Portable DAC recommendations

Following on from the headphones tracks thread.

Currently listening to Spotify on best quality through Sony WH-1000XM3’s via bluetooth (I have a wired lead too) from a Galaxy Note 20 plus.

It’s been suggested that Tidal is a decent upgrade for quality of music – would I also see much benefit in a portable DAC

Bluetooth normally gets berated for listening quality, but I’ve been reading about this one from Audiolab, which What Hi-Fi seem to rate highly. It uses bluetooth to connect to your device? Any other suggestions?

Audiolab DAC

I have that DAC, I have been using it with my wired IEMs to get over the lack of a port on iPhones

I have to say I have been very impressed and it has performed better than I expected and I have to agree with the review, particularly around keeping the detail, rather than just adding punch (which it does too)

Good to hear, as I’ve ordered it 😉

i personally wouldn’t go for Tidal if you are not getting a dac at the same time.
i did a fair bit of auditioning of headphones and dacs pre lockdown and settled on an audio quest dragonfly red and DT880 for home listening but use the dragonfly for travel with iPhone and Sure IEM’s

found the red a big jump up from the black but didn’t feel the blue was worth the extra expense. the sound is great with Tidal at hi-fi or master playback.

the iPhone dac is good (it’s actually in the tiny little lightning to mini jack dongle but external dacs get the best out of hi res.

i did try the chord Mojo but size was not conducive to pocket listening.
i did audition some Stax with with a DCS dac but didn’t fancy remortgageing to afford them!

Signed up to Tidal and DAC arrives tomorrow

The FiiO stuff is very good too. Only disadvantage is that you will be able to tell the difference between lossless and Tidal’s 320kbps options, and Spotify sounds like shit in comparison to both even though the bitrates are apparently the same.

Flaperon
Free Member

The FiiO stuff is very good too. Only disadvantage is that you will be able to tell the difference between lossless and Tidal’s 320kbps options, and Spotify sounds like shit in comparison to both even though the bitrates are apparently the same.

Make sure you turn off all the volume levelling options in Spotify.

Note the Sony noise cancelling headphones (indeed all proper noise cancelling headphones) have a DAC / DSP in them so any benefit from an external DAC would be very marginal if any at all as the internal NC processing of the headphones would take over the audio over bluetooth.

Agree also the DAC in the iPhone is actually very good. I did going the whole external DAC route (Chord Mojo – lovely thing) but in the end just stick with headphones straight to the phone…

Note the Sony noise cancelling headphones (indeed all proper noise cancelling headphones) have a DAC / DSP in them so any benefit from an external DAC would be very marginal if any at all as the internal NC processing of the headphones would take over the audio over bluetooth.

What about via a wired connection with N/C turned off? I turn it off when I’m in a quiet room anyway to remove processing (not sure if that’s the right thing to do)

I’m currently running my work laptop through a FiiO DAC/Amp but I must say I do find myself lustng after a Mojo, they are rather special.

Just done some research and apparently using the XM3’s via a wired connection is awful – better off sticking with the internal DAC and using wireless

*heads off to Amazon to cancel

@TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR – yep, the NC headphones all sound pretty ropey with the NC turned off as they are specifically tuned to having it running.

@hatter – the Mojo is lovely. I listened to a Hugo also and there was not much between them except the ££££££££

I suspect that unles you’re willing to spaff four figures on headphones or you’re using it to stream to a truly monstrous home system buying the Hugo is well into ‘diminishing returns’ territory.

Question on these external DAC thingys…
I’ve sometimes used my tablet to output eg bbc sounds to my stereo. Anyone know if they make much difference on internet audio sources of varying quality ie not lossless / hi quality stuff but normal quality – bbc sounds, radio apps etc?

Right, so adding to the above, re: Bluetooth – I have a pair of Audiopro Addon T20 speakers

I’ve used them via Bluetooth from my phone, Alexa and PC and they sound great.

However, as we are constantly told Bluetooth is pish, I’ve taken a 3.5mm out from pc to aux in on the speakers.

I can’t find any info about a DAC in the speakers. They have apt-x decoding on Bluetooth and a class D amp.
So based on my Sony WH-1000-XM3’s being better with Bluetooth and using their own DAC – then what’s the best connection method for the speakers? 🙄

Hard to say with no info on their DAC. They’re designed to be flexible, I’d stick with Bluetooth if they sound great?

What sources do you have?

Zorloo Ztella MQA version, for Tidal listeners…

Just listened to Wish You Were Here back to back via PC and phone to my T20 speakers

PC wired connection via aux on Spotify – sounded OK

BT via phone on Tidal – sounded really good

PC via aux on Tidal – worse than the above two

PC via BT on Tidal – similar to via aux

Interestingly it’a Master – the ‘Master’ tag stayed when playing on my phone – just showed Hi-Fi via PC

*Edit – needed the desktop app – master now sounds way better via tidal than master via BT from PC

That’s the way to do it, try all the various methods and see which you prefer.

I assume Spotify is their ‘normal’ quality? Your aptX Bluetooth is lossy 48kHz/16-bit I think, so you’re approaching CD quality. The PC hardwired into the amp in the speakers could be very slightly better, but not enough I reckon that you’d notice.

One last option is optical from PC to the T20s. Does your PC have an optical output, like the older macs?

@Jamze

Spotify is best quality, albeit, I know that isn’t as good as others

No optical unfortunately.

Tried the audiolab M-Nano DAC connected to the speakers – not sure if better or worse from PC, but noticably worse connecting my phone through the DAC than phone to speakers on BT

Conclusion – seems similar to the Sony headphones – best option is phone via BT and let the speakers do their thing

BT using aptX will sound very good. I used to use it in the car with a Helix DSP and quite significant factory audio mods and it sounded sharp, detailed and very easy to listen to.

Trouble for me at the time was my silly android phone kept turning the volume down after 30 mins or so as it was ‘too loud’ (pretty much as iPlops have started doing).

Android might have become more intelligent to realise there is a device and not headphones connected but, at the time it was so annoying that I went to USB audio instead, using USB Audio player app on the phone.

You could also try doing the above and getting USB audio directly out of the phone. Sounds like you might not have set something up right in the above as it should sound slightly better than aptX. I used the USB audio player app and forced the phone to play directly out bit perfect.

Anything from the PC will likely be poor unless you can use aptX on BT or you go into your DAC using USB audio and then the speaker.

Yeah, I haven’t tried with the current Android release, but it uses the stock USB drivers if connecting an external DAC and just down-samples. You need to look into getting either a driver replacement or app like USB audio player to get around it from memory.