Hi
I started using plexamp with my flac files and I really love it. I however have one question. If I play flac files on my Android phone which is connected over USB to my DAC, will the audio stream be a bit correct version of the flac file or will there be any transcoding happening when using a USB DAC?
Thanks for your help!
Cheers, Chris
It’s my understanding that unlike UAPP and Tidal apps, Plexamp does NOT override/replace the Android audio driver so everything is resampled to 48HZ. So not bitperfect but whether you could hear the difference would be down to your DAC and headphones, and is a discussion for another day 
Resampling is completely undesirable regardless. Same issue affects DAPs that bypass system audio completely yet Plex still resamples internally. Just pass through the audio and let the os do it, that way on systems that don’t resample automatically it will be passed through this is how Qobuz , Apple Music and Tidal works no inbuilt resampling same apps work but perfect on DAPs but also work fine on normal Android devices.
Its been my experience that it depends. Android resamples up to 48,000khz as a system default for audio. Using a USB DAC depends on the DAC and settings of the app your using.
For Plexamp if you want bit perfect you need to select it in the settings:
If you check the server when its playing it should show you Direct Play, and Plexamp should show you the bit depth and khz. 96/24
If you happen to see PCM and 1411 or some other combo when playing that is the system resampling. Hope this helps.
Where did you find this setting? I cannot find it in my plexamp app.
Also without changing something in settings, I can e.g. see 88/24 when playing an album. The question here is, if this quality will be streamed through USB or if there takes place a downsampling in between. Some confirmation of an active developer would be great.
Your first question as to where in the settings. These settings are in Plexamp.
Got to Settings → Playback–>Audio Output–>
Sample Rate Matching–>
I prefer to use strict but smart works well also.
One more thing to check to be sure there is no conversion happening. Is go to
Settings–>Music Quality–> and set the wi-fi to maximum. This is also the setting for ethernet if you happen to be wired in.
If you play a track and you see the file type and the bit rate and depth this means the Server is sending that to the device.
You can verify this by going to the Plex Server Dashboard. If you see Nothing or if you see Direct Play then there is one to one going to your device.
If your android is converting or resampling you will see something like this:
Chromecasting is always resampled for some reason.
What Android device are you using to see these settings? As far as I knew, sample rate matching is not available on Android.
Pixel 6a.
Apologies for any confusion, I didn’t say things as clearly as I was thinking and I may have misread the question. I thought OP was asking if Plexamp was bit perfect. The answer to that question is Yes. Plexamp is bit perfect but it depends on the operating system. As far as Android and dongle DACs I don’t know.
What I was trying to show, were visual clues you can see/check for whether your getting what the file is. So if the file is FLAC - 96/24. You can check this by looking at the server dashboard, if you see transcode or OPUS, the server is transcoding the file, if you don’t see anything or you see direct than the file is being sent as 96/24 and Plexamp will display that.
Again apologies for any confusion
Thanks for clearing things up :-). Since I want highres output from plexamp over USB to my DAC I resorted in switching to an iOS device. Thanks to Apple that they don‘t cripple down audio output over USB by downsampling everything :-).
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