Can you offer up a screen shot of your iPhone streaming high res? My iPhone will only attach as a stand alone endpoint and not as a Roon Networked device.
An iPhone with the camera adapter can even pass thru 256 DSD audio. The endpoint bypasses everything and itâs just a usb transport at that point. I used to use an iPhone as an endpoint when I had Hugo 2. With Chord products you donât want to feed them anything but the original signal anyway.
I do feel different transports effect the sound quality. With the Hugo 2 I thought it sounded it better being fed optical than usb thru the iPhone but usb cables affected the sound quality as well. I cheap Amazon cable sounded better than $80 Cinnamon cable.
I donât have high-res files nor have I used it with a USB-connected DAC. I said so before. I only have tried streaming from my Roon Core to my iPhoneâs internal DAC, and the signal path in Roon shows RAAT to the phone.
I have asked @Karim_Rafaat to share a screen shot of his Roon signal path when streaming to his Chord DAC.
May people say iPhone with camera adapter is an excellent endpoint since itâs all battery. When I used it I had the adapter that let you plug in power cord and maybe that had an effect on the sound quality. I didnât want to worry about the iPhone dying. But a Hugo 2 and iPhone both running off batteries should be an excellent setup for a transportable.
When you summarize USB transport, do you mean the iPhone takes DSD 256 and passes it through in DOP and reconverts it back down to 16/44.1?
iPhone is not RAAT capable from what I can see.
Hereâs what I get. A 96 kHz file is converted down to 48khz
I mean that with the camera adapter is doesnât do any conversion. So if you had Qobuz 192k file, it would light up as blue on the Chord as 192k. Or if you used roon upsampling to DSD that would be the output. The camera adapter is bit perfect.
Remember, this only works with the camera adapter. Otherwise iPhone output is 48k and has be converted and no longer bit perfect.
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Ah, but that is streaming to the iPhoneâs internal DAC which surely is limited. What @Karim_Rafaat and @iamoneagain are talking about is streaming to a connected external DAC, which is something altogether different.
And the iPhone is RAAT capable - your core uses RAAT to send the stream to your phone.
You need this.
Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter
Or this one without power input.
Lightning to USB Camera Adapter
And then hook up dac with usb cable.
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News to me that the iPhone is RAAT capable. I thought it was an Airplay device and at the same level as the Sonos stuff.
I could find no Roon doc that directly addressed this, but the proof is in the pudding, I guess.
Some people claim better than high end streamer since can be all battery.
You still have the issue of wifi and cellular interference if you have phone too close to dac.
Look at the signal path you posted. It clearly states that it goes with RAAT right to your iPhone. No Airplay involved.
Like I said, news to me. I wouldnât have a need to use an iPhone as a RAAT device, but itâs great if it can work that way.
Signal will look different once camera adapter is hooked up. I sold my adapter once I sold my Hugo 2 so I canât take a pic. But yeah itâs crazy that iPhone can output hires and DSD thru the adapter.
Oh and since this is about upgrading streamer and dac, Iâm current using this usb streamer into a mscaler/Dave combo.
Itâs sort of in the middle price of streamers. Expensive compared to RPi setups you build yourself but much cheaper than some of the high end streamers that go for over $2000.
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I like your DAC setup with the mScaler.
I have a couple of the Bryston Streaming transports. They are excellent. They do more than just Roon. The MPD player is really crisp.
I just ordered the Hifiberry DAC2 HD bundle running Ropiee Roon Bridge for my headphone amp setup (Topping L30 and Audeze LCD2C)
- Stereo output
- Dedicated 192kHz/24bit high-quality Burr-Brown DAC
- Custom current-to-voltage output stage with high-end filtering
- Four ultra-low-noise linear voltage regulators for optimal audio performance
- Low-jitter clock for optimised clock performance (independent from Raspberry Pi clock sources)
- Hardware volume control for DAC. You can control the output volume using âalsamixerâ or any application that supports ALSA mixer controls.
- Supports HiFiBerry DSP add-on module
- Connects directly to the Raspberry Pi, no additional cables needed
- No soldering, comes as a pre-fabricated kit. You just plug it onto the Raspberry Pi, it is conform to the Raspberry Pi hardware-attached-on-top (HAT) specification.
- Compatible with all Raspberry Pi models with a 40-pin GPIO connector
- Directly powered from the Raspberry Pi, no additional power supply required
- HAT compliant, EEPROM for automatic configuration
- Gold plated RCA output connectors
I have the Gold NOTE DS-10 Plus and it is fantastic! They arenât done with the Roon Ready, but it works great through the USB to your CORE. I have mine connected to a NUC.
Is this the @Sean_Agnew I know? Iâm using blusound node 2i but it sounds like you want a better DAC. Someday I do too. I think you can use an external dac with this but itâs a great streamer. Full 24/196 from Qobuz or files on my Mac. Roon ready!