Android still doesn’t handle USB audio very well. USB DAC dongles have their own volume settings, however Android doesn’t ever change this. This means that if a dongle has a preset volume level that is relatively low, android can never go above this.
Someone on Reddit has written a better explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/11wfe05/android_dongle_volume_issue_lets_ask_for_a_fix/
Help us get this issue higher up on android’s priority list by pressing the +1 button. I know it probably doesn’t affect many users here but thank you anyway!
I must be lucky, because this has never affected me. I have two different USBC dacs that I use on my android phones. The first one (super cheap one from eBay) defaults to max hw volume when plugged in, that happens to be a pleasant listening volume when the software volume is at 70%. The second (nicer, better) one has much higher drive capacity, but it defaults to 50% hw volume when plugged in, so again happens to be exactly the right listening volume when sw volume is at 70%.
I can also use UAPP to manually change the hw volume if I need to. The downside is UAPP for some reason always puts the good DAC to 100% hw volume by default that is enough to hurt my ears and damage my cheap earbuds.
It’s good there are workarounds but it would be amazing to have this fixed system wide! Is there free version of UAPP?