplicably laggy)?
Thanks
I report sadly no improvement on my Shanling M6 Ultra.
The setup works, I can download but I hit play and it times out and skips to the next song it will time out on or I get a big banner saying poor connection. even though wifi downloaded the songs without issue and quickly.
I don’t know how to be of actual help, so I haven’t been saying anything. I just keep updating and hoping.
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Hi @Timothy_Federwitz just wanted to check in on the DX300 / ARC usability… where you left us was kind of a cliffhanger! Want to hear how you’re getting on, and how close to “running just ARC in your DAP” you feel like you can get, what the gaps are, and if you have any insights into whether Roon seems to be planning to close those gaps? I don’t currently own a DAP, but if I were to get one, it would be to have a dedicated device to run ARC on, so I want to make sure that ARC gets the experience right before I invest (vs iPhone + Fiio Q3 which gets the experience right at the expense of fiddly little cables/disconnects on the go).
Thanks,
John
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I just checked for an update to ARC, and there was one, but sadly it still doesn’t seem to offer any options for where to store downloads. It only shows and downloads to the internal storage. The iBasso DX300 (and the newer 320) only has 128GB of internal storage (and it looks like ~100GB is available). While this is decent for a DAP, it’s not much at all when considering hi-res FLAC files. Even still, you can get quite a lot of music in that space. For example, I have one playlist that contains 7 hours of hi-res files mostly made up of 24/48, but one album that is 24/96. That 7 hours of music (127 tracks) only takes up 4GB. So, you should be able to get many hours of listening offline using just the internal storage.
As far as how well ARC works and performs, since that first launch where it seemed sluggish (I still believe it was caching a bunch of information), it feels very snappy.
If using WiFi or over cellular via my phones hotspot, ARC works great!
If you only need to download a few albums for offline listening, I would say this is a solid solution. On this point, I could see creating playlists of different music I might want offline and then downloading that/those playlists (as long as they are under 128GB). Also, it seems pretty easy to clear out the storage and then download a different set of music. One button to press and then confirm and it removes all downloads. I didn’t look at removing individual albums/tracks, but that may be possible a different way too. Downloads are fairly quick over WiFi, so I would probably clean-slate if I wanted to change up my downloads. Just would take some planning I suppose.
A few wishlist items:
- No EQ/DSP in ARC (Parametric EQ is on the roadmap though). The DX300 doesn’t seem to have a “system” EQ that applies to everything. If your headphones are good without an EQ, then this isn’t a showstopper. I usually like to add a bit more bass, but I can live without this for now.
- The built-in Mango Player has a solid EQ and interface. I have been using that with a 1TB microSD card of FLAC files.
- Match files sample rate for playback - For whatever reason, online or offline, ARC “upsamples” everything to 24/192. I can only assume this is because the DX300 DAC shows this as the “default” bitrate? Or, maybe ARC doesn’t bother to see if it can match whatever the files are and just uses the max.
- FWIW, I can’t hear any oddities with this while listening to music… but I am probably not the most discerning listener.
- Ability to use SD card for storage - As I said, maybe this one is not a showstopper, but definitely would improve quality of life in a big way! The workaround of using playlists and the ability to clear things out is okay, but not ideal.
- I also can’t figure out how to remove individual tracks from downloads. Even at the album level, when downloaded via a playlist at any rate, shows the option to “Download”, even though it is downloaded, but not to remove it. I may play around with this more to see if I download an album on the album page if I can then remove it that way. FWIW, I can go to the “Playlist” I downloaded and remove the whole playlist from downloads, so maybe the ability to remove is dependent and tracked via how it was downloaded in the first place.
- I dug a little deeper here. If you download an individual album (not as part of a playlist) you can remove it from downloads. There doesn’t seem to be a way to download or remove individual tracks at all. Again, I don’t think any of these things are that big of a deal (IMHO).
- I also can’t figure out how to remove individual tracks from downloads. Even at the album level, when downloaded via a playlist at any rate, shows the option to “Download”, even though it is downloaded, but not to remove it. I may play around with this more to see if I download an album on the album page if I can then remove it that way. FWIW, I can go to the “Playlist” I downloaded and remove the whole playlist from downloads, so maybe the ability to remove is dependent and tracked via how it was downloaded in the first place.
