[Brickmaster7398]

What's the best way to improve the sound on my Sony Xperia Z3 Compact? Can anyone offer any recommendations on what to buy? Thanks!

 

[DanBa]

IMHO the best way is to select a compatible USB DAC/amp allowing the best matching / synergy with your headphones.

 

[StanD]

  IMHO the best way is to select a compatible USB DAC/amp allowing the best matching / synergy with your headphones.

Aside from a stricty funcional basis (they actually work together), that might be easier to say than do. Much would be based upon subjective chit chat, which can go in many directions. Trying everything is sight could be expensive as well as time consuming, though it may boil down to some level of try and fry.

 

[bixby]

Don't know if you figured it out , but the music stopping is surely the usb connection being disconnected temporarily. You have to hit play in order to resume since music pauses on disconnects. Usually the cable connector gets damaged before the phone port. Cables tend to get messed up if yanking on them, etc.
I've seen some super sloppy phone ports though. Try wiggling your cable around while playing.

yes I  did get it figured out.  After lots of elimination, new cables, etc.,  I found it to be the phone port which was causing the intermittent disconnection.  New phone and no problem.
 
thanks

 

[gocam]

Hi there - I wanted to post an update on compatibility of the 2014 Moto X with USB DACs as I'd spent absolute ages trying to find out if this year's model, even although running 4.4.4 worked with devices like the Kunlun E18. And if I needed to use an app.
 
So I decided to give it a whirl - ordered the E18 and it works fine out of the box - no need for a special app, integrates out of the box and I am playing back using Tidal right now using the E18 as DAC and amp with no problems. Extra bonus for me is that the Moto X had a tendency to keep activating the voice dialer when listening to music through the build in jack - no more trouble as I'm now listening via USB - yay ! Buttons on the E18 work fine too. Just received literally half hour ago so not long enough to report on sound quality but happy so far that it at least works ! Oh, listening with T-Peos Altone 200 headphones and as a quick comment I seem to get quite a bit less ambient hiss from the E18 than native Moto X.
 
Anyhoo  - thought I'd share in hopes it'll save people in similar situation a few hours working out if their phone will work before Android L rollout !

 

[headfinoob]

Hi there - I wanted to post an update on compatibility of the 2014 Moto X with USB DACs as I'd spent absolute ages trying to find out if this year's model, even although running 4.4.4 worked with devices like the Kunlun E18. And if I needed to use an app.
 
So I decided to give it a whirl - ordered the E18 and it works fine out of the box - no need for a special app, integrates out of the box and I am playing back using Tidal right now using the E18 as DAC and amp with no problems. Extra bonus for me is that the Moto X had a tendency to keep activating the voice dialer when listening to music through the build in jack - no more trouble as I'm now listening via USB - yay ! Buttons on the E18 work fine too. Just received literally half hour ago so not long enough to report on sound quality but happy so far that it at least works ! Oh, listening with T-Peos Altone 200 headphones and as a quick comment I seem to get quite a bit less ambient hiss from the E18 than native Moto X.
 
Anyhoo  - thought I'd share in hopes it'll save people in similar situation a few hours working out if their phone will work before Android L rollout !

Is this the first time you got to try Tidal with a DAC? I just discovered the service and I really want to try it.

 

[DanBa]

Thanks for the reply.

That's a shame. Do you know if there are any plans to enable shuffling sub- directories?

 

   
"Rome wasn't built in a day".
While offering best sounding, there are a lot of UARP/UAPP improvements over time: recorder-oriented development to playback-oriented development, shuffle playback mode, SMB/Samba network streaming capability, DSD over PCM (DoP), ....
 
 
Nope.
I think you should alert eXtream Software Development of this feature requirement by posting on the following thread:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/704065/usb-audio-recorder-pro-uapp-24-and-32-bit-playback-ubiquitous-usb-audio-support-for-android

 
 
Latest version of USB Audio Player PRO: 1.4.0
 

 
"
* Added Party Shuffle by pressing the Shuffle button twice or choosing 'Party shuffle' by long-tapping a folder in 'Local folder/network'. This plays a random selection of all your songs in the media database or from all subdirectories of the selected directory for folder/network playback.
* Local folder and network selection is now similar to artist/album selection, showing album art when available.
* Reduced time to start playback when streaming from network.
* Moved some network actions to a background thread.
* Added preference setting for currently playing list view transparency.
* Solved an issue which prevented DAC's to be detected on certain devices like the Nexus 9.
* Rotating the screen while in network selection mode caused a crash. Solved.
* Moving a song after the currently playing item position would not play that song after the currently playing item had finished. Solved.
* Scrolling the current playlist when re-arranging songs was too slow on higher resolution screens. Solved.
* Solved crash on pause/stop when changing to alt setting 0 failed."

 

[Percival]

Rocking good news!

 

[gocam]

I tried Tidal also at work via a DAC attached to my mac - sounds great but too soon for me to tell how much better than Spotify, Google Music as I haven't done enough in way of comparison. They have a free trial though so you can give it a whirl for a bit.
 
I'm going to spend some time with the E18, Tidal and the Altone's over next few days and see how that works out. Next project is to see if I can get the correct Y cable to allow me to charge my Moto X while it is working with the E18 ! E18 can charge at same time as it has a separate Micro USB to do so.

