Android audio quality : my surprise revelation

[Santy]

Contrary to the popular belief, popular USB implementation of iPhone/iPod on most devices is not digital extraction, even as it yields better results. Due to closed nature of Apple's policy, very few manufacturers have been able to implement "true digital extraction" from iPod. Wadia for example.

Are you sure? I always thought that if you manage to get audio through Ipod USB, it is digital. I was under the impression that all docks that have speakers or analog out, works on the digital stream with their inbuilt DAC. Ofcourse, there are a few docks that has S/PDIF as well. Many have been successful in taking out digital stream using "camera connection kit". I also believe all ICE HUs which support Ipod direct connection works on digital stream. My JVC does for sure. So I am wondering if they are not digital extraction, what they would be.

BTW, I have been able to confirm several times that my android tab- digital out is sounding much better than my PC.

 

[Sawyer]

Are you sure? I always thought that if you manage to get audio through Ipod USB, it is digital. I was under the impression that all docks that have speakers or analog out, works on the digital stream with their inbuilt DAC.

I have an old Arcam dock that houses the latest generation iPod classic, and charges it too. But it provides analog outputs to any third party amp, so it isn't using digital inputs and doesn't have a DAC. I think that many dock speakers don't have a DAC, they take the converted in iPod analog signal from the iPod dock connector in the body of the speaker.
Apple licenses the Made for IPod logo that kit makers use in their spec. I would assume that all such kit uses the digital stream, as an intelligent guess, based on my experience with Marantz.
In the past Wadia was one of the very few, if not the only one, to do this, and had a very high priced box in the market. I doubt anyone buys that bit of kit anymore.

 

[dheerajin]

This was a revelation, and I am happy for it.
Recently got myself a Lenovo K900 Android, it used to be a 'flagship' model, not anymore, that did not bother me. I needed a vivid and big screen, to read comics and casual books, this serves the purpose, has 2 GB RAM to boot, so all in all not bad. This however is not a review of the Lenovo K900.

Along with that strong cup of coffee, my AT M50 is by now my without-fail companion for nightly working hours, with my laptop and Asus Xonar U3.
I was listening to some music tonight as well, no different than any other. Then I got up to get myself some coffee....while in the kitchen I do not know why I thought of it or how it came to pass, but I thought I would connect my Audio Technica to the new Lenovo K900. Just curiosity I suppose.
Good thing that I did.



This was a true revelation, never expected this. If I was happy with the Lenovo before, then what am I now?
I started to look for answers, found that K900 uses the Wolfson WM5102, akin to much much pricier Samsung S4, I was not surprised given me experience tonight. So I decided to start this thread about Android sound quality with the myriad devices available in the market. Share your experiences with audio on phone, does not have to remain confined to Android I suppose.

Dear shibashish,
Sticking to the point. I have Lenovo K900 and after much experimentation , I am running it with Neutron audio player which is best for audiophile standards.
Apart from that in this category K900 is the only phone which is having pentium processor and that also makes the difference in sound processing.
Try Neutron player and you will forget your Xonar..believe me. And dont be dissapoint by crazy interface of neutron player.

cheers
dheerajin

 

[shibashis]

Dear shibashish,
Sticking to the point. I have Lenovo K900 and after much experimentation , I am running it with Neutron audio player which is best for audiophile standards.
Apart from that in this category K900 is the only phone which is having pentium processor and that also makes the difference in sound processing.
Try Neutron player and you will forget your Xonar..believe me. And dont be dissapoint by crazy interface of neutron player.

cheers
dheerajin

Thanks Dheeraj, I will try Neutron. I am glad that someone can reaffirm what I am stating, good to know of your experience with the K900.

 

[shibashis]

@shibashis - Thanks for the update.

I rarely watch any movies, play games or listen to music on my smartphones. To me its all about work - email, social media, calendar, organization, dictaphone (Dragon NaturallySpeaking has a wonderful app), etc.

That said this should as good a day as any to transfer some high bitrate MP3s and test things out. Mercifully my collection has been ripped from CDs and converted into FLAC, but don't think any of the smartphones with their 16GB internal memory are going to take over the entire music collection... unless of course we can get the 2TB microSD and a compatible phone.

Shall try/test things out over the weekend and come back with my findings too.

Going to start with the Moto X and the HTC One.

Looking forward to your evaluation of Moto X and HTC One, I am very interested on how these different models measure up to in terms of audio quality. I have high hopes with HTC, I'll be waiting for your findings.

