Would you consider buying outright a low to midrange Android as your new DAP?

[heatofamatch]

Question is, if you use an android phone and plan to use an android as your DAP, why would you need two androids instead of just one?

 
Good question!
 
For most of the year, I've struggled with a hideous battery drain issue on my proper android phone (a Sony of recent vintage). I think I've isolated the source of power draw - the cell radio is just incredibly hungry on this particular network. If I'm streaming radio, sometimes the battery wears down from 100% to under 15% in 3 hours, and it needs 1.5A current from an external battery to charge successfully. The only way I know of curing this, short of experimenting with other telcos, is to tether to another phone via bluetooth (wifi is just as bad), but then that interferes with this Sony phone's ability to hold any other bluetooth connections.
 
I know that's a rant, but I just wanted to explain, that's why I've had to scramble to un-converge all the things I thought I could converge onto one phone. I'm bitter about convergence right now, I blame Sony, and if I were a professional troll, I'd say Sony made a lemon on purpose.

 

[pukemon]

  you are on the ball there pukemon it did use an omap i forgot about that, damn youre more on top than i am and its part of my job! (and now my brains are racking thinking which other models used exynos chips, a week off doing nothing but listen to tunes and read is not good for the brain!) i didnt know that qualcomm had improved their dacs any though, my last experience of one was the HTC one which was enough to make me want to take the phones out and stick pencils into my ears, ill have to dig the n3 back out of my test units drawer and give it a go, its strange, i was always locked to certain handsets, and this time it was due to poor sound from most, but now the HRT works with a lot im free to choose again so i may have to dig through that drawer and see what i fancy (im thinking xperia z1)
 
interestingly does anyone know if the i9506 (the snapdragon 800 galaxy s4) uses the same DAC as the n9005? and as you say older exynos/wolfson packing units are out there for mighty cheap so if anyone does want a long battery life good sounding player its a good option. also out of interest do iphones and ipods have decent chips in still, the last i had was a 2nd/3rd gen ipod (the first one that worked with windows) a long time ago, they were good but are they still good? (not that id buy an apple product again, im just curious)
 
in any case i dont think theres much except maybe an A+K that could match phone>HRT>phones sure its ba few extra bits in your pocket, but damn does it ever sound good. maybe not as good but possibly better than a lot of options i think hifimediy do an android dac for about £20+shipping http://hifimediy.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=62&product_id=124 which could make for a good budget ooption
 
.

 
htc one is supposed to be good if you disable beats.  i don't know personally.  quite a few peeps on xda liked it with beats disabled but otoh, many still disliked it.  i guess ymmv.  yeah, qualcomm has been on the ball on all fronts with SOC's.  not 100% sure, but i would say a strong yes that the i9506 uses the same wcd9320 dac as the n9005.  apple dropped wolfson a while back in favor of cirrus logic dac's they custom tune themselves.  not sure if it had anything to do with samsung buying a lot of shares of wolfson.  the galaxy tab2 is probably the best value for a music player with wolfson 1811.  4000mah battery in it.  but it would be not so portable though i've seen quite a few claim they use it as their phone who had radio's in theirs.  lol.  the galaxy s3 international version would probably be the best portable value with wolfson.  and btw, it was rumored the lg g2 packing a snapdragon 800 SOC which should use qualcomm dac has a wolfson added in.  i never followed up on that rumor.  i've heard good and bad about the audio on lg g2.  if it had micro sd slot i might've got it instead of my note3 which i am very happy with.  my note2 might've had better audio but i never got to experience that because i didn't do the mods necesary to get there.  i do have to say the note3 is awesome out of the box and has mods available which i may or may not try after i get a C5D.

The biggest problems with smart phones as music players are audible system noise (EMI from CPU and/or disk activity and/or wifi and cell radio) and high impedance headphone outputs. Even some very expensive Android phones and tablets have these issues. Unfortunately it can be hard to find any manufacturer specs that even mention headphone output impedance so you have to rely on the very few competent testers and reviewers out there who actually take an interest in audio quality on smart phones and tablets which means useful data is only available for a tiny proportion of available products.

I have an Archos A43IT, a pocketable tablet running Froyo, and designed as an audio and multimedia centric device. EMI seems well suppressed with no ugly noises intruding into playback - nice black silence - except when the wifi is switched on or off. I don't know the output impedance but it must be ridiculously high because my balanced armature IEMs basically don't work with the device unless I add an inline resistor. Dynamic driver headphones and IEMs work normally. I did think of using a cheap Android phone with microSD as my regular music player (I liked the idea of a music player that can also do internet radio) so have done the rounds of local shops listening to different devices and so far they have all been really unimpressive next to a dedicated audio player (I have Sansa Fuze+ and iRiver H140 and H340). It seems normal for the headphone output to be too quiet and to compound the problem by having audible noise. The humble Archos seems impressive in comparison and has massively longer battery life but it still isn't a match for a proper audio player because it's not good enough with balanced armature IEMs.