Hope this is helpful.
PS - I bought my DX300 used on eBay because it is nearly identical to the DX320 except for the DAC being used due to the DAC chips in the DX300 being in short supply. The Amp Cards that you can swap out work the same in the DX300 and 320, and they have options for a Class A amp and one with NuTubes. I bought both and love that you can change and upgrade this DAP via amp cards!
FWIW, I got the DX300 plus both Amp cards for less than the DX300 went for brand new! Under $1K all in with 3 amps to choose from! The DX320 is going for $1,600 USD new, plus $250-300 for each of the amp cards. So, if you can find a used DX300, I would jump on it! The CPU, RAM, display, storage, is all the same as the DX320… so it’s a no-brainer IMO.
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I tried Arc on a DX170 and found it to be too sluggish to be usable (for me).
In contrast, PlexAmp worked much better and was quite usable.
Given the head start and maturity PlexAmp has, this isn’t surprising.
Fingers crossed that Arc will get there soon!
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Also tested on a Sony NW-ZX507 with slightly better results than the iBasso.
Arc runs quite usably, despite the small display.
A little faster than the DX170, but still noticeably laggy compared to PlexAmp or the Walkman app on the ZX507. All points to Arc’s initial releases not being very optimised for speed or efficiency. Understandable for an initial version, but hopefully this will improve over time.
There is still no option for where to store files unfortunately, so my ZX507 downloads to the 64GB of onboard memory and ignores the 1TB SD card…
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I’m happy to report that the Fiio M11plus works flawlessly with Arc. I have not tested downloads, but streaming is fantastic. Connected to a mobile hotspot in the car and it just works. The DAP’s coaxial output goes to a Helix DSP. Very happy!
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How responsive is it on the M11plus? Is the UI smooth like on a modern smartphone or laggy? Thanks
No lag at all. Very smooth and responsive.
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I think despite my misgivings about the “extra cordiness” of the iPhone + Fiio Q3 or KA1 which are my current go-to, I’m going to sit out this round and not hit buy yet on a DAP. I really want there to be a DAP which kind of thinks of Roon / ARC as the (or at least a) “primary use case” and optimizes UX around that. I bet that there are a number in development. I’m not saying that there aren’t devices that “work just fine”, but I think that this next gen will be much closer to what I want. Fingers x’ed!
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I keep updating I keep hoping.
Roon remote: Locked at home screen asking me to select my zone.
Roon ARC: loads album, hit play, wait for red popup stating poor connection.
build 1160
Todays updates installed easily.
No change in behavior though here.
I keep thinking that what I need is an iPhone tied to a proper battery-powered DAC. When I finally get the iPhone 15 next year, maybe I’ll take my iPhone 12 and just strap a Fiio Q3 to it with big thick rubber bands and call it a day. I just keep realizing that if I get a DAP I’ll expect the user interface to be like an iPhone. And it won’t be. I just hate all the cables. Realize I’m being repetitive and going in circles. But I don’t really want an Android device - all the android devices I have to deal with just drive me a little bit mad. I’m that kind of Apple primadonna. And apple ain’t gonna release a DAP any time soon.
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I’ve been fiddling with doing exactly this with an iPad Mini and a Chord Mojo 2. Including the rubber bands. Exclusively at home. I’ve got a short USB-C / USB-C cable that works as an interconnect. Much more stable than the Poly, though I’ve made some progress keeping the Poly stable. Like you say, this’ll get easier with next year’s iPhone but, for now, the Mini is a consideration.
There’s no dedicated ARC app for iPadOS so if you had a Mini with cellular and you wanted to use it with an external DAC while away from home, you’d use the iOS version of ARC, which runs at iOS resolution. Still…could work in a pinch.
Today’s updates made no difference here yet.
It seems that no DAP can handle ARC at the moment.
Thanks for the advice on DACs and amps …
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At lease ARC not yet accessible to DAP internal DAC in bit perfectly
Mmh, for the A&K SP3000 the newest firmware supports ARC.
But it wont support bit perfect playback as thats not built into ARC yet unless you have a USB dac, it does not support bit perfect for in built dacs yet.