What DAC's are good for an Android cell phone

polkfarmboy

I want to get my friend into good audio so I will let him borrow my tube integrated and polk rti8's. He has no cdp or pc just an android cell phone so I would like to recommend a DAC for him to connect between the phone and tubes.

Any help that you give will be appreciated

Drenis

Unless the phone can bit-stream a digital signal out OTHER than HDMI which I doubt it can, you`re stuck with using the phones DAC`s and analog out.

rooftop59

I think your best bet is a decent receiver with either hdmi if that will work for his particular phone, or perhaps a usb input (not sure if that will work). Chances are that the dacs in even an entry/mid level receiver will sound better than the phone.

Having said that my HTC One X with beats audio (I know Monster blah blah) does sound pretty darn good for a cell phone/mp3 player. I think that even using the analog out with a decent amp and pair of speakers will whet his appetite. I did that for a friend awhile back and he was pretty blown away.

Now if anyone knows a solution to this I would love to hear it!

soundfreak1

Believe it or not blackberry makes a cheep ( 80.00 ) bluetooth reciever DAC called the " gateway" that sounds pretty darn good. But there is an english co. ( name escapes me right now ) that makes a very highend bluetooth reciever that outputs in spidiff opt. So u can use a external DAC to your pre. ( 799 to a couple g's ) depending on model.

Drenis

soundfreak1 wrote: »

Believe it or not blackberry makes a cheep ( 80.00 ) bluetooth reciever DAC called the " gateway" that sounds pretty darn good.

Will it stream flac?

AsSiMiLaTeD

If that's the scenario your friend is in then I doubt he has his music ripped to flac. In that case a DAC really isn't going to help, and if anything can make things sound worse.

soundfreak1

I dont know??? I would doubt it. It doesnt stream it recieves from a streaming source via bluetooth.using a phone as a bluetooth source and recieves that music and outputs in analog ( rca) the " chord" ( finely remembered the name). Is much higherend and outputs in spidiff optical so u can go into an outboard DAC .i guess u could recieve from a computer if it braudcast in bluetooth but i doubt the bandwith is enough for flac. Never the less the blackberry does very well. It surprised me quite a bit, i would equate it to a std grade cd player not using an outboard DAC. I think a step above mp3 . Amd it is cheep. On amazon i got mine for 40.00. And stream grooveshark and it does very well. But i would not compair it to the sound out of a good transport with a good outboard DAC. The chord ( which ive not heard) is a whole diff. Animal as the price would indicate. Way over my budget.the blackberry is a budget way of listening to phone streaming without the cost of building a server and is portable and very convient.

heiney9

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I want to get my friend into good audio so I will let him borrow my tube integrated and polk rti8's. He has no cdp or pc just an android cell phone so I would like to recommend a DAC for him to connect between the phone and tubes.

Any help that you give will be appreciated

Don't bother if he using his Android as a source. Just throwing money away.

H9

dudeinaroom

+1

Total waste of time, effort and money. Even if it did have a digital output, you would then have to consider the quality of the file. Most of the files on phones are a round 64 k/s and the "good" ones are 112 or 128 k/s and in mp3 format to boot.

soundfreak1

Just thinking if the phone is his only source a DAC. Is not usefull as u will need a digtal out, cant get that out of a phone. He could just buy a 3.5 mm/ stereo rca cable and connect the phone to the pre. No highend quality but better than a tuner. The blackberry will sound bettwr than a direct wire due to not using the dac in the phone. So it would be better if not spending hundreds vs 40.00. Its all matter of budget. U have to start somewhere and than upgrade as monet is available.

EndersShadow

Suggest he buy a cheap DVD or blu-ray player with digital out and spin some CD's. Assuming your tube integrated does digital.

Otherwise as some suggested he is screwed from the get-go using a phone as a source as its not going to do anything any justice.

If you start with crap you cant make it sound good no matter how expensive the electronics are.

polkfarmboy

There are some decent streaming music services from spotify on that phone that a dac could work with. I know some may think it a waste but to my friend its not and its his money. I am more than sure that once I get him setup he will want more and he does not have the time to make it down to the city to hear my setup as he works 6 days a week on tractor repairs

EndersShadow

polkfarmboy wrote: »

There are some decent streaming music services from spotify on that phone that a dac could work with. I know some may think it a waste but to my friend its not and its his money. I am more than sure that once I get him setup he will want more and he does not have the time to make it down to the city to hear my setup as he works 6 days a week on tractor repairs

I agree there are good streaming services, but I dont know of ONE way to get the audio out of his phone without using the DAC's in it. Thats the limiting factor here. The DAC's in any phone are not going to be that good, hence why your asking about finding an external one. I dont believe there is one for any android or blackberry phones. There are one or two for the iPhone but they are pricey.

soundfreak1

Again unless im missing something to use a outboard DAC u will need a digatal output from the phone and they dont have one. If he goes bluetooth out to that blackberry he can at least use any streaming program he wants and get it to the preamp no muss no fuss and no big bucks! It not going to be what i call CRITICAL LISTENING quality but it does sound better than mp3. Ive used one for 5 years until i got my adcom DAC. But 250.00 vs 40.00. Aint bad and he will have a lot of music available to him. And for 40.00 bucks he should be happy till he spends real money.some times i think we tend to think in terms of what we have now and forget what we had ( and were happy with) untill we spent big money and upgraded. Sounds like thia guy is just starting and he will learn as he goes along ( like we all did) and he will get sucked into the rabbit hole ( just like we did ) and upgrade like we did and still do. When money and knowledge merge he can step up and improve his sys. " LIKE WE DID! AND WILL CONTINUE TO. there ia no cure for this desese not even death. Im still trying to figure out how to power mono block sys. For my coffin! LOL.

Syndil

EndersShadow wrote: »

I agree there are good streaming services, but I dont know of ONE way to get the audio out of his phone without using the DAC's in it.

There's Bluetooth, but the limiting factor here is Bluetooth itself. Unless both the Bluetooth source and the Bluetooth receiver are capable of APT-X transcoding, the audio will be transcoded to lossy SBC before transmission, and SBC is not a high-quality audio codec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBC_(codec)

IMO using a phone as a source is a compromise regardless of how you attack the problem, so you may as well just have him use a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable until he can come up with something better. That said, I wouldn't hook a phone directly to any equipment I really cared about.

If the goal is to get your friend into high fidelity audio, giving him a decent amp and a decent set of speakers and using a cell phone as the source is putting the horse before the cart. A system capable of exposing subtle musical nuances is only going to make more obvious the flaws of a low-fidelity source and could actually have the opposite effect of what you are aiming for, if his phone sounds like crap on your amp and speakers.

tonyb

Syndil wrote: »

If the goal is to get your friend into high fidelity audio, giving him a decent amp and a decent set of speakers and using a cell phone as the source is putting the horse before the cart. A system capable of exposing subtle musical nuances is only going to make more obvious the flaws of a low-fidelity source and could actually have the opposite effect of what you are aiming for, if his phone sounds like crap on your amp and speakers.

Well said chief....well said.