Mobile Audio Player Thread

Plex just updated it's iOS app to allow "lossless" sync, but the description in the App Store is not clear in that it says "some lossless files will still be transcoded."

However, I just synced a 24-bit, 92khz FLAC file to the phone, and my external DragonFly Red is showing magenta. Is it playing native FLAC or transcoding to something like ALAC on the fly?

 

With all due respect, sounds like a question to ask on the Plex boards or Twitter. I am interested in the answer they provide so do share.

 

Most likely ALAC or AIFF. Plex relies on the endpoint to playback the media, and Apple devices don't do flac. Let us know what you find out!

 

@cizx.6 I posted this question in the Plex forum and got no response. It appears that although the sync of lossless FLAC and ALAC is "supported" the output is downsampled to 48khz as best I can tell.

 

Because of the thread title, I think this is the most appropriate place for the post I'm about to write.

I will only talk about Android.

First to mention quickly, I love "HiBy player" app. Has "exclusive usb access" option for bit perfect playback over USB, works great for my schiit Eitr. Has a bunch of extra USB options as well that make it sound different (yeah, yeah, if you are not a cable believer then ignore the previous sentence, pretty please, but to me I sadly cannot unhear how different the jitter spectrum profile of each setting is to the next and I cant wait to hear a unison usb in my life) and other settings just make it crash randomly, boring nervosa stuff.
(The settings that randomly crash the player for me are "Free USB bandwidth after playback" and "Keep-alive in background", keep them off and also find in overall settings "track transitions" and set it to gapless.)

Whats weirder and I want to talk about today, so, Ive been loving my bluetooth Sennheiser HD250BT for months now and have been using it way more than my HD600. After experimenting, turns out HiBy and VLC Android boost the volume compared to the exact same file but played from the youtube app (yes I ripped and downloaded the audio, dont ask how). I added some advanced options and felt like a hacker when I found out ENABLING replay does something to LOWER the volume. It is no longer boosted and is now in line with the youtube app. And that also makes everything sound quite less compressed than just compensating for the bug by just lowering the volume further instead.

So now Im using, in VLC Android:

settings - audio - audio output - OpenSL ES
settings - advanced - custom libVLC options:
"--audio-resampler=none
--audio-replay-gain-mode=track
--no-audio-replay-gain-peak-protection"

To clarify, yes, weirdly not specifying OR choosing "none" as the replay gain mode, each make everything louder and more loud and compressed, like a solid 6dB, guesstimating, subjectively. With the new settings everything just sounds more real, clean and defined. Btw the resampler option needs to be different than "none" or just not specified (automatic) for higher sampling rate to work, coz these headphone's version of aptX limits them to 48kHz.

Digital things are WEIRD.
But hey, Im satisfied so I wont pound my head too much with this. But I wanted to share, ok? Call me insane. Or educate me, if what I am encountering is known. Please.

... Oh, silly me just before posting tried HiBy again (for bluetooth) and its own replaygain settings and guess what it works the same as my VLC "hacks", plus it shows an extra option - an adjustable one that defaults to -6dB for tracks without replaygain information... That explains alot, I now assume VLC defaults to the same.

Before all this I just thought all sorts of replaygain will always mean making things louder more or less.

Im sticking to VLC Android for bluetooth tho coz the OpenSL ES output option supposedly skips a step of resampling and so does the --audio-resampler=none option btw. And yes, it sounds different a bit, at least the audio output thing. Btw it sometimes, rarely, randomly messes up playback tempo alot (and pitch for me also, since I have disabled pitch correction in settings, its a video player after all so its expected to have to sync stuff), so turning off resampling is a safe bet - again, unless you neeed to listen to higher sample rate files.

Nervosa isn't always fun, but its relieving when I find an option that works well. Weird how I imagined the compressed sounding thing, though. I now think that would be the the weak little chip amps struggling with high levels when not being eased by the digital -6dB replaygain "bug", coz I tried alot and it does sound dirtier otherwise. So yeah, compressed sounding was not accurate though.

Have fun with digital and dont ever get me started on frame rate interpolation or video frame pacing/judder/drops in general, stuff of absolute nightmares. I wish things like "clockwork" existed, sigh. (Im way too poor for vynil also it hurts knowing most of that also went through digital anyways, someone please help me)