Digital audio quality of modern Android Devices via USB-output from hi-res sources?

[rockrolla]

Ok , thanks for your patience , just one more doubt, that happens also on Android DAP devices ? You also need a software to bypass the system sound ?

 

[Jimbob54]

Ok , thanks for your patience , just one more doubt, that happens also on Android DAP devices ? You also need a software to bypass the system sound ?

Yes. Uapp or neutron plus maybe some others.

 

[rockrolla]

I only have a Mac and my daughter basically took it for me because I didn't use it much at home so I'm stuck on Android phone and android tablet and a fiio M9 that works beautifully , I don't want to pay another streaming subscription service since my daughter loves Spotify and I really enjoy tidal , so tidal + usb player pro doesn't have much benefit on your opinion so let's keep it simple and don't worry about it because my internet at home can't stream the big files from tidal master, so I have to work with my resources and that's fine , I just want to be sure what I'm listening because there's much misunderstood on then internet and most of people think that are listen loseless music when they are listening the same they hear on Spotify , at least now I know my hearing isn't bad

 

[rockrolla]

You can go into the Android settings and disable the upsampling (which you should do). Then, all audio will be played at 48kHz.

So 48khz is better than 192khz , or just it's the base to work with usbp ?

 

[staticV3]

So 48khz is better than 192khz , or just it's the base to work with usbp ?

48kHz is just the Android resampling without Samsung's awful "UHQ" upsampling on top as well.
Here are measurements of the two modes: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ana...-measurements-on-galaxy-note-8-exynos.873550/

 

[Marc v E]

You know what I don't get? Why is the mixing of sounds in an android phone taking preference above prioritising on source and assigning a sample rate based on the one with highest priority.

I care a lot about my music playing bitperfect, but couldn't care less about system sounds or intermittent phone calls or sms beeps being played in their correct sample rate. Is their a technological reason for why they (apple, windows, android) are doing this?

 

[staticV3]

Is their a technological reason for why they (apple, windows, android) are doing this?

99.5% of customers care waaay more about a seamless audio experience than they care about bit-perfectness.

If you get a call, but the phone doesn't ring because Spotify is playing in the background, then in the public eye, that's a bug. Not a feature.

 

[xeizo]

You know what I don't get? Why is the mixing of sounds in an android phone taking preference above prioritising on source and assigning a sample rate based on the one with highest priority.

I care a lot about my music playing bitperfect, but couldn't care less about system sounds or intermittent phone calls or sms beeps being played in their correct sample rate. Is their a technological reason for why they (apple, windows, android) are doing this?

Yes, to be able to mix different sound sources you have to pass sounds through a mixer which resamples and this mixer is in software meaning not bitperfect. It's not only Android and Windows, it's Linux too which uses Pulseaudio for the same functionality. When you play bitperfect you can only play one source at a time.

Windows uses ASIO or WASAPI for bitperfect, Linux uses ALSA.

 

[Marc v E]

Yes, to be able to mix different sound sources you have to pass sounds through a mixer which resamples and this mixer is in software meaning not bitperfect. It's not only Android and Windows, it's Linux too which uses Pulseaudio for the same functionality. When you play bitperfect you can only play one source at a time.

Windows uses ASIO or WASAPI for bitperfect, Linux uses ALSA.

Ok, that seems to make sense. "When you play bitperfect you can only play one source at a time." Do I understand correctly then, when I play bitperfect within Usb Audio player pro (UAPP), and a call comes in, the device disconnects UAPP (and its special driver), after which it re-enables the audio mixer ?

 

[xeizo]

Ok, that seems to make sense. "When you play bitperfect you can only play one source at a time." Do I understand correctly then, when I play bitperfect within Usb Audio player pro (UAPP), and a call comes in, the device disconnects UAPP (and its special driver), after which it re-enables the audio mixer ?

Yes, exactly like that, it switches driver. At least Xperia 5 IV does so

 

[rockrolla]

The funny thing is most of qobuz + uapp bit perfect are 48kz without the MQA license , Nevertheless I will test it soon since Hybi are offering it when you buy some products but let's face it there's a lot of misunderstanding and bad information

 

[xeizo]

Someone here wrote Tidal HiFi was unfolded MQA and therefore not bitperfect.

