davide256 Posted August 27, 2021 Share Posted August 27, 2021 Doing a lot of listening on the go with Qobuz lately using Iphone, Helm Bolt DAC dongle and Meze 99 classic headphones. The iPhone 7 sounds pretty good, plus it has plenty of offline storage space for downloaded high res Qobuz music to minimize wireless coverage gap issues. But more resolution is always nice Wondering though if I can do better, ie if newer iPhone or buying a standalone DAP could improve? Would lose cellular connectivity with a DAP but as long as it had SDXC support for 512GB cards that would be an even trade off. Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
cjf Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Hello, Given what you describe I would propose a slightly different option. My thought being; since you are using an external DAC/AMP to power your headphones already I would consider the player/phone/device as no longer important in terms of its contribution to the majority of the sound you hear so if it were me I would maybe consider a reallocation of funds towards different headphones instead. IMO, portable listening is tough to find a balance. You of course want the best sound possible while on the go to the extent possible with a noisy outside world around you. But at the same time I feel it makes sense to also consider the unexpected things like losing the mobile rig or dropping it, both of which are very possible things that could happen while on the go. So when I was looking for a mobile rig for myself I weighed these various things against a price that I thought I could live with should I lose, drop or otherwise have some negative outcome with the whole rig while on the move. So I guess the questions to answer are: 1. Does the sound I get now with the current setup pass as "good enough" for a mobile rig or is it pretty horrible in certain areas that must be upgraded? 2. Could you continue to sleep at night if you lost the current rig? What about a new rig that costs double or more? In my own case, I choose to just use the phone (Samsung Galaxy + 5G) with a pretty solid set of IEM (Shure se425) and a good music playback App (USB Audio Pro). I find this setup falls nicely in the "good enough" camp for me. Just a few thoughts My Audio System -Last Updated May 20 2021 Link to comment
Bevok Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Yes I would echo those thoughts. I see many problems from people using various specialist audio players with a Miriad of Android versions, sd cards etc. Qobuz don’t have the development resources of the big boys so sticking to a common hardware and O/S platform will allow you to have a greater probability to just enjoy the music rather than spending all your time faffing around trying to install stable versions of Qobuz that work on your combo, losing downloads etc. I use it on iPhone iPad and Galaxy and have no issues with those platforms (only problems I’ve had are with Chromecast). You’ll easily get up to 24/48 resolution with off the shelf products and it sounds like you’ve got the dac to potentially go beyond that. A DAP or newer won’t change the bits you’re sending the DAC on Qobuz. That’s assuming the phone is reliable, has enough internal storage etc of course! Link to comment
davide256 Posted October 20, 2021 Author Share Posted October 20, 2021 Had my hand forced since T-Mobile merged with Sprint and my iPhone 7 would lose network after December. Bought an 11 Pro Max with 512gb storage, initially it sounded bad but after 40 hours of use it broke in and the harshness was gone. Using it with the Meze 99s + Chord Mojo is working out Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
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