[Brava210]

Sorry if this is a silly question.
I currently use a pioneer dap with USB audio player pro which allows hi res streaming from tidal.
It shows a bitrate ranging from 800kbs to 1300kbs usually with CD quality albums. It shows Upton 2200kbps streaming MQA tracks. I can also use my Samsung S9 to do the exact same thing feeding an external fiio dac. So is there any sonic advantage using a dap for this.?

Gary

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

Not a silly question, it is an often overlooked area of audio.

Different digital sources make a difference when feeding a dac. I definitely have my favorite sources when feeding my NAD M51 dac. The digital stage is where it all starts, the crystal oscillators, cpu, software, processing, power filtering, storage etc all affect jitter and how well timed a stream of 1's and 0's hits your dac stage. An enhanced dac stage will be designed to reduce the incoming jitter and timing anomalies, but nonetheless the better the signal is going in the better the output from the dac will also be, as evidenced by my golden ears.

I personally don't know whether the Pioneer or Samsung is a better source, your own ears are in a good position to test that, they may even be on par, they are after all similar devices when it comes to the digital side of things.

 

[Brava210]

Thanks,
I understand your reply.
I do sometimes struggle to tell any difference when streaming an MQA to a low bit stream of 320kbs.i have read that smartphones do contain pretty good dacs now, so rather than buy another dap for my study, I may just use a phone.

Gary

 

[artpiggo]

LG V30 and it is good to go.

 

[phower]

If you are streaming through Bluetooth or USB then there is no advantage in using a separate DAP.
The fact that you are asking such a question tells me that are smarter than 99% of the people on here who believe in magic things and blindly follow reviewers and audio manufacturers.

 

[blackdragon87]

LG V30 and it is good to go.

Another phone to consider from LG is the G7 Thin Q. I have it and it has a quad DAC for great sound quality.

 

[Tential]

If you are streaming through Bluetooth or USB then there is no advantage in using a separate DAP.
The fact that you are asking such a question tells me that are smarter than 99% of the people on here who believe in magic things and blindly follow reviewers and audio manufacturers.

This site is not purely for science or subjective users from my understanding. So you get both.

Personally, if you can't explain it scientifically, I'm not listening. Trust your ears is horrible logic. 100s of years ago when people would kill you for saying the world is not flat, they said "trust your eyes the world is flat!"

For apps like uaap, it looks to pass a pure signal through, so unless you want a single device, you could stack. There are apparently even more apps than uaap and neutron, theyre just community favorites so others don't get brought to the light as much. Apparently rocket player pro can do this too. Wish I could test it but don't know how.

To any person saying source matters:
Post your study backing up the claim.

 

[antz123]

usually ones with high storage are without MicroSD option. Thats why I never thought about it