Best program to listen to FLAC and hi-res audio on the LG v30

[davidb423]

Does anyone have a favorite program to listen to their top quality audio FLAC and related sound files on the lg v30?

 

[Skyway]

I have a HIFI Tidal account, absolutely love it.

 

[chanchan05]

Local files? PowerAMP.

 

[Rumblee1]

Does anyone have a favorite program to listen to their top quality audio FLAC and related sound files on the lg v30?

HD TRACKS. They're the world's largest high resolution music store. They often run percent off sales.

 

[SchinkenSpicker]

What about LGs music player app?

 

[Rumblee1]

I tried it. It's fine. You'll get the same results as a downloaded music app. But not as pretty

 

[mlknez]

After two days of using the phone here are my observations on audio:

1. The ONLY app that can play PCM, DSD and MQA to the full potential of the ES9218P DAC is the stock LG player.
2. The stock player interface is very poor and limited but the quality of audio output is excellent
3. MQA files need to end in .flac or .wav extension for the stock player to play them correctly
4. Most players still use an older Android API for querying the abilities of the DAC. This only allows one DAC to answer and it is always the Qualcomm DAC, not the Sabre DAC. This results in the app decimating and converting all audio to 48khz PCM even when the phone does output via the Sabre DAC.
5. The new FIR filters interface does a capable job of smoothing out digital ringing.
6. High Bitrate music files placed on the new Sandisk 400GB high-speed MicroSD card were played perfectly


Other music players tried:
1. USB Audio Player Pro
2. Onkyo HF Player
3. Black Player
4. HiBY Music
5. Google Music Player
6. Amazon Music Player
7. Tidal
8. PowerAmp
9. VLC
10. Foobar2000
11. Pi Music Player
12. jetAudio HD Music Player
13. Neutron Music Player
14. NRG Music Player

If you would like me to test any other players for bitperfect output, please let me know. I record directly from the output of the V30 into a Sony PCM-D100 high-resolution digital audio recorder at the highest possible bitrate for the encoding used on the source. I then use Adobe software to do a comparison of the digitized output captured to the original file. There are always a few minor anomalies due to the nature of digital to analog and analog to digital conversions, but it is easy to spot when a decimation or digital to digital conversion was done during output.

 

[jb14]

mlknez:

Many thanks for your detailed description and results with the various music apps available. I am very interested to hear that only the stock LG app is able to utilise all four DACs in the phone. I am waiting on my V30 (which is still about 4 weeks away here in Europe), and currently using an old HTC 7 with a dragonfly black for my music needs. This necessitates using the USB Audio Player Pro app so interesting to hear I should avoid it for optimum playback. I'm hoping the V30 will be sufficiently proficient to allow me to leave the dragonfly black at home and enjoy my B&O H6(G2) headphones with less cables. Do you have any experience/thoughts with the dragonfly DAC s and/or their comparison to the V30 output?

 

[fasnic]

I 2nd PowerAMP

 

[mlknez]

mlknez:

Many thanks for your detailed description and results with the various music apps available. I am very interested to hear that only the stock LG app is able to utilise all four DACs in the phone. I am waiting on my V30 (which is still about 4 weeks away here in Europe), and currently using an old HTC 7 with a dragonfly black for my music needs. This necessitates using the USB Audio Player Pro app so interesting to hear I should avoid it for optimum playback. I'm hoping the V30 will be sufficiently proficient to allow me to leave the dragonfly black at home and enjoy my B&O H6(G2) headphones with less cables. Do you have any experience/thoughts with the dragonfly DAC s and/or their comparison to the V30 output?

The V30 ES9218P DAC sounds very similar to the LH Labs Geekout V2+ and the OPPO HA2. Both of those sound better to my ears than the Dragonfly Black.

There is really only one DAC in the ES9218P with four different pipelines. All four are only engaged if you are playing lossless audio at 48khz PCM or greater, or DSD. This is to save on batter usage.

 

[Latefordinner1]

All I am trying to do is to use Bluetooth in the car to play music stored locally on my phone. I do not want to such a streaming service, such as Google Play Music or Spotify. For now, I want to play the music using an auxiliary cable from the v30 to my car. It works if I play the music manually.

But, if I press a button on my Bluetooth headset or speaker and ask it to play a song, an artist, or an album, Google Assistant insists that I set a default music service. It will not use a music app to play local music.

I would like it to use a third-party app called CloudPlayer, by doubleTwist, to play local music. For a while, pressing the Bluetooth button would at least trigger a dialog box allowing me to select the stock Music player or CloudPlayer. Now, however, that doesn't happen.

Oddly, if I instead tap the Google button from the home screen and then tap the microphone and tell it to play an artist, an album, or a song, it usually does play the song from CloudPlayer locally. I assume I am using Google Now instead of Google Assistant and that Google Now does these things better than Google Assistant.

I have tried to make a press of the Bluetooth button trigger Google Now instead of Google Assistant, but I can't make it work. Several apps that promise to do that simply don't work. (They are all old.)

