New Zorloo Ztella Portable DAC

[mlknez]

I have been testing the new very portable and great sounding Zorloo Audio Ztella DAC https://www.zorloo.com/ztella

I am on an LG V30 with Android 9 and the latest version of USB Audio Player Pro

When I wish to use this DAC, DSD is unable to use native mode even though the DAC works fine in DSD native mode under Windows 10.  Also, if there is a system sound, USB APP sees the DAC as ejected.  I can then remove and reinsert.  The DAC is then seen and goes on working.  Is there any way to address these 2 issues?

Normally I would not use this DAC with this particular phone.  I was just using to test the difference in the internal Quad DAC versus this new, cheap upstart.

Thanks in advance!!

[mlknez]

I posted this bug report almost 4 months ago with no reply. Is this something that will be fixed?

[dwrae]

Apologies for the late reply. The 'ejection' of the DAC cannot be fixed and is uncommon. It would be caused by the Android audio system wanting to take control of the USB DAC. Since there can only be one driver active at a time, you cannot play system sounds (or any other sound) through the DAC when UAPP is in use. When you start UAPP, it tries to set the default Android audio output to the loudspeaker.

According to the USB descriptors and the Zorloo website, there is no mention of a native DSD interface. Furthermore, the Ztella page mentions DSD support up to 5.6MHz (DSD128), which plays fine using DoP mode. There is NO quality difference whatsoever between DoP and native DSD.