 

[Guidostrunk]

I'm hoping someone can help. I recently purchased a DF v1.0 from eBay to use via otg from my note3. Everything works perfect when hooked up , but I'm getting only half the volume,out of my ifi ican when using the DF. If I use the HPO on my note3> ican> hd650 the volume output is double. Atm I'm only using Spotify until I build my music library. When using the HPO , on my note3 , I can only turn my ican up to about 1 o'clock. When using otg> df> ican , I can max out the volume on my ican and it's no where near as loud as the 1 o'clock volume , compared to the HPO method. Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

[skingg]

   
Finally I tried the last ArchiDroid 3.0, based on Cyanogen 4.4.4. The custom rom is very smooth and stable, but the DAC is not recognized.
I don't know if is "only" a kernel problem, but my E18 is no more working with my S3...
So my question is: no AOSP custom rom maintains compatibility with USB audio as the stock rom?
Only Samsung-based roms can work with USB DAC?

 
Finally gotten around to testing usb audio of Arter's Kitkat port with the E18. A weird thing happen on my first try, it plays fine 'when screen is on' but as soon as I turn the screen off, I get hic cups and inteferences randomly. And after a couple of minutes, my phone did a hard shut down (without shut down animation)! After turning the phone back on, I reconnect the E18 and what do you know, it worked flawlessly. And to make sure it was not a fluke, i turn the E18 off, disconnected it and reconnect again, power it up and play (via Neutron) and screen on screen off, not a single hic cup.

 

[rhadorn]

Managing audio files for use with USB Audio Player Pro


I am using UAPP with much satisfaction. The audio files I listen to are in the Sounds directory of the external SD card. I select them navigating the directories. UAPP did build a kind of a media server with artists and albums but I don't know on which basis.

The flac files from my CD collection are located on a external harddisk, a WDMyCloud. The new Network connection of UAPP lets me play them with my preferred player as long as I am in vicinity of my local network. When away, I can still access them through the WDMyCloud app on the smartphone but they are then played them through the default player of the device.
 
I found a solution. If I first download the files I want to listen to to the smartphone (which I can do over the Internet), I can convince UAPP to play them. Fantastic!

Now, the WDMyCloud app downloads the files to a WDMyCloud directory on the phone's storage; there is no way to tell it to store them on the external SD card (verified). On the other hand, I did not find any way to tell UAPP a list of nodes where it can find audio files to list. So the only way I have made out for switching from music on the external card to the music downloaded with WDMyCloud seems to be to navigate step by step from a subdirectory on the external card upwards to the upmost directory and then downwards to the WDMyCloud subdirectory in the phone's storage (or the reverse). It is feasable and maintains good connections in the brain but... you know what I mean.

Did I miss something? Does anybody have a better idea?
 
Addendum: it seems to be pretty simple to copy the directories downloaded to the smartphone to the other location on the external SD card.
 
 
P.S. I did not identify a more appropriate forum to ask this question

 

[jeffritz]

  Hi I wanted to thank m-i-c-k-e-y and DanBa for their advice and help with Note 4 and DragonFly 1.2.  
 
I can confirm I now have the Note 4 and DragonFly 1.2 working.  I have tried Neutron and Google Music Player (show Magenta all time) and also USB Audio Player Pro (Shows different colors based on khz of music)
 
After much messing about I just ordered a new DragonFly 1.2 from a different shop and it just worked out of the box with my Note 4 and USB OTG cable.  The one at the shop clearly had a fault, It was tested on a computer before I tried it on the phone bit their you go.
 
Sounds great.
 
Regards
Ash 

I also have the Dragonfly 1.2 and have a few questions regarding your setup.
 
What version of android are you running?
Does google music player work with native android usb audio support?
If it does how do you control the volume?
 
I'm running android kitkat 4.4.4 and USB audio player pro works great and has dragon  fly 1.2 hardware volume control through the mixer tab.
But I cannot get any audio output through the dragonfly natively in android. ei. google music player, pandora, etc....
 
I understand the limitations of bit rate / sampling in android natively but was curious how you are using apps outside of USB audio player pro.
 
Thanks

 

[ashdease]

   
Connecting Note 4 with Dragonfly 1.2, few questions:
- Does it still require UARP or UAPP?
- Does it support high quality streaming (SPOTIFY, PANDORA, RDIO)?
- Is the Volume control working properly?
- How fast does it deplete the Note 4 battery (power draw)?
 
Thanks

 
Hi 
Once I connect the Note 4 to the Dragonfly 1.2 it works with UAPP, Google Music App, Stock Samsung Music Player and Neutron
I dont use Spotify, Pandora or other app but I wll try it out an let you know
Volume control works through the pp and the Note 4 buttons
Battery does deplete but not to a level which worries me but not had a real chance to measure
 
Regards
Ash

 

[ashdease]

 
I also have the Dragonfly 1.2 and have a few questions regarding your setup.
 
What version of android are you running?
Does google music player work with native android usb audio support?
If it does how do you control the volume?
 
I'm running android kitkat 4.4.4 and USB audio player pro works great and has dragon  fly 1.2 hardware volume control through the mixer tab.
But I cannot get any audio output through the dragonfly natively in android. ei. google music player, pandora, etc....
 
I understand the limitations of bit rate / sampling in android natively but was curious how you are using apps outside of USB audio player pro.
 
Thanks

 
Hi I am runnning Kitkat 4.4.4 too, UAPP, Stock Samsung Music App, Google Music App and Neutron all work fine for me.  Im not doing anything special, maybe start Google Music Player and if not audio outputs just disconnect and reconnect the DAC.  I have not had any issues but I am not doing anything special either.