Anyway, short version: yes, I would consider it and it would be ideal but unless you can bypass the headphone socket and use a line out dock to an amp then it probably won't be satisfactory. And once you've done that you are way past the "low to midrange" budget, are carrying around a bulky combo, and would have done better to spend many fewer pennies on a Clip+ or similar.

i agree with your first paragraph for the most part.  fortunately i've owned pretty good phones that haven't that much EMI.  the atrix only had it when a call came in which was ok because i was about to get a call anyways and needed to unplug but i wasn't into serious headphone audio back then.  nothing else bothered it.  the gtab2 of course didn't have interference because i had WIFI version only.  my note2 did not have any issues.  my note3 was about to make me scream because i have had quite a bit of interfence.  infuriating experience.  i did a lot of experimenting though with turning this and that off though and ticking mobile data when i'm on wifi at home cures about 95% of the EMI.  still get it rarely.  this is not a cure for people who stream music though and i am not sure if it still interferes then because i can't be bothered by the low quality of streaming audio.  wifi doesn't seem to bother it.  btw, would you happen to know if listening to audio through usb would be interfered with EMI?  

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Good question!

For most of the year, I've struggled with a hideous battery drain issue on my proper android phone (a Sony of recent vintage). I think I've isolated the source of power draw - the cell radio is just incredibly hungry on this particular network. If I'm streaming radio, sometimes the battery wears down from 100% to under 15% in 3 hours, and it needs 1.5A current from an external battery to charge successfully. The only way I know of curing this, short of experimenting with other telcos, is to tether to another phone via bluetooth (wifi is just as bad), but then that interferes with this Sony phone's ability to hold any other bluetooth connections.

I know that's a rant, but I just wanted to explain, that's why I've had to scramble to un-converge all the things I thought I could converge onto one phone. I'm bitter about convergence right now, I blame Sony, and if I were a professional troll, I'd say Sony made a lemon on purpose. :evil:

I have the same problem with my phone. My solutions:
1. Pocket of 3 replacement batteries for the phone, to be all used up in one day and 3 universal pin chargers at home to charge them back up at night
or
2. Permanent external battery tether system: I carry my phone in a hip pouch, with the opening up top to insert my headphones and a hole I made down the bottom to insert the USB cable for an external charger. And I need two of these to last the day When I answer the phone I pull the phone up and the charge cable just comes up with it like I'm using an old school landline phone

All in all the experience is not dissimilar to a player / DAC+amp stack I wish they made a phone that's thick as a brick with a huge integrated battery that would actually last the day (and require a 5A charger or something to charge back up for the night...) Would be harder to slip out of your pocket too :mad: like how I lost my first S4 months ago :mad:

 

[shch13]

Carry two small-ish devices (or the very least slim devices) is fine by my books lol
ATM I'd carry around my GNexus and my IPod or Walkman Z (they're the biggest out of my DAPs) with it. Although I must admit I do get a bit sick of Android being on my phone AND my music player lol (Walkman has ICS, GNexus has Jelly Bean; the 2 OS are almost identical except for performance), But they serve completely different purposes.

But to carry around multiple batteries or those battery extenders to thicken the phone, I think kind of cramps the style of the original device haha

 

[heatofamatch]

But to carry around multiple batteries or those battery extenders to thicken the phone, I think kind of cramps the style of the original device haha

 
+1. I'm a gadgeteer, so I'm naturally inclined to get another device instead of spending to bolster the original device (which is also always a loser's game in my experience).
 
About the spare battery thing Joe Bloggs mentioned, I've done it. I bought one of Sony's original replacement batteries for my phone... but it had issues that would cause the phone to randomly lose power. So that money went to waste, as did the charger I bought for it, and I had to shell out for yet another external battery (total 3 now).
 
So, you know how I feel about Sony now...with their phone products at least, even if they do improve every year, it's all very bitter and stuff. And I'm not even using the OTG digital out that drains the battery in like an hour!

 

[Joe Bloggs]

And I'm not even using the OTG digital out that drains the battery in like an hour! :angry_face:

This is happening because your phone is acting as a USB host and most all USB audio devices charge themselves through the USB host, draining the phone's battery dead. This would happen with any smartphone doing USB OTG.

The new FiiO E18 has a dedicated smartphone DAC mode that does not drain the host's battery, and a separate USB socket for charging. :evil:

 

[heatofamatch]

This is happening because your phone is acting as a USB host and most all USB audio devices charge themselves through the USB host, draining the phone's battery dead. This would happen with any smartphone doing USB OTG.

The new FiiO E18 has a dedicated smartphone DAC mode that does not drain the host's battery, and a separate USB socket for charging.

 
Thanks but no thanks... When I think of the current state of DAC use with phones, I cannot help but quote steve jobs - it's a bag of hurt. I don't care for it, at least not at the current degree of sonic improvement they offer. If it doesn't go in a jeans pocket, I'm not doing it.

 
Everything you can think of, I've already thought of and experimented with, and me no likey. If only I knew I wouldn't like it before shelling out for the CCK and various OTG cables, hmm...