Media Players
Tried a couple of players using my smart phone.
As I am into classical, I want to play compositions not albums or random tracks.
Titles in classical are in general descriptive and therefore long.
The simple question is can you read them?
Composer
When I started using my phone as a media player around 2010, support for the composer tag was poor.
Today a lot of media players do support this tag.
Next question: what happen if you filter using a composer.
Often you get a list of tracks ordered by number so all tracks 1, then all tracks 2, etc.
What you need of course are albums as search result.
Custom tags
I use a custom tags like Opus, Composition, Movement, Year composed.
In general they are not supported. A lot of media players simply use the Android's media server so no custom tags.
Hires
Streaming audio services are switching to lossless audio. They also offer hi-res.
This raises the question if your phone can play audio at its native sample rate.
Android devices operate at 48 kHz (the standard for video). A user cannot change this in any way, there is no sound panel in Android like the Win Audio panel or the OSX audio midi.
However, some audio players can bypass this standard.
You also need a USB DAC capable of 24 bit audio and the common sample rates (44.1, 48, 88.2, 96 kHz etc).
A USB dongle is the ideal solution for portable use.
Media players supporting hi-res.
An app by HiBy claiming to support direct USB audio output on Android
It supports Android, iOS, Windows
Hi-Res Audio support:
- Devices with on-board Hi-Res Audio DACs
- Direct output to USB DAC (via USB OTG adapter, up to 32-bit, 768 kHz)
It support
- MP3, AAC (up to 48 kHz)
- DSF/DSD-IFF (2.8 MHz/3 MHz/5.6 MHz/6 MHz/11.2 MHz, PCM conversion, DoP)
- FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, Ogg-Vorbis (up to 192 kHz)
Note: Audio with a sampling rate exceeding 88.2 kHz is downsampled to 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz.
You need the paid version to unlock the capability to play up tom 24 bit / 352.8 kHz
Android 14
According to Android Developers Blog, bit perfect USB audio will become part of Android
Android 14 gains support for lossless audio formats for audiophile-level experiences over USB wired headsets. You can query a USB device for its preferred mixer attributes, register a listener for changes in preferred mixer attributes, and configure mixer attributes using a new AudioMixerAttributes class. It represents the format, such as channel mask, sample rate, and behavior of the audio mixer. The class allows for audio to be sent directly, without mixing, volume adjustment, or processing effects. We are working with our OEM partners to enable this feature in devices later this year.