Audiophile iOS audio player

[phiemon]

But which are the best settings for the audio quality? I use the campfire andromeda and no DAC.

 

[daberti]

But which are the best settings for the audio quality? I use the campfire andromeda and no DAC.

Short answer
There is no best setting for audio quality if you're using MP3/44-16 or alike and no external DAC.
There is pretty much nothing you can do, you cannot even try solving issues with iZotope or equivalents as you're left with the DAC built-in into your smartdevice, which will be quite limited. So:

1. Invest in an external DAC the best your money can afford. There are reviews aplenty and well documented here that can guide you.
2. Listen
3. Invest in a DAW software like te one I mentioned above but NOT necessarily that very one.
4. Listen.
5. Invest in a good pair of full sized closed (to achieve noise isolation) headphones to reliably compare what the tracks were before DAW stage and what came out after
6. Enjoy!

 

[kvik]

Or, pick the settings you like, in your particular setup (phone+inear), and be content. For me Dynamic+CyberFort+everything else Off works best. And if I crave better sound, I use one of my stationary setups. I agree with daberti that there is only so much you can pull out of a smartphone’s built-in DAC (and AMP).

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

Ultraclear is better than dynamic

 

[daberti]

Or, pick the settings you like, in your particular setup (phone+inear), and be content. For me Dynamic+CyberFort+everything else Off works best. And if I crave better sound, I use one of my stationary setups. I agree with daberti that there is only so much you can pull out of a smartphone’s built-in DAC (and AMP).

Agreed

 

[kvik]

Anyone else experiencing left channel considerably lower than right channel in the latest KaiserTone update (2.9.3)?

Ok, thanks. And weird, as there is definitely something not right in my user scenario - iphone se / kaisertone / inear - and other players don't exhibit the same behaviour. In my case I run dynamic+cyberfort and everything else is turned off, have done so for a long time. And I have tested latest update with different inears, the problem persists.

Ok, I think I have found the cause of the problem. Default gain is 90%, probably to compensate for all the default EQ settings. With the settings mentioned above If I raise gain to 100% the imbalance problem is gone, and KaiserTone again sound great. Just wanted to share, in case others use similar settings to mine.

 

[donunus]

with those two modes that can’t be turned off with kaisertone, hmm is that the possible cause of the extra clarity also possibly deviating from an accurate representation of the music?

 

[daberti]

with those two modes that can’t be turned off with kaisertone, hmm is that the possible cause of the extra clarity also possibly deviating from an accurate representation of the music?

Possible, yet it would be helpful to know your portable audio rig and your reference one.

 

[donunus]

I am using a windows based system with Jriver and an LHlabs DAC so it's not really relevant for this one. My question was written because I am buying an ipad pro soon and am still debating on what external dac and music software to get for it. I haven't heard any of the paid players yet except for neutron which I used ages ago with my old iphone. The question was just a reaction to the common comment here about the wider/brighter sound of kaisertone that everyone keeps mentioning over the richer sounding iaudiogate for example.

Oh by the way, does Iaudiogate have the ability to turn off all upsampling? Was upsampling used during the comparisons with kaisertone? I never really saw anyone mentioning which options were used during these comparisons.

Oh, and do both kaisertone and iaudiogate support album art in folders or do they need the file to be embedded in the audio files? I just tried a few of the free apps and some do this better than others.

 

[daberti]

:

I am using a windows based system with Jriver and an LHlabs DAC so it's not really relevant for this one. My question was written because I am buying an ipad pro soon and am still debating on what external dac and music software to get for it. I haven't heard any of the paid players yet except for neutron which I used ages ago with my old iphone. The question was just a reaction to the common comment here about the wider/brighter sound of kaisertone that everyone keeps mentioning over the richer sounding iaudiogate for example.

Oh by the way, does Iaudiogate have the ability to turn off all upsampling? Was upsampling used during the comparisons with kaisertone? I never really saw anyone mentioning which options were used during these comparisons.

Oh, and do both kaisertone and iaudiogate support album art in folders or do they need the file to be embedded in the audio files? I just tried a few of the free apps and some do this better than others.

It has the ability to turn off upsampling.

In 'EQ Mode' setting you have 'Method' with 4 alternative settings: Dynamic, Sharp, SuperClear, and UltraClear. You have 'Algorithm' with 2 settings: Decibel and CyberFort.

Even if you choose 'EQ Off' on main screen, your choice of Method and Algorithm will still affect the sound. Every other option can be turned off, just not these two.

I don't know, but assume these two also perform DSP, if that is the case you can't really turn off DSP completely in KaiserTone.

My question was if you had found a way to disable the two settings?




Edit: I only output to headphones on my iPhone SE, so don't use external DAC

I guess you're right. I'm using my already mentioned rig and yes, I do confirm your findings, albeit on my 352/32 (iZotope re-worked Hi-Res O.Master) the differences are very barely noticeable as the things go quite in another way by using an external DAC like Mojo is .
But Neutron offers to me the complete pie. I.e. I can disable any DSP whatsoever, so now it is my preferred player.
Anyway, if you use your internal DAC only and you're making no use of EQ and DSP effects, why don't you simply use built in iPhone/iPad app? Just asking.
I mean: purchasing apps made for supporting external DACs, Mojo being just one, for usage with internal DAC which is 48/24 (or 96 at the very best) is to me a waste of money.
I.e.: should I listen to a 44/16 cd track converted to PCM I would take care of feeding it at least with 44/24 tracks carefully checked as free from any flaw before before judging an app. And I do NOT make use of MP3.
iAudioGate simply does NOT allow me to make use of my own Mojo full potential, as I said many and many times and I won't step into that any more. But if it is a go for yourself, I'm happy about that.

Album art: there are very good apps that enable you to embed that on your tracks. MusicBrainz is one. If you make a proper directory structure you'll be able to put a Folder.jpg file in the proper position (just for redundancy).

 

[donunus]

About the album art being embedded in the files. I don’t really like that and I have my reasons lol
Anyway does either iaudiogate or kaisertone display album art in folders without embedding individual tracks? I like keeping hi res files and dont like the player loading album art over a megabyte everytime it loads a track.

 

[donunus]

Also, does an ios device like an ipad sound as good as a windows or mac laptop when used with the same dac?

 

[phiemon]

Also, does an ios device like an ipad sound as good as a windows or mac laptop when used with the same dac?

Yes, it can. With the same dac sounds also the Samsung S8 and the HTC 10 "the same" – I tried it personally with the Mojo, Oppo HA-2HA and the DragonFly Red.

 

[daberti]

About the album art being embedded in the files. I don’t really like that and I have my reasons lol
Anyway does either iaudiogate or kaisertone display album art in folders without embedding individual tracks? I like keeping hi res files and dont like the player loading album art over a megabyte everytime it loads a track.

I DON'T USE iAudioGate.
So, sorry, but I must inform you there are some standards to comply with: either you embed or/and you use Folder.jpg . Folder.jpg is not necessarily that size BTW, if you are just willing to use Gimp properly. But if you have PCM files or even DSD ones, you have to embed anyway album, artist, track, year etc etc. Folder is just an image.
I've 352/32 tracks (from DSD256) which are 600MB in size each and even if it was 1MB album art I wouldn't care the least.
For Kaisertone the best place to ask for is the developer himself at https://www.cyberfort.jp/for-iPhone/eng/kaisertone.html

 

[daberti]

Yes, it can. With the same dac sounds also the Samsung S8 and the HTC 10 "the same" – I tried it personally with the Mojo, Oppo HA-2HA and the DragonFly Red.

Ditto