Finally a mobile phone with digital audio out!!

[jaudere]

Hello friends,

Yesterday I bought Nokia E6 (thanks to the screen of my old phone getting damaged when my son dropped it).Got it for 17k.

Reasons to choose it:
Superb build quality, QUERTY key pad(I need to write a lot), good processor, capacitative touch screen with superb quality (pixel density higher than iphone), Symbian Anna OS (I have used Nokia only since last 10 years and all of them excluding Nokia 3310 classic were very good.So I am a Nokia fan).Full quick office is there. I am not on any popular social networking sites. So that was not my need.
In addition it has 8GB built in memory, with possibility to add another 32 GB with micro SD card. The camera is 8 megapixel but I didn't expect anything from a fixed focus camera.
The audio quality was rated as excellent unanimously in all reviews with few saying that it was as good as iphone. The battery is excellent too (1500mAH) and supposed to play music for more than 30 hours at a stretch.


I hate full touch screens/sliders etc. So didn't think of Androids/Lumia/N8. Somehow all those do not feel solid in hands.

I was going through user guide and came across OTG (On the Go) cable. With this cable, you can transfer files from a pen drive directly to phone without need of PC. I searched a bit more and found that people on head-fi.org have attempted to connect N8 to external DAC (FiiO7) with this cable and they were successful. N8 uses Symbian 3 (lower than ANNA). So I bought the OTG cable for Rs 450.

I had Creative soundblaster X fi USB to try: Did not work:sad:
Then I tried Purepiper DAC A1 with its USB to S/Pdif converter.It WORKED.
The sound was great. The phone was giving decent sound as it is when connected to my marantz. This combination was even better.

So here we have an excellent portable music player with digital audio out.You need OTG capable Nokia phone with Symbian OS (I think it has be Symbian 3 or higher) and USB DAC or DAC with USB-S/Pdif converter as I used.I need to mention here that my DAC is powered by separate power supply and does not draw power from the phone. Creative X fi sound card draws power from the USB and probably that is why it failed (the phone showed 'incompatible device pairing')People have reported being successful with X6 and N8.
So now we can have battery powered digital media player with its advantages.
E6 plays mp3 and WAV but not Flac. It can be made to play flac but may be I will stick to mp3 at 320kbps.I cannot make out difference between flac and mp3 at 320 kbps. Now I need to convert all my wav collection into mp3


have look at this thread
Nokia USB ON-THE-GO support USB digital out? tested with FiiO E7

 

[roseboy24]

Hello Dr Vikram ,

HOw are you and Happy Sakranti and Lohri ...

your thread is Very informatics ...
Flac to mp3 difference like Deccan Airways V/s Kingfisher airlines standard
I have Cambridge Np 30 with CHORD Ic which added recently and mp3 quality and Flac sound is huge difference , high mid notes are really comparable

 

[pupupuchi28]

I guess the next revolution in gagets will be all-in-one gadgets. I guess iphone is closer to that. a stunning phone with lovely sound quality and guess what, there are accessories which enable you to attach detachable dslr lenses to it..all we need is a digital output to make it a 'MANs BEST FRIEND'

I hope my wife does not come accross this post

lovely post Jaudere!

 

[hemantwaghe]

all we need is a digital output to make it a 'MANs BEST FRIEND'

with speciality gadgets - which are of course expensive it is possible to extract digitalout from many i devices..

it was started with wadia ( very expensive ) then Onkyo , now I saw Teac a ad of Teac with same features

 

[spirovious]

Hi Doc,how is sound quality?

 

[jaudere]

I am enjoying it. The quality through headphone appeared to be quite decent. However,the ouutput through the usb to DAC is much more clean. The headphone out sonds muffled in comparison. When compared with other sources, it is at least as good as ,if not better than,netbook playing through X fi card & my good old sony DVDp which is excellent by itself. So here is a source which is always on and with great sound. When I reach home in evening, i don't have to search CD folder or wait for netbook to boot up.It was kind of Eureka for me. Never knew that this will be possible when I bought the phone. I bought it just for the good phone features. This digital music out was a bonus!

 

[Shivam]

If you want to use your phone for music with the digital out then my understanding is that it'll be in a system which is not mobile.

In such a case, I prefer using my laptop or a computer to play the music and the mobile phone as a remote control.

One example will be - foobar2000 on Windows with foobar controller pro on an Android phone.

 

[jaudere]

I have a laptop with foobar 2k on it but I am too lazy to put it on. Its boring.with mobile it is just a question of pushing the cable in. The music player is on my home screen. So with the same souece, I have great SQ on the go as well as at my home. Now a days I am hardly putting my netbook on. Music as well as netbrowsing is on mobile phone.so why not to use mobile as regular music player if it gives equally good sound quality.

 

[roseboy24]

Download FolderPlay 1.8 for Symbian Free - A gapless audio player for Symbian, oriented on lossless compression. - Softpedia

Try this if your phone can also played FLAC .

 

[ajay124]

A little ot as this is not about a cell phone but about an iPad! At home I prefer using the iMac and only resort to its little brother when the big screen/big processor is being monopolized by my wife or daughter. But away from home the iPad connected to Sennheiser HD 180 headphones is a decent 'hifi' system. On my iMