HiRes Music for headphones

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Desertpilot

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HiRes Music for headphones
« on: 14 Dec 2023, 04:25 pm »
Hi Folks,

Normally, I listen to surround classical music. We travel in our RV occasionally. Also, sometimes, it is not convenient to use my surround system. What to do? About a year ago, I purchased the Topping G5 DAC and Meze 109 Pro headsets. Topping offers a driver for my Windows 11 laptop. This worked. But, it was still inconvenient having to lug my laptop around. I have a Samsung phone and challenged myself to use my phone instead of my laptop. Here's what I did.

-- I purchased a Samsung 512 GB micro SD card. Fast and from reviews, reliable.
-- Almost all my classical music is DXD or DSD surround. Huge files. I discovered that Chandos and eClassical (for BIS) allow me to download the stereo version of my previously purchased surround files for free. Great! NativeDSD and Spirit of the Turtle and TRPTK allowed me to buy the stereo version at a very very nominal cost. Again great.
---- It took time to download all the files (thankfully, I have speedy internet service).
---- I already had album covers, liner note booklets and extensive meta data for my surround music. I copied all of it over to my stereo music. Yeah, this took a minute (LOL).
-- I loaded the stereo music folders onto my phone's micro SD card.
-- I tried several music players and they all downgraded the music to essentially MP3. Terrible. I searched around and found this Android music player: USB Audio Player PRO, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.extreamsd.usbaudioplayerpro&hl=en&gl=US.  Works for Android, not sure about iPhone.
---- The settings were easy enough to navigate. I set the player to "bit perfect" playback and natively bitstream music to my DAC. YES! It worked.
---- The player scans my micro SD card and presents all the album covers. A simple touch of the cover and press the play button.

I've listened to many music files using my new phone setup and it's all working perfectly. I do not Bluetooth although the equipment offers this capability.

Marcus