That is not true.

Tidal HiFi is total normal 16 bit 44.1kHz FLAC and bitperfect is working as it should up to in effect CD-quality.
MQA is a different stream, it's not the same stream decoded in different ways.

 

[staticV3]

Someone here wrote Tidal HiFi was unfolded MQA and therefore not bitperfect.

That is not true.

Tidal HiFi is total normal 16 bit 44.1kHz FLAC and bitperfect is working as it should up to in effect CD-quality.

When Goldensound measured MQA, Tidal streamed the MQA version of his tracks when he selected HiFi, not the uncompressed FLAC.
Link
In his test, there was no way to get lossless from Tidal.
You either get MQA without unfolding (HiFi), or MQA with unfolding (Master).

 

[xeizo]

When Goldensound measured MQA, Tidal streamed the MQA version of his tracks when he selected HiFi, not the uncompressed FLAC.
Link
In his test, there was no way to get lossless from Tidal.
You either get MQA without unfolding (HiFi), or MQA with unfolding (Master).

It may have been like that, but the Tidal app has been upgraded numerous time since then. My devices shows 44.1 as output and UAPP shows FLAC 16/44.1.
It may as well have been a temporary bug, or a bug only triggered by a Master subscription. Or a bug triggered by a MQA capable device.

 

[staticV3]

My devices shows 44.1 as output and UAPP shows FLAC 16/44.1.

That's exactly what Golden got. MQA encoded track, in the FLAC container, just without the MQA metadata flag, therefore no unfolding.
Just because Tidal through UAPP shows FLAC 16/44.1 without MQA indicator, does not mean it is lossless.
Only a test using Delawave or similar can show you if you're getting lossless.

 

[xeizo]

That's exactly what Golden got. MQA encoded track, in the FLAC container, just without the MQA metadata flag, therefore no unfolding.
Just because Tidal through UAPP shows FLAC 16/44.1 without MQA indicator, does not mean it is lossless.
Only a test using Delawave or similar can show you if you're getting lossless.

But it could mean you do get lossless, but with added MQA metainfo which is not used if not MQA. It should not affect SQ.

MQA is not lossless, it's supposed to be "better than lossless" which is of course snakeoil.

 

[staticV3]

But it could mean you do get lossless, but with added MQA metainfo which is not used if not MQA. It should not affect SQ.

At far as I understand, that's not how MQA works. True lossless is never tagged with MQA metadata.

Tidal has in the past delivered MQA compressed audio both with (Master) and without (HiFi) MQA metadata.

What you're currently getting with Tidal HiFi I don't know, but past data suggests MQA compressed audio in FLAC container, w/o MQA tagging.

 

[rockrolla]

So I upgrade my subscription from tidal HIFI to PLUS just to test , remove the Samsung UHQ native resampling and just playing tidal without any supporting app the output is 192kzh/24bits on the hidzis DAC , I still can't hear any difference from Deezer free playing the same music 48khz vs 192khz and only 30-40% of all my music on my tidal playlists are Master , so not everything is playing 192kzh most are still playing 48kzh , so my hearing maybe isn't the best but it's something that should be mention when you subscribe to Tidal Plus is that not everything in the library will be available on high quality.
Finally the supported apps mention like UAPP and Hidzis music can actually resampling every piece of audio to 192khz , but resampling makes a MP3 sound like a MQA? , I'm not the kind of person that believes you can make a nice omolet with bad eggs so I think there's much false beliefs and misunderstood, but that's probably my ignorance and bad hearing talking and it's basically great because it means you don't have to spend 14 euros per month on tidal plus and 8 euros on UAPP plus MQA license and after a year you can buy a nice 200 euros equipment

 

[DS_Construct]

i also have the HiFi plus version of TidaL. when I listen to the MQA version vs the flac version of a song, it just sounds a little different but not better or worse. But, I do like the TidaL sound over Spotify.

 

[Rja4000]

Bitperfect can be achieved if your application bypasses the sh...y Android mixer.
That's the case for eXtream USB Audio player, as an example, if you select its bit perfect mode.

That's how I measured Bluetooth receivers here, and, I suppose, how Amir did his own tests.
I can plug my Samsung Note 9 to my RME with USB and run bitperfect content.