Type C to 3.5mm DAC not giving HiRes Audio

[Harshavardhan_B]

Hello all, I've recently purchased the official Samsung Type C to 3.5mm DAC for my S20 FE. I am an audiophile and am mostly on my PC for hires audio. But I decided to do a switch to mobile as well.

The DAC works fine as in connecting the earphones and getting the music out of them, but the audio is only getting out to 16bits and 48kHz. Please let me know any fixes. 🙏🏻

There wasn't any firmware update as well. 

[Raja15]

Bro,first of all the wire you are speaking about Type C to 3.5mm is a convertor. And it does have DAC support but as you stated that you are an audiophile I hope you know that having DAC doesn't mean that you have high res audio output. You need both software as well as hardware. Like it also depends upon what player you are using and does it really support High Res Audio Output. Only then it can throw the maximum output (like samsung stated that it can support upto 24bit/192kHz, it's consider as high res output but there are more bandwidth also which are purely high resolution like 32bit/384khz). So first of all check that what software you are using with your phone and how much output it can support. And then check the music which you are feeding to the app for output. You can't compare a pc DAC output to a phone cause if you using an Amplifier from your pc then it does have that much of power and resource to boost up the quality of the audio. But in mobile it's purely different scenario like you need a proper Lossless audio (above 1100kbps) music file and the player should be able to handle that bitrate instead not to compress it. Then only you can get proper high res output.

Whereas in case of PC if you have a good quality sound card or if you use a Amplifier it does have that huge hardware support to increase the song bandwidth. So in simple word it can boost a 320kbps file to some extend. But not that much that it can turn a 320kbps file upto a lossless file.

And the last thing is that using 32bit/384khz audio format as default won't work as i said proper output can be only achieved with proper hardware as well as software support.

And you can change output from settings > developers option > scroll down you will get headphones output, from there you can change it.

[Raja15]

Like in my case I've used all apps and currently what i feel is that only Apple Music has proper Lossless audio support so i use Apple Music and my mobile hardware does support upto 32bit/384 khz output... and i use a sony 1000xm4 which does have high resolution audio support.
So you can see i can enjoy 32bit audio support by default.

[Harshavardhan_B]

Thanks for the detailed information, I really appreciate it.

I am using the unlocked version of PowerAMP, tried with Pulsar player as well.

And most of my library got 24bit music. No floats with 32bit depths. And at 96kHz and a few 192kHz. I did use a different DAC before with a Note 9 phone with a balanced output DAC for 32 bit and it worked fine and have a firmware update as well.

So the thing I'm looking for here is a Firmware update for my dongle so it supports 24/192, because power AMP shows the output being down scaled go 16/48.

Any help is appreciated 🙏🏻

[Raja15]

You for sure you can force use it for 32bit go to poweramp open settings > audio> output > now you can selet which type of output you want (high res or open els(default) then open whichever you want to use and select device wired and enable it > then on side tap setting and tap sample rate then boost it to whichever you want.

And you can also select your phone headphone output to 32bit as default. But it will also result in increased battery consumption. So better to use the app only.

[skay390]

How are you dealing with the audio resampling happening with android to 16bit/48khz at the type C digital out? I am using apple music lossless, pretty sure my dac is capable of 32bit/384Khz and a good IEM. 

can you please let me know that apple music using the standard android audio driver can play lossless upto 24bit/192khz using the type C output. I think its not happening and thats why the output from powerAMP is 16/48. 

and do not force the poweramp to play 32/384 for all files, it would just extrapolate and add noise for the extra headroom which is useless. 

As far i have seen, using android default driver will not support anything beyond 16/48. But i want to understand what bit/sample rate samsung is implemented in this phone with the help of UHQ settings, also to what bit rate does UHQ upscale the signal. 

just want to understand what is the max native bit rate and sample rate that this phone can play through usb type C output. 

TIA

[Harshavardhan_B]

I have just checked this setting. Thank you so much. And yep, I'll keep in mind not to use 32/384, I've seen it use up lots of battery before on a different device. Thank you so much for your help anyways 🙏🏻😊

[cs-member13]

Dear Samsung Member,

Greetings from Samsung Customer Support!

Thank you for sharing your concern. We acknowledge your query and apologize for the same. Happy to know the issue is resolved and feedback is noted

Thank you for writing to Samsung.

Warm Regards,
Samsung Customer Support

[skay390]

Hi , can you please help me with my queries stated above ?

[SawRX02]

You are right bro, but go to developer option scroll down then go media transcoding then TURN OFF enable transcoding option only then automatically plays 24 bit files 👍 this option covcort any files into 16bit 48khz therefore Dac not gives hi res