I was hoping to start a little discussion on signal sources other than headunits. I'm a little bit behind the curve with this stuff, since the last time I was into car audio seriously, 90% of today's options simply didn't exist for car audio applications. With so many options available now, I'm wondering what the best way of maximizing my SQ is. Audiogal has posted about her phone to dsp hookup in another thread, using lightning/hdmi and hdmi/toslink converters to essentially bypass the cd player. She seems to like it a lot, plus its a fairly inexpensive and high quality way of getting the most out of her gear.
Dumdum has also been an advocate of the Topping D10 DAC, which also seems like a great way to improve the SQ for a slightly more expensive option (but still well priced). At the moment I am using my phone to bluetooth spotify to the headunit. Then I use the usb port to listen to my stored music. I know this is not my best SQ option, especially with a DSP.3. My cd player is a Kenwood ddx395, it does the trick but I am far from in love with it. My phone is a Samsung A8, which includes a headphone jack and USB-c plug. I have zero experience with any other source. So maybe people can share what their setup is in the car and what they like and don't like about it. Personally, I do most of my listening with Spotify, but would love to hear how you folks do it.
What do you use as a music source? How do you integrate your phone into your car? What's the ideal way to get the best signal to the DSP? Is a 3.5mm jack to rca wire linking phone to dsp as good as usb-c to hdmi to toslink? Feel free to drop your 2 cents in, I'd love to learn more!