Which DAP to buy?!

I picked up the Astell&Kern SR15 this week after a quick “at home demo” of the Shanling M5S. I was also considering the Hiby Pro 6 and Sony ZX300.

The AK is awesome. The entire user experience including sound is superior to the Shanling. It’s more expensive but in my mind well worth it. I know Roon is coming which was the final driver … streaming Tidal, Qobuz etc are bonus features.

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A&K promised Roon on the SR15 about 18 months ago now. They’ve gone stone quiet on it since mid last year too suggesting that it’s never going to happen.

I bought my SR-15 a year ago on the assumption that Roon was imminent and although it’s a great sounding unit it’s crippled for streaming without Roon for me. It does have Tidal but it’s app is way out of date and does not support offline mode. My use case was for an inexpensive mobile Roon endpoint to feed a Chord Hugo 2.

In 2020 I want my DAP to reliably stream at home or on the go. I don’t want to mess about loading songs onto an SD card.

I did but another very inexpensive android based DAP around the same time though called a Fiio M6 and although it’s not as great sounding as the A&K, Roon works and it’s Tidal app will offline. It’s only weakness is patchy Wi-Fi performance.

Massively disappointed with A&K though.

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I can’t quite understand why i would need access to my 5000+ albums on the go

Wagner in the gym?

I have an old iPod Classic 160Gb in the car and a 64gb SD card in my phone that on MP3 , why better in the car?, amounts to hoards of music

Loading the iPod is simple I sync it with JRiver :smiling_imp:

I was about to sell my “vintage” Ipod Classic 160GB as I don’t use iTunes anymore (neither the “new” Apple Music app) and therefore have no means to update the music on the Ipod anymore.

I was totally wrong:

Just installed the free alternative Rockbox firmware on my Ipod which is simply great.

Some of the “New” features:

  • Ipod able to play FLAC (original Apple firmware doesn’t, only ALAC)
  • gapless playback
  • music can easily be exported from Roon (via Roon Export) directly to Ipod
  • more than 500 themes (including nice retro themes with VU Meters, Tapedeck etc…)

Love my “new” 12 year old iPod :blush::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::grinning:

Jens

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I bought the 2000 A and K also believing that
Roon was coming
Still waiting … it’s very disappointing

Still rather happy with my FiiO M11 works great with Roon these days and has Spotify, Tidal, and a host of others I dont use.

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I think this is the most recent thread on this topic: Is there any truly network enabled (i.e not acting as a USB DAC) “Roon Ready” DAP on the market as of now (Dec 2020)?

I see threads like this:

And it seems some android devices can act as a “sort of” and gimped Roon endpoint, but looking to avoid these sorts of issues.

They work but are all limited to stock Android resolution, that’s a limit of roon not the DAPs themselves.

Right, which is another way of saying they are not “Roon Ready” - they don’t act as true Roon endpoints and are a ‘hack’ so to speak. USB Audio Player Pro and similar software is needed on Android to bypass it’s inherent sound library limitations. I suppose for any Android based device to be “Roon Ready” it would need the equivalent Roon software ‘side loaded’, but of course the current software from Roon available for Android is a UI to control the core and does not enable the device to be an full RAAT endpoint…

No that’s not right at all. There are Android builds for roon which give a full end point using RAAT so they are roon ready and can be grouped with other RAST endpoints
However…the Android client plays to the Android system audio which is limited in resolution.

Well, perhaps I am not groking what “Roon Ready” officially means. If it is one sided, such that default Android is considered “Roon Ready” as an endpoint (input into Android device) but still resampling on the output end, then what I am looking for is a DAP that is beyond mere “Roon Ready” - one that is ‘bit perfect’ and not inserting its own sound files between Roon and itself. Does that make sense to you? Do you know of such a DAP?

There isn’t such a thing.

I have not found one either, but I suppose I am more hesitant to declare it done and dusted. How do you know fur sur?

If it is RAAT compatible then it uses the standard roon client, which only uses the Android system audio.
You could have a client that goes beyond the standard bitrate but that wouldn’t use RAAT.
At this point in time I believe you can have one or the other.

No there is nothing on the market. Unless one of the Chinese makers such as Shanling or Hiby develop Roon for their own OS as they have a number of DAPs that dont use Android but this also limits them all to online playback for streaming services which is the advantage Android brings. Roon really need to sort their Android playback out then it would likely run bit perfect on most of the current Android DAPs that bypass the Android audio stack. But I imagibe this would be a support nightmare due to the different hardware and variations each manufacturer does to bypass it. Not all do it system wide for all apps.

The two play back programs for Android I am aware of and have used that do this, USB Audio Pro and Neutron do it. I wonder if it is really a support issue for them, or is it more just a matter of putting in the effort to program something. In any case your point about non Android manufacturers like Shanling or Hiby is a good one.

I was referring to DAPs not the software. Hiby, Fiio, iBasso and Shanling all modify their Android base to bypass system resampling. Qobuz and Tidal apps will just pass through as they don’t resample natively they let the os do it, so will work bitperfect. Roon does not do this as it resamples in Android by design rather than leave it up to the OS to do it like other apps. UAPP and Neutron do things differently again and this does not always work successfully. I had constant issues with UAPP, Dragonfly DACs and my phone. Both sides have their issues. UAPP is constantly being updated to add some support to nee DACs and devices not all successfully. If Roon had to deal with same amount of hardware variations, plus how each DAP manufacturer bypasses things it’s starts to become a real nightmare. UAPP is a small use base all things considered and is one thing on one platform. Roon is way more complex and multiplatform. I imagine it would cause way more support issues trying to allow bit perfect across so many variables. Be great if they did as I would love me R5 DAP to be bitperfect. It stills sounds great without it though.

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I am here trying to find a bit-perfect DAP to buy. Understand the support issues, so how about supporting just 3 DAPs. A low end, mid range and a high end model. I am one of those sad people who was promised Roon on my AK SE100 “soon” when I purchased it a couple of years back and still no joy. I’d love to be listening on something a bit better than an old iPhone SE when away from my desktop amp.

Well, picked up an iPad Air recently and thought I’d try my Zorloo Zstella with it. Bit perfect on the iPad but not on Androids I had been using it on. Hmm looks like iOS works better than Android for bit perfect playback. Hunting through a draw I find my Apple CCK and test iPhone -> CCK -> Zorloo Ztella… also bit perfect! Tried MQA 44.1, 96, 192, FLAC 44.1, 96, DSD64, all purple. Pretty ugly cable solution, but should keep me going until Android DAPs work one day, hopefully. Probably works with Dragon Flys etc too.

Tested iPhone and a 6th gen iPod Touch and both work well, bit perfect with Ztella and Dragonfly Red. The Red is a bit more tidy with the CCK. Might have to pick up a 7th Gen iPod Touch given my testing. Wish I could find some rumors on 8th gen Touch, as 7th gen is getting old. Still 7th gen is probably faster than any current Android DAP lol.