11-30-2015, 07:12 PM
dwraeAs replied on Head-Fi:
Thank you for your feedback! The app originated as a basic USB audio recorder and have been evolving it to a full media player over time. Updates happen continuously and we even hired extra people recently to add features to UAPP even faster.
-great to see you're committed to improving UAPP!
Let's go through some of your points:
* DSD is no PCM format and indeed one cannot apply software volume to a 1-bit stream, unless you disable DoP in the app's settings: then it gets converted to PCM first before audio is sent to the DAC. If your DAC does have hardware volume control, then we suggest to always use that since using software volume will affect resolution and therefore, quality.
-I was sure this will be your reply :) I am aware of what you said; however, this is a technical detail, and shouldn't be exposed to the user, not even to one that might understand what happens. The 'hw volume in uapp' works, I assume it does so by controlling my DAP through usb. My point is that the two ways uapp can control volume should be unified. Ideally, some settings could be added to route the volume control to one of the two ways, software or usb hw control of the dap. The current 'hardware volume' could remain in settings as a 'max volume' and maybe 'balance'. This will eliminate this bug [as i still see it], plus it will allow one to use the path that maintains the highest sound quality, as you rightly point out. I'm using a Geek Out V2, which, as you probably know, is somehow in-between: it has hw volume control, but no physical buttons for volume.
Pls let me point out that I noticed also erratic behavior for the phone volume buttons: sometimes they get to UAPP, sometimes they don't. [as if somehow UAPP needs a focus on its volume sw/ui in order to execute the phone button inputs]
* When unpausing the track, it should continue playback from where you pressed pause. With over 10000 UAPP users, if this was not correct, our email box would have been full of complaints, which it isn't, so please contact us by email at info AT extreamsd.com if you have a reproducible case.
-What you describe works. I was referring to resume after exiting and restarting UAPP. This is not a trivial case; one would need to exit UAPP in order to remove the DAP, and this removal is needed at times since the DAP consumes a lot of juice. When UAPP is restarted, it plays the last track, but from the beginning. It should be able to play from where it left off, as well - subject to some user setting. In this context, my 'bookmarks' feature also starts to make sense.
* Could you please elaborate on text wrapping
If I have a long title for a tune or an album or folder, UAPP only displays the prefix, however much it fits to screen. It should present the whole title, using new lines as needed.
* We have added the display of the current path on top now. It will be available in next release
-GREAT, thank you!
* "-when opening another screen e.g 'playlists' when the current one is 'local folder', playback stops, even before doing anything with the playlists [and the same with other screens]. Playback should continue until a new track is actually selected for play." We have a working solution internally but it needs some further testing. Probably by the end of the week.
-Great; just in case your solution does not already cover it, I'm reporting a new case where this happens: in folder view, with my phone in portrait, I navigate to what I want to be the next track to play. I cannot see the full name [see my previous point on this :)], so I turn to landscape, as a workaround. ...but, surprise! after the phone switches to landscape, I find myself back to where I started from, the folder that contains the *currently* playing track.
* We are working on some other points you mentioned
-Great!
Please let me add one more *really* nice to have: play through folders; that is, after the last track in a folder ends, UAPP should pick the next folder in the tree and play it. This is really useful in a car or maybe at a party, etc.
A few other things that look like bugs to me:
-everytime I connect the DAP and then start UAPP, I get and 'allow the app UAPP to access the USB device' screen, with a checkbox to 'use by default for this usb device'. However, checking it does not do anything; I still get that screen everytime. I realize this is Android, but isn't there a setting somewhere that UAPP can set, so that once I allowed it it stays allowed? no other players get this screen. I realize it might be because you need to take over with your sound library, but, again...
-the volume seems to be somehow incorrectly initialized; each time I reconnect dap/start uapp, the sound volume is/ can be different. I couldn't get a pattern yet, but it's something to do with the previous volume uapp had, as if that one becomes the current max volume -well, something like that, I'm not sure yet- ; my dap [Geek Out v2] does not keep the volume while it's off [as far as I can see]
- erratic behavior of the phone volume buttons: sometimes they work, sometimes they don't
Thanks again for your commitment to make uapp better!
