Giant Killer Doorway DAC?
- Thread starter prime minister
- Start date
I've tried it with my LG V20 - it works. I really was not listening critically, though.
Might have to try it and see.
This is another Xiang Sheng?
What’s an OTG adaptor?
I'd be using it with COAX, no more of a need for USB input here, I'm not sure if the reclocker would help as much there (and I have a very good external USB reclocker/converter). My desktop system speakers and headphone out is run by an audio recording interface/DAC/ADC/pre. Univeral Audio Apollo... EXCELLENT device but not really doorway.
On-The-Go, a specific type of USB cable whose pin out (Sense/ID + GND) allows an Android device to operate in Host mode with a DAC.
If you connect an Android device using a standard USB cable, it can only play the role of Peripheral and won't work with a DAC.
In Apple-speak, an OTG adaptor is a camera connection kit or "CCK".
I can't speak for Android but I used to use my Ipad running Tidal with the camera kit USB adaptor, through a reclocker/USB-AES/EBU converter into my Berkeley Alpha ..and it sounded great. Now, the Alpha is not a doorway DAC but the ipad/camera kit worked well as an available source that most people would have the equivalent of.
I did the same with an Audioquest Dragonfly Black, and it sounded nice also.
Not so off-topic in the sense that the Doorway is an area of presumed restricted budget, if one already has/owns the transport/player in the form of a mobile phone or tablet, that's one less thing that needs to be purchased up front to get up and running.
It sounds remarkably better than one might have assumed on Android when using the UAPP or Onkyo HF Player apps, and there are some great portable DACs available that don't break the bank.
There are however some DACs intended for the home environment that for whatever reason don't play nice with an OTG connected source, probably just silly isolated instance firmware incompatibility, but some DACs are seemingly incompatible despite having a USB input.
I must've been lucky.
My LG V20 uses the larger USB C. I got an adapter from USB C to USB and then go into the DAC via the USB input.
Seems to work OK but will have to listen more critically and compare to the Sonos to see how it stacks up.
I sure hope it does stack up and agree that this type of source feeding a Doorway DAC would definitely free up some budget.
This is a huge point on Android - using the UAPP (USB Audio Player PRO) app as your player bypasses the Android 16-bit/48kHz limit and allows Android to output to full 32-bit resolution - so everything up to 32-bit at 384kHz pcm or even native DSD can be passed straight to the DAC through that OTG cable.
I use an older Android phone with UAPP, connected to an OTG wired portable DAC that can play these higher-res formats via USB, and the performance can be fantastic with the right recording. Maybe not so important in the early stages of building a system if using a phone as the player, but for the same $ invested and with the right DAC, it's nice to have something that can play those hi-res recordings right now without down-conversion - something to build and improve around.
I started collecting hi-res pcm and DSD recordings of music I like quite some time ago and always could play them in their native format, and even if the differences sometimes seemed small, it was nice to hear them sound even better as my system improved around them.
Without a hyphen in the thread title, I'm picturing a murderous DAC the size of a Great Dane crouching in someone's listening room...
Or, just for fun, we could add a comma.
Mortsnets
Junior Member
Another doorway dac added to the pile. I saw a good price on a used Schiit Modi Multibit so I bought it without over thinking it - I wanted to know what "multibit" was all about. For lossy Spotify I think I prefer the Starting Point Systems dac but for everything else I like the Modi.
