Came across a dilema... Got lucky still can't believe this happened. Maybe my references are still very low and I haven't afforded decently good proper audio hardware... Anyway. What happened was...
Spotify is sounding better playing on a cheap smartphone than on the cheap IQ audio DAC pro on a raspberry pi.
Went to buy a set of cheap Mackie CR4x and brought along the pi with the IQ audio but the pi wasn't being able to access the wifi hotspot provided by the phone that well and the sound wasn't that impressive so i ditched it and connected the phone directly to the speakers in the store shelves by feeding it the output of the headphones with a cheap RCA to 3.5mm jack. Hold and behold. The sound was amazing and with that 2 pieces of hardware I was filling the whole store with an bright and colored sound. The store was like a 200 square meter by 6 meters high full of keyboards guitars all sort of musical instruments and the little 4 inch monitors we're filling it completely with a loud bright defined sound, even the low end was punchy and present. People that were shopping in the other corner of the store said that they felt and liked the sound... All of this coming from the DAC of a cheap Alcatel 1S 2019 smartphone.
This phone is known for having and extremely loud internal speakers but no definition like for example the Alcatel idol 4s (aka Vodafone Smart Platinum 7)with stereo speakers and Waves™ technology (software DSP I guess "inside"), which made it sound as good as a portable Bluetooth speaker back in 2019 , but still don't believe that it's ( Alcatel 1S 2019) DAC has such a flat and clear live sound coming out of the headphones jack.
At the i use this phone to record surveillance video or eventually control Spotify running on the raspberry pi, every other ocasion I indulge in connecting it to the amplifier were i have the Mackie CR4x connected and play Spotify from it because the IQ audio DAC on the pi is no match for it in making the sound come alive while streaming Spotify
I will eventually buy a proper DAC and subwoofer and will then share how the new sound compares with this cheaper hardware.
Spotify is sounding better playing on a cheap smartphone than on the cheap IQ audio DAC pro on a raspberry pi.
Went to buy a set of cheap Mackie CR4x and brought along the pi with the IQ audio but the pi wasn't being able to access the wifi hotspot provided by the phone that well and the sound wasn't that impressive so i ditched it and connected the phone directly to the speakers in the store shelves by feeding it the output of the headphones with a cheap RCA to 3.5mm jack. Hold and behold. The sound was amazing and with that 2 pieces of hardware I was filling the whole store with an bright and colored sound. The store was like a 200 square meter by 6 meters high full of keyboards guitars all sort of musical instruments and the little 4 inch monitors we're filling it completely with a loud bright defined sound, even the low end was punchy and present. People that were shopping in the other corner of the store said that they felt and liked the sound... All of this coming from the DAC of a cheap Alcatel 1S 2019 smartphone.
This phone is known for having and extremely loud internal speakers but no definition like for example the Alcatel idol 4s (aka Vodafone Smart Platinum 7)with stereo speakers and Waves™ technology (software DSP I guess "inside"), which made it sound as good as a portable Bluetooth speaker back in 2019 , but still don't believe that it's ( Alcatel 1S 2019) DAC has such a flat and clear live sound coming out of the headphones jack.
At the i use this phone to record surveillance video or eventually control Spotify running on the raspberry pi, every other ocasion I indulge in connecting it to the amplifier were i have the Mackie CR4x connected and play Spotify from it because the IQ audio DAC on the pi is no match for it in making the sound come alive while streaming Spotify
I will eventually buy a proper DAC and subwoofer and will then share how the new sound compares with this cheaper hardware.