Android and Audio Formats/Sampling Rates

It depends on the specific DAP and, in some cases, how you’re playing music on that DAP.

Some use the stock Android audio-stack, some use a customized/modified audio-stack, and some rebuilt it in it’s entirety to avoid the issues. And some only use the custom audio-stack with their built-in music player application, but leave third-party apps like the TIDAL or Spotify clients to use the stock audio-stack.

Price and pedigree of the player wasn’t a good indication of how it was handled, either. For example the initial Onkyo DP-X1 (and I believe the DP-X1A) used the stock Android audio-stack and, as I recall, a single 48 kHz sample-clock (the default for the Android platform), where as the much less expensive FiiO X5iii used a custom one.

The A&K players have a fully-custom audio stack and even third-party applications output is routed through these as it is a complete replacement for the stock implementation.

It varies by vendor and device and you need to check specifically. If it not called out specifically, I would work on the assumption that you’re going through the default stack and forced ASRC.

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