[csglinux]

New member here. I came to Head-Fi.org and this thread after searching around for info on my TMO V30, which I've had for five months now without knowing about the 44k/16 interpolation to 48k.

First let me say this thread is SPECTACULAR! While I have OK ears and am able to appreciate good SQ, I am nowhere near the level of expertise of most members here, nor do I have the kind of equipment you all seem to have. Yet, I was able to understand everything in @csglinux' Opening Post and found it incredibly informative and well written. Just absolutely eye-opening!

I have a question: Is there any reason why converting existing 44k/16 flac files to 44k/24 (plain zero-padding, no dithering) shouldn't yield the same bit-perfect result in LG Music as using Neutron or UAPP? I tried it using dbPoweramp, then converted the 44k/24 file back to 16-bit, and the file compared perfectly with the original 44k/16.

The reason I ask is that I rather like the LG Music app and have no desire to use another app unless I have to. It checked out Neutron and got it set up correctly, but I doubt I'll ever learn to love its user interface -- although I have tons of respect for the work the developer put into it's countless features.

Thank you in advance.

Welcome to the club @Dannemand and thanks for the kind words To answer your question on the bit-padding - you're right, if you have the time and patience (and storage space on your SDcard), padding all your 44/16 files to 24 bit would make them all play correctly in the LG music app.

It's (sort of) understandable why this re-sampling exists. It's an Android mixer issue, and I guess LG wanted to ensure all apps played through the quad DAC without those app devs re-coding anything. It's a real shame that they couldn't have implemented the appropriate API flags in their very own music app though. As a result, folks like you have to spend their weekends padding their bits... BTW, you might find the UAPP interface more to your liking. It also has a few more features than Neutron (e.g., it will play back all Tidal files correctly, without any re-sampling).

 

[Dannemand]

Welcome to the club @Dannemand and thanks for the kind words To answer your question on the bit-padding - you're right, if you have the time and patience (and storage space on your SDcard), padding all your 44/16 files to 24 bit would make them all play correctly in the LG music app.

It's (sort of) understandable why this re-sampling exists. It's an Android mixer issue, and I guess LG wanted to ensure all apps played through the quad DAC without those app devs re-coding anything. It's a real shame that they couldn't have implemented the appropriate API flags in their very own music app though. As a result, folks like you have to spend their weekends padding their bits... BTW, you might find the UAPP interface more to your liking. It also has a few more features than Neutron (e.g., it will play back all Tidal files correctly, without any re-sampling).

That sure was fast response. Thank you very much!

"...spend their weekends padding their bits" LOL

It's actually a fairly quick one-time task to convert with dbPowerAmp, and I found that files are only marginally larger at 44k/24-- probably because all those zeroes get squeezed out by LZW compression or something. Between SD card and internal storage on my V30+, space won't be a problem. But yes, I should check out UAPP as well.

And yeah, I see the logic you're describing. If at least they gave the option for the DAC to support 44k/16 when apps choose to access it, they wouldn't have to resort to CPU intensive tasks like interpolation or bit-padding.

Thanks again!

 

[Dannemand]

@csglinux: Instead of spending my weekend padding bits ( ) I followed your advice and spent some time today checking out UAPP. Much better! I've gotten familiar with its rather pleasant user interface. This will be my player app!

I did have a problem at one point where UAPP wouldn't use the ESS DAC for awhile, even after reboot. I seem to recall you mentioned a similar problem with Neutron in the thread. I had to run Smart Cleaning AND reboot for it to "take" again. But it seems stable now. BTW, the way I check if the ESS DAC is being used (instead of studying the log file) is simply by changing Presets on the "Hi-Fi Quad DAC" Quick Settings page: When the DAC is NOT active, it is quite evident that changing Presets have no effect.

I do have a few questions about UAPP settings, if I may:

1) In your Opening Post, you suggest toggling on "Direct PCM" and "MQA" under "Settings"->"HiRes Audio"->"HiRes driver flags". On the UAPP Hires Audio Driver help page, it says to leave the flags alone for "known devices" (which V30 is) as long as "HiRes driver audio format" is set to "Auto". That time when UAPP wouldn't use the ESS actually began after I first toggled on "Direct PCM". Admittedly, I am unable to reproduce that now, so it could have been a coincidence.

2) In your Opening Post, you don't mention "Settings"->"HiRes Audio"->"Bit perfect mode", which defaults to "Off", with other options being "On" and "When possible". I assume I want it "On", being that I want no tweaking of my music other than by the DAC. But I wonder if that actually forces UAPP to send 44k/16 audio unmodified (Bit perfect) thus causing the re-sampling to 48k that I am trying to avoid.

