DAP required

[PaulH]

Can you get a demo of some DAP's v DAC's ?

 

[DomT]

My suggestion is an older smart phone like the one I am typing on now (iPhone 7) and an Audioquest Dragonfly. Small convenient and good enough quality. You don’t need to put any personal data on it and just use it for music. I used to own a Dragonfly Red.

I also used to own a Kann. It was very good. But not sure if it would be any better than the dragonfly but I didn’t own them at the same time.

I personally preferred my Sony Walkman Pro cassette to both though as I have mentioned on here a few times.

 

[Headcoat]

@Paul H after much consideration I took your advice. Co-incidentally my old phone became obsolete due to provider moving to 4g. Changed provider and ended up with a smartphone.

That led me to researching portable dacs/headphone amp. Got a Chord Mojo 2 delivered today and on first listen it's really very good. Hopefully will double up as a DAC to feed digital files into the music room system (I've a lot of Grateful Dead gigs downloaded and of course Spotify/Qobuz).

The Chord even as an eq system built in that is very similar to the Schitt Loki and Lokius that I use. Poweramp also seems pretty good for eq - been playing with the trial version.

Thanks for the advice, all considered and now I have a smartphone - I make you right

 

[Headcoat]

Mmmm... on further listening I started to notice audible clicks and artefacts. I was using, what I think, is a USB C to USB C charging cable only.

Sound I realised after a bit of listening was a little rough, I think the iPod classic sounds much better.

Further research suggests an OTG cable is required, so have ordered a couple to try.

Within this research I find out that Android upsamples the audio it outputs to a DAC, aha that explains why Spotify was showing as 96kHz on the Mojo.

Some suggestion OTG works around this, some suggestion it doesn't and a couple of music player apps might do the job... oh no, third party apps and no I'm not going to get into rooting the device.

Ah, this is why I wanted to avoid smart phone to DAC/headphone amp. Nightmare and so far not happy with the sound at all.

Will try the other cables when they arrive, but I suspect the Mojo might be going back for a refund.

Anyone know if Android based DAP's avoid the Android drivers upsampling audio before it hits their internal DAC's... ?

 

[Cable Monkey]

Mmmm... on further listening I started to notice audible clicks and artefacts. I was using, what I think, is a USB C to USB C charging cable only.

Sound I realised after a bit of listening was a little rough, I think the iPod classic sounds much better.

Further research suggests an OTG cable is required, so have ordered a couple to try.

Within this research I find out that Android upsamples the audio it outputs to a DAC, aha that explains why Spotify was showing as 96kHz on the Mojo.

Some suggestion OTG works around this, some suggestion it doesn't and a couple of music player apps might do the job... oh no, third party apps and no I'm not going to get into rooting the device.

Ah, this is why I wanted to avoid smart phone to DAC/headphone amp. Nightmare and so far not happy with the sound at all.

Will try the other cables when they arrive, but I suspect the Mojo might be going back for a refund.

Anyone know if Android based DAP's avoid the Android drivers upsampling audio before it hits their internal DAC's... ?

Any decent DAP should not need to do that. It was done in phones to ensure consistently minimal power consumption.

 

[Headcoat]

Ok, so today tried plugging a spare CCA into the Mojo and much better - no clicks/artifacts.

Also realised I can, of course, use my iPad into the Mojo. IOS doesn't upsample the audio like Android. Ordered the Apple CCK lead.

Which means I can use iPad for streaming indoors and accept the Android's upsampling for streaming outdoors. Then use UAAP player on the Android smartphone to avoid the Android upsampling on my own music files wherever I may be.

Or even indoors the CCA into the Mojo for streaming.

So many options, my head's a spinning.

Curious thing this Mojo 2. I'm usually a warmth over detail man. This thing seems to extract detail/show transparency without fatigue.... so far. Tried the crossfeed DSP but think I prefer traditional headphone left/right balance. The eq works very nicely for my preference of boost the bass, drop mids and lift upper treble.