Is there some way (a) to make Google Assistant use CloudPlayer (or any app) to play local music or (b) to bypass Google Assistant and use what I assume is Google Now to use CloudPlayer (or any app) to play local music? I would like to do it by just pressing a Bluetooth button, as I don't want to take my eyes off the road. I have enabled only Bluetooth calling (not media audio), as otherwise it would play the music through the Bluetooth device. I want to play it from the phono port of my phone.

Thanks for any help.

 

[mlknez]

All I am trying to do is to use Bluetooth in the car to play music stored locally on my phone. I do not want to such a streaming service, such as Google Play Music or Spotify. For now, I want to play the music using an auxiliary cable from the v30 to my car. It works if I play the music manually.

But, if I press a button on my Bluetooth headset or speaker and ask it to play a song, an artist, or an album, Google Assistant insists that I set a default music service. It will not use a music app to play local music.

I would like it to use a third-party app called CloudPlayer, by doubleTwist, to play local music. For a while, pressing the Bluetooth button would at least trigger a dialog box allowing me to select the stock Music player or CloudPlayer. Now, however, that doesn't happen.

Oddly, if I instead tap the Google button from the home screen and then tap the microphone and tell it to play an artist, an album, or a song, it usually does play the song from CloudPlayer locally. I assume I am using Google Now instead of Google Assistant and that Google Now does these things better than Google Assistant.

I have tried to make a press of the Bluetooth button trigger Google Now instead of Google Assistant, but I can't make it work. Several apps that promise to do that simply don't work. (They are all old.)

Is there some way (a) to make Google Assistant use CloudPlayer (or any app) to play local music or (b) to bypass Google Assistant and use what I assume is Google Now to use CloudPlayer (or any app) to play local music? I would like to do it by just pressing a Bluetooth button, as I don't want to take my eyes off the road. I have enabled only Bluetooth calling (not media audio), as otherwise it would play the music through the Bluetooth device. I want to play it from the phono port of my phone.

Thanks for any help.

I think you should move this to a different thread.

 

[Latefordinner1]

Sorry. I’m new here and am not sure how to move it. I will try to start a new thread. Sorry for posting in the wrong place.

 

[jb14]

The V30 ES9218P DAC sounds very similar to the LH Labs Geekout V2+ and the OPPO HA2. Both of those sound better to my ears than the Dragonfly Black.

There is really only one DAC in the ES9218P with four different pipelines. All four are only engaged if you are playing lossless audio at 48khz PCM or greater, or DSD. This is to save on batter usage.

Thanks for the info. My tracks are all standard FLAC files from CDs at the native 16/44.1khz - will they still trigger the DACs other three 'pipelines' despite not being 48khz or greater? Did you find this out due to your own testing or can you link to where the 48khz being the trigger frequency for the other pipelines is discussed? Many thanks.

 

[jb14]

The V30 ES9218P DAC sounds very similar to the LH Labs Geekout V2+ and the OPPO HA2. Both of those sound better to my ears than the Dragonfly Black.

There is really only one DAC in the ES9218P with four different pipelines. All four are only engaged if you are playing lossless audio at 48khz PCM or greater, or DSD. This is to save on batter usage.

Thanks for the info. My tracks are all standard FLAC files from CDs at the native 16/44.1khz - will they still trigger the DACs other three 'pipelines' despite not being 48khz or greater? Did you find this out due to your own testing or can you link to where the 48khz being the trigger frequency for the other pipelines is discussed? Many thanks.

 

[mlknez]

Thanks for the info. My tracks are all standard FLAC files from CDs at the native 16/44.1khz - will they still trigger the DACs other three 'pipelines' despite not being 48khz or greater? Did you find this out due to your own testing or can you link to where the 48khz being the trigger frequency for the other pipelines is discussed? Many thanks.

It is with my own experimentation playing music files and watching the power use. This is a good article that explains the "quad dac" marketing term and the inner functions...

https://www.androidauthority.com/lg-v20-quad-dac-explained-713587/

 

[glserr]

Can you test gonemad music player?

 

[mlknez]

Can you test gonemad music player?

Sure

 

[mlknez]

Can you test gonemad music player?

I just tested the GoneMad player. Nice user interface, by the way. It is not meant for high quality playback however. It will play via the Sabre DAC but will decimate all PCM to 48khz and converts all DSD to 48khz PCM. It will not unfold MQA files. If you have CD quality or lower, this application will work fine for you.

 

[jb14]

I just tested the GoneMad player. Nice user interface, by the way. It is not meant for high quality playback however. It will play via the Sabre DAC but will decimate all PCM to 48khz and converts all DSD to 48khz PCM. It will not unfold MQA files. If you have CD quality or lower, this application will work fine for you.

So miknez am I correct in thinking that with anything at CD quality (ie 16/44.1hkz) or lower the app selection doesn't matter? Or did your investigations confirm which music players reverted to the Qualcomm DAC, not the Sabre DAC? Ie should I avoid all of the listed non-LG music players to ensure that the Sabre DAC is utilised with my CD FLAC files? I only have a few 'higher resolution' files and it is clear I will only use the LG app for these.+ many thanks for the QUAD DAC link, I will need to read it a good few times to understand it completely.