3) Several of the "Settings"->"HiRes Audio" settings are duplicated "Settings"->"USB Audio", but I didn't match them up. I understand it so that UAPP is using EITHER "HiRes Audio" (internal ESS DAC) OR "USB Audio" (USB DAC, which I won't use) and that the "USB Audio" settings won't have any effect. Is that correct? I know it sounds obvious, and the only reason I ask is that UAPP seems to treat internal HiRes DACs as a special case of USB DACs, so I wondered if any of the "USB Audio" settings might still be in force.

Any thoughts and insight from you or others on those settings are highly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

Now, for those who might want to spend time padding bits after all, I can confirm that it works like a charm using dbPoweramp Batch Converter (or any similar tool, I am sure), adding "Bit Depth" under "DSP Effetcs" select "24 Bit" and disable "Apply Dither". Other changes can be added to the conversion as desired, such as updating/refreshing tags etc. The bit-padded files can be written directly to SD card during the conversion.

Here is a screenshot -- it's really simple.

It converted my music library in a few hours overnight, and all played perfectly in LG Music player, displaying as 24-bit. And seriously, the files are less than 1% larger than the 16-bit files because all the padded zeroes get squeezed out by the file compression.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[csglinux]

1) This probably isn't a coincidence. If you're using Android 8 (Oreo), you only need the MQA flag under the HiRes driver flag options. The "Direct PCM" flag can cause issues with Oreo. It was needed with Android 7, but leave it unchecked for Android 8.
2) The bit-perfect option isn't needed when using the V30's quad DAC.
3) UAPP can also do digital-out via USB, so if you're not using UAPP for that feature, you can safely ignore those options. I'm still finding the USB digital out to my Hugo 2 (from both Neutron and UAPP) a bit less stable than it was under Android 7. I'd be interested to hear the experience of anybody else using digital-out under Oreo...

 

[Dannemand]

1) This probably isn't a coincidence. If you're using Android 8 (Oreo), you only need the MQA flag under the HiRes driver flag options. The "Direct PCM" flag can cause issues with Oreo. It was needed with Android 7, but leave it unchecked for Android 8.
2) The bit-perfect option isn't needed when using the V30's quad DAC.
3) UAPP can also do digital-out via USB, so if you're not using UAPP for that feature, you can safely ignore those options. I'm still finding the USB digital out to my Hugo 2 (from both Neutron and UAPP) a bit less stable than it was under Android 7. I'd be interested to hear the experience of anybody else using digital-out under Oreo...

Thank you, again. Much appreciated!

 

[csglinux]

Thank you, again. Much appreciated!

No problem! Enjoy that V30!

 

[Mhog55]

Is there a 750 ohm adapter that will trigger external device mode? I really wanted to snatch up a pair of HE4XX, but reading through this thread, it seems auxiliary mode won't quite drive these cans to their full potential. Is anyone using a set of planars that sound really good with the V30 in auxiliary mode? I'm a fairly new owner of the V30, and extremely wet behind the ears when it comes to audio. Thus far I've intentionally only bought cans with removable cables for trickery purposes. With the exception of my HD 25s. Curious what other cans people are really, really digging with this device. So far my favorites are the M-Audio Q40s, but I oh so badly want a set of open back planars. Please excuse me for getting a bit off topic, but I've posed similar questions in other threads and received no responses.

 

[csglinux]

Is there a 750 ohm adapter that will trigger external device mode? I really wanted to snatch up a pair of HE4XX, but reading through this thread, it seems auxiliary mode won't quite drive these cans to their full potential. Is anyone using a set of planars that sound really good with the V30 in auxiliary mode? I'm a fairly new owner of the V30, and extremely wet behind the ears when it comes to audio. Thus far I've intentionally only bought cans with removable cables for trickery purposes. With the exception of my HD 25s. Curious what other cans people are really, really digging with this device. So far my favorites are the M-Audio Q40s, but I oh so badly want a set of open back planars. Please excuse me for getting a bit off topic, but I've posed similar questions in other threads and received no responses.

If you want to force the V30 into external device mode, a basic 3.5 mm TRS male to female connector would do the job (there's a link to one in the first page). It just needs anything above ~750 Ohm - which includes infinity But it sounds like you actually want high-impedance mode, which would need an impedance between 50 and 750 Ohm. (For example - I have a pair of high-impedance Monk earbuds that cost $5.) You'd plug them into the cable adapter first, then plug into your V30, then unplug the high-impedance device from the other end and then plug in your planar magnetic headphones to the adapter. Voila

 

[Mhog55]

If you want to force the V30 into external device mode, a basic 3.5 mm TRS male to female connector would do the job (there's a link to one in the first page). It just needs anything above ~750 Ohm - which includes infinity But it sounds like you actually want high-impedance mode, which would need an impedance between 50 and 750 Ohm. (For example - I have a pair of high-impedance Monk earbuds that cost $5.) You'd plug them into the cable adapter first, then plug into your V30, then unplug the high-impedance device from the other end and then plug in your planar magnetic headphones to the adapter. Voila

