One of the issues for me in selecting a new DAP (besides supporting non-Android-SRC’d bit-perfect playback for Apple Music (AM) or any other 3rd-party players) is: — Is it running a very old version of Android? I consider Android 7.x too old to buy a new device personally. I have a FiiO M11 Pro stuck on Android 7 and even though I was initially enticed by the Shanling M8 after recent inquiries, it’s Android 7.1 OS has pretty much made me discount it (I’m not looking for future-proofing per se, but the likelihood of Apple Music software requiring newer OS functionality to get all the latest features is high).
My Sony ZX507 is running Android 9, and that’s about as old an Android version I’m looking for in a DAP. Sadly, the Sony ZX507 has issues: —it still does not support being a USB DAC —as a transport is is constrained in that it does not output digital audio out of it’s USB port bit perfectly and at a max of 96kHz —and, internally, it does not support bit-perfect audio for 3rd-party software (TIDAL and Qobuz will be subjected to Android source rate conversion (SRC) to 48kHz unless you turn on a Sony proprietary setting called “High Res Streaming”, which will upsample everything to 32b/192kHz) — Note: UAPP is an exception in that recent versions of the software have identified the ZX507 DAC as a high-res-capable DAC and UAPP is sending bit-perfect output to the Sony DAC which will only slightly modify it by zero-padding everything to 32bit (and if “High-Res Streaming” setting is on, will get upscaled to 192kHz as well)
As I said in a previous post, Apple Music Lossless/High-Res works fine on the ZX507 but not bit-perfectly.
So I would say Android 9 is the lowest I want to go with a new streaming-capable DAP that supports Apple Music Lossless/High-Res. Hiby’s and iBasso’s latest are Android 9. FiiO’s latest is Android 10. I have a pre-order in for the FiiO M11 Plus LTD (if that doesn’t happen due to supply issues, I’m open to other suggestions).
Cheers, Gus
以下Google翻譯
我在選擇新 DAP 時遇到的一個問題(除了支持 Apple Music (AM) 或任何其他 3rd 方播放器的非 Android-SRC 的位完美播放)是: — 它是否運行非常舊的版本安卓?我認為 Android 7.x 太舊了,無法親自購買新設備。我有一個安裝在 Android 7 上的 FiiO M11 Pro,儘管在最近的詢問之後我最初被 Shanling M8 所吸引,但它的 Android 7.1 操作系統幾乎讓我對它打了折扣(我並不是在尋找面向未來的東西,但是Apple Music 軟件需要更新的操作系統功能才能獲得所有最新功能的可能性很高)。