Thank you for your feedback! The app originated as a basic USB audio recorder and have been evolving it to a full media player over time. Updates happen continuously and we even hired extra people recently to add features to UAPP even faster.
-great to see you're committed to improving UAPP!
Let's go through some of your points:
* DSD is no PCM format and indeed one cannot apply software volume to a 1-bit stream, unless you disable DoP in the app's settings: then it gets converted to PCM first before audio is sent to the DAC. If your DAC does have hardware volume control, then we suggest to always use that since using software volume will affect resolution and therefore, quality.
-I was sure this will be your reply :) I am aware of what you said; however, this is a technical detail, and shouldn't be exposed to the user, not even to one that might understand what happens. The 'hw volume in uapp' works, I assume it does so by controlling my DAP through usb. My point is that the two ways uapp can control volume should be unified. Ideally, some settings could be added to route the volume control to one of the two ways, software or usb hw control of the dap. The current 'hardware volume' could remain in settings as a 'max volume' and maybe 'balance'. This will eliminate this bug [as i still see it], plus it will allow one to use the path that maintains the highest sound quality, as you rightly point out. I'm using a Geek Out V2, which, as you probably know, is somehow in-between: it has hw volume control, but no physical buttons for volume.
Pls let me point out that I noticed also erratic behavior for the phone volume buttons: sometimes they get to UAPP, sometimes they don't. [as if somehow UAPP needs a focus on its volume sw/ui in order to execute the phone button inputs]
* When unpausing the track, it should continue playback from where you pressed pause. With over 10000 UAPP users, if this was not correct, our email box would have been full of complaints, which it isn't, so please contact us by email at info AT extreamsd.com if you have a reproducible case.
-What you describe works. I was referring to resume after exiting and restarting UAPP. This is not a trivial case; one would need to exit UAPP in order to remove the DAP, and this removal is needed at times since the DAP consumes a lot of juice. When UAPP is restarted, it plays the last track, but from the beginning. It should be able to play from where it left off, as well - subject to some user setting. In this context, my 'bookmarks' feature also starts to make sense.
* Could you please elaborate on text wrapping
If I have a long title for a tune or an album or folder, UAPP only displays the prefix, however much it fits to screen. It should present the whole title, using new lines as needed.
* We have added the display of the current path on top now. It will be available in next release
-GREAT, thank you!
* "-when opening another screen e.g 'playlists' when the current one is 'local folder', playback stops, even before doing anything with the playlists [and the same with other screens]. Playback should continue until a new track is actually selected for play." We have a working solution internally but it needs some further testing. Probably by the end of the week.
-Great; just in case your solution does not already cover it, I'm reporting a new case where this happens: in folder view, with my phone in portrait, I navigate to what I want to be the next track to play. I cannot see the full name [see my previous point on this :)], so I turn to landscape, as a workaround. ...but, surprise! after the phone switches to landscape, I find myself back to where I started from, the folder that contains the *currently* playing track.
* We are working on some other points you mentioned
-Great!
Please let me add one more *really* nice to have: play through folders; that is, after the last track in a folder ends, UAPP should pick the next folder in the tree and play it. This is really useful in a car or maybe at a party, etc.
A few other things that look like bugs to me:
-everytime I connect the DAP and then start UAPP, I get and 'allow the app UAPP to access the USB device' screen, with a checkbox to 'use by default for this usb device'. However, checking it does not do anything; I still get that screen everytime. I realize this is Android, but isn't there a setting somewhere that UAPP can set, so that once I allowed it it stays allowed? no other players get this screen. I realize it might be because you need to take over with your sound library, but, again...
-the volume seems to be somehow incorrectly initialized; each time I reconnect dap/start uapp, the sound volume is/ can be different. I couldn't get a pattern yet, but it's something to do with the previous volume uapp had, as if that one becomes the current max volume -well, something like that, I'm not sure yet- ; my dap [Geek Out v2] does not keep the volume while it's off [as far as I can see]
- erratic behavior of the phone volume buttons: sometimes they work, sometimes they don't
Thanks again for your commitment to make uapp better!