I can force the phone into external device mode by plugging my 3.5mm male to male into the phone 1st, and then into my cans. I guess my question is would this be sufficient to get the best out of the hifiman he4xx? With those cans I can plug the cable into phone 1st. Will this method provide more power than using a 3.5 mm male to female with a high impedance headphone, and then unplugging the high impedance headphones and switching to the he4xx as you suggest? In short, which provides more power, external device or high impedance?
I have those ve monk plus earbuds by the way lol. I also have the ty hi-z 150 ohm buds which I kinda like a little bit better. Please let me know if I'm not making sense. I just downloaded the hifi status app from Google play. When I plug my ve monks in it reads high impedance. When I remove the removable cable from headphones and plug it into the phone 1st, and then plug it into the headphones, it reads external device. So which mode will likely juice power hungry cans better, and will it be enough for something like the he4xx or trp50s? I seriously appreciate you taking the time to help the helpless knucklehead newbie

 

[435279]

I can force the phone into external device mode by plugging my 3.5mm male to male into the phone 1st, and then into my cans. I guess my question is would this be sufficient to get the best out of the hifiman he4xx? With those cans I can plug the cable into phone 1st. Will this method provide more power than using a 3.5 mm male to female with a high impedance headphone, and then unplugging the high impedance headphones and switching to the he4xx as you suggest? In short, which provides more power, external device or high impedance?
I have those ve monk plus earbuds by the way lol. I also have the ty hi-z 150 ohm buds which I kinda like a little bit better. Please let me know if I'm not making sense. I just downloaded the hifi status app from Google play. When I plug my ve monks in it reads high impedance. When I remove the removable cable from headphones and plug it into the phone 1st, and then plug it into the headphones, it reads external device. So which mode will likely juice power hungry cans better, and will it be enough for something like the he4xx or trp50s? I seriously appreciate you taking the time to help the helpless knucklehead newbie

I know this is not specifically answering your question (you may not want to stack) but I find the Oppo HA-2SE works very well with my V30, other headphone amps are available.

I use the analogue in, plugging in an external amp to the V30 triggers line out mode, obviously. It sounds excellent to me and as I'm not using the DAC in the HA-2SE the battery in it and the phone lasts ages.

I use my HD650 and SE846 with the amp, for different reasons, other times when I want to travel light I take other better matched headphones and leave the amp behind.

 

[Mhog55]

Yeah, I don't really want to stack. Part of the reason I got the phone to be honest. I do have a little fiio e6 portable amp, but I don't know what exactly it's capable of. I think I'll skip the planar idea and look for something else. I only heard the he4xx via Zs sound demo and I kinda fell in love it. Wish there was another set of dynamic cans that could at least come close to reproducing the sound in terms of clarity, speed and those mids. Oh those mids

 

[albocaj]

T-Mobile V30 guys, we're home!

 

[csglinux]

I can force the phone into external device mode by plugging my 3.5mm male to male into the phone 1st, and then into my cans. I guess my question is would this be sufficient to get the best out of the hifiman he4xx? With those cans I can plug the cable into phone 1st. Will this method provide more power than using a 3.5 mm male to female with a high impedance headphone, and then unplugging the high impedance headphones and switching to the he4xx as you suggest? In short, which provides more power, external device or high impedance?
I have those ve monk plus earbuds by the way lol. I also have the ty hi-z 150 ohm buds which I kinda like a little bit better. Please let me know if I'm not making sense. I just downloaded the hifi status app from Google play. When I plug my ve monks in it reads high impedance. When I remove the removable cable from headphones and plug it into the phone 1st, and then plug it into the headphones, it reads external device. So which mode will likely juice power hungry cans better, and will it be enough for something like the he4xx or trp50s? I seriously appreciate you taking the time to help the helpless knucklehead newbie

You'll get more output power from high-impedance mode than from external device mode.

T-Mobile V30 guys, we're home!

Yay!

 

[alota]

You'll get more output power from high-impedance mode than from external device mode.

About this part of your post, sometime ago i asked if anyone heard differencies between aux mode and high-impedance mode.
i report here my impression with my iem, westone w30.i have to use aux or high mode because in normal mode i need a little more volume.
i tried with same tracks aux and high. i preferred aux mode because the volume is more progressive and sound more natural. with high mode it´s like i put a boost in the music.fuller presentation but more aggressive.
of course i think we must see situation by situation with different headphones
and, in any case, a confirmation of greatness of this device

 

[Mhog55]

Perfect. Thank you to everyone for your help. Can someone direct me to one of the better impedance adaptors? I see some on ebay that come in various ohm ratings. I reckon it doesn't matter which ohm I get, just so long as I trip high impedance. I kinda like the orange set up the OP posted in the original post. Just don't want anything cheap that may cause damage to my phone if that's even possible. I definitely will not be leaving it plugged in.