 

[keith_correa]

What is the "closed nature" of Apple that we are referring to in this context? You pay. They spread their legs. Simple! And, pardon my crudity.

 

[shibashis]

Time for an update, after starting the thread and experimenting with the K900 I searched in the forum for other Android related suggestions and threads.
I experimented with a couple of players, Poweramp and Neutron. Both improve the sound quality, main difference I found was in imaging compared to the stock player. It makes for much more pleasant listening.
I am sorry Dheeraj, you suggested Neutron and it is really good, but I can not live with that user interface. I am not exaggerating when I say from the very first moment the player's UI feels like you are in an alien ship, it is difficult to make sense of anything offered in there. Your brain feels fuzzy and compelled to feel fear at the prospect of imminent sighting of an alien. I therefore promptly got rid of it.

It maybe worthwhile to mention that a lot of people over in head-fi use their phone with external DACs part of elaborate setups, I want to say that for me such a setup is not priority, what matters for me here is quality audio out of the box so to speak, any tweaks and fine tuning has to be limited to software and IEM/Headphones. From this standpoint the Lenovo has fared really well. I wish I could test the Samsung S3/4/5 or HTC flagship models.

 

[ranjeetrain]

The biggest issue then is the lack of capacity, even with the OTG option, it is somewhat cumbersome. .

I think you are beating yourself too much on this trivial issue. These days, if you buy a device with 16/23 GB built-in memory, which sports 32/64 GB card slot and further top it with another 32/64 GB storage on OTG, you have say 70-144 GB storage. That's 7-14 days of non-stop music in lossless format. I don't think it is a realistic situation that it won't accommodate one's frequently used collection.

But yes, for those looking to carry their entire collection, may be they need to wait till they come up with fingernail sized storage media with petabyte capacity.

Fair enough. I believe Marantz are being honest, based on a AB precise level matched blind test that I did once with a lot of rigour on a high end system, using SACDs for the comparison.
Based on that I would think the same for every other Marantz kit that has the same spec for its USB made for iPod socket. If they can do it once, it can't be expensive to replicate across the model range. The bigger cost would probably be the license fee they have to pay Apple for this.
Later I also tried this with the analog signal from the 30pin socket of the I Pod touch directly into a Quad preamp, and I could not hear any conclusive difference. But this wasn't done with as much rigour, I will admit. For casual background music it seemed perfectly adequate on the same system.

I am not sure if I follow you correctly. Are you saying all Marantz featuring "Made for iPod" logo have the same processing? And their output is same as their analog signal taken out from the 30-pin socket? Based your above observation I will have to conclude that there is something fishy if the is no difference between the two.

Another point I want to make is -- "Made for iPod" doesn't guarantee a "true digital extraction". It seems to me that you are under the assumption otherwise and you are basing your posts based on that. But you may want to check out what Apple has to say about this issue. You will be surprised to know that all Apple cares for for giving out the license to use their "Made for iPod" logo are some very basic criteria. And none of them says a word about extraction of raw data from their devices. Check this out, and this , and this. Please let me know if you anywhere find a reference of "digital extraction" in that which guarantees what you seem to claim about products with "Made for iPod" logo.

Are you sure? I always thought that if you manage to get audio through Ipod USB, it is digital. I was under the impression that all docks that have speakers or analog out, works on the digital stream with their inbuilt DAC.

That's why I said, contrary to popular belief. Please read this page which is from a reputable source and throws some light on the subject.

Many have been successful in taking out digital stream using "camera connection kit".

CCK is an Apple initiative and it guarantees digital out. It is not contestable.

 

[Sawyer]

what you seem to claim about products with "Made for iPod" logo.

You are reading more into my quoted words than what they say.

 

[vijwilso]

My experience is little different when using the Android as transport and digital out to DragonFly . I have been using Nexus 7 + USB Audio PRo + DragonFly combination for quite awhile and liked it for the overall quality and convenience . I could not find any difference when I moved from 'Audio-optimized-PC' to the Nexus as Transport .

Now i got a different speaker ( little more revealing ) , amplifier and a Meridian USB DAC . and recently tried playing it from PC and the improvement is very significant compared to Nexus 7 digital out . One explanation could be that Nexus is not able to power the Meridian properly as it sounded less dynamic with Nexus and comparatively tinny and less body to the instruments . Now i am moving back to PC again , though it is not convenient to me .

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

In a previous link, Android audio is lauded loudly by the author. He also regards ALSA as the bees knees in OS sound processing. Does Android use alsa?

I use Linux; I use ALSA (and JACK sometimes); I'm happy to see praise for Linux stuff, rather than the usual adherence to the two "standard" products, but I'm not sure that the facts are quite right. Linux audio is rather complex (too complex!) and I am hardly able to get my head around it, but, so far, I'm under the impression that, indeed, ALSA can be good, but that it takes some care in its use to make it so. Out of the box, it is quite likely to resample everything, and be overlaid with something like Pulse Audio server, which seems to cause more problems than it is worth.

I use an audio-tweaked linux; I haven't had to think too much about the details.

Sadly, I can't join in with enthusiasm for the sound from my Motorola Defy+. I don't like it very much. Next time (in a year or two) I'll pay more attention to sound and camera when buying, and newer hardware/software will allow more choice anyway. But I really don't like investing big money in something that could slip from my pocket into a toilet!

 

[shibashis]

I think you are beating yourself too much on this trivial issue. These days, if you buy a device with 16/23 GB built-in memory, which sports 32/64 GB card slot and further top it with another 32/64 GB storage on OTG, you have say 70-144 GB storage. That's 7-14 days of non-stop music in lossless format. I don't think it is a realistic situation that it won't accommodate one's frequently used collection.

But yes, for those looking to carry their entire collection, may be they need to wait till they come up with fingernail sized storage media with petabyte capacity.

Agree with you completely, but sadly my Lenovo is a 16 GB version and the K900 does not have a card slot to augment storage. truth is before this I never thought that I could be using my phone for serious music listening, so it did not make sense to me to fork out extra money for the 32 GB version. For all intents and purposes 16 GB was for me more than enough, and now look....!

 

[Sawyer]

You are reading more into my quoted words than what they say.

Two interesting links for anyone interested in I pod SQ.
CD 6004 with iPod connected via USB - Marantz DAC or internal iPod DAC used? | whathifi.com
Going by this, things are still confused. However, post 11 made the most sense to me, since it corresponds very closely to my experience with the same Arcam analog output dock that I have.
Marantz SA8004 SACD / CD Player / USB DAC Reviewed
This is a review of the Marantz player that I have. This one says different and is what I still think based on a level matched blind test. I could be wrong, but it is irrelevant to me if I am. YMMV.
Regardless, the ultimate test is one's ears. Based on that, I have no hesitation in using my iPod/Ipod touch in my Quad 99/909/Harbeth C7 system - either via the USB socket on the Marantz front panel, or directly via the Arcam dock wired to the analog inputs of the Quad 99 preamp. Either way, I have no use for CDs now.

 

[shibashis]

I am not sure about Marantz's implementation but it seems likely the audio indeed is analog, but the video is sent as digital, I could be wrong but that is what I read somewhere.

 

[Santy]

@sawyer and @ranjeetrain

I have a simple question to ask. If we connect a system this way
Ipod -> Dock -> S/PIDF out -> DAC
...and if we could play music, does it not mean that the dock is taking out digital stream from ipod?

If the DOC has no digital out, well yes, there could be two scenarios; ie the DAC in Ipod is used or it is bypassed. If it has an S/PDIF connection, then there is no confusion that the ipod's DAC is not used because I believe there is no ADC in the dock and it makes no sense either.

 

[Sawyer]

@sawyer and @ranjeetrain

I have a simple question to ask. If we connect a system this way
Ipod -> Dock -> S/PIDF out -> DAC
...and if we could play music, does it not mean that the dock is taking out digital stream from ipod?

Yes, it does mean that.

 

[akshaye]

I have Lenovo K4 note, and it sounds just amazing with my sennheiser HD429 and with BA sound ware digtial cinema. Not sure how different K4 is than K900..


Sent from my Lenovo A7010a48 using Tapatalk

 

[music4mhell]

My daily music connections,

@ Home > Oneplus One(Apple music+Wynk) > Chord Mojo > Genelecs
@ Office > Oneplus One(Apple music+Wynk) > Chord Mojo > HD650/High end earbuds

Pure bliss.

 

[shibashis]

My daily music connections,

@ Home > Oneplus One(Apple music+Wynk) > Chord Mojo > Genelecs
@ Office > Oneplus One(Apple music+Wynk) > Chord Mojo > HD650/High end earbuds

Pure bliss.

Here you are using Chord Mojo as the DAC, is not it? The whole discussion on Android phone's was about the SQ with their on board DACs these days.

 

[adhingra]

Both Samsung and LG have started implanting high quality components in their flagship phones. I have an old S7Edge with lots of music and the onboard DAC sounds much better than the 2 iPhones that i have.