Can anyone direct me to a DAC that will receive music from thumb drives, AND will offer a screen or method of selecting the files (music) which are on the thumb drives?
Right now my Android phone is doing exactly that, but I want to step up the quality of the DAC above what is in the phone.
I don’t need superior, highest-quality, …just a good, worthwhile improvement in DAC function.
I’ve figured out many methods but they are all without any way of selecting the various music files (albums) on my thumb drives.
Right now my path is: Thumb drive to OTG cable, into Android phone charging port, out headphone port to receiver, to speakers. The phone screen shows all the files on the thumb drive, which can be selected and played.
NOTE: I find thumb drives to play very well, at any different sample rates and bit depths, through my phone.
This is a tough one as the phone is doing a lot by both decoding the files and providing a graphic interface.
Is playing the files in the same way acceptable, but with the phone sending the digital file to a DAC over Bluetooth? If so, the Sprout would be a big step up, but it is likely a good deal more than you want to spend.
For your information, a DAC that can extract audio from any memory device based on commands from its own user interface or you smart phone is called a DAC with streamer function. Then there are streamers that can extract the music from network attached drives (PC’s NAS with server software) and even the internet, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Qobus.
For your application the best solution would be:
Depending on your budget, John Darko (DARKO AUDIO) has tons of videos of really well affordable and compact raspberry PI streamer/DAC’s to which you can connect thumb drives and that let you choose the songs via your android. Following DARKO’s recommendations, these solutions should up grade your system and you don’t have cables connected to your phone while selecting music.
The next step up is the Chord MoJo doing basically the same thing, but plays from compact memory cards ad higher quality and then you can climb the ladder via Mytec Brooklyn, to Auralic to … the sky is the limit.
But I trust the You’d be happy with such Raspberry Pi solution as it is a step up in sound quality and user friendliness.
I understand the usability controlling it with your phone, but if you have a computer that you can use instead, it would really open up the possibilities for the type of DAC you could use. Accessing the files would be easy and depending on the DAC you get, the sound quality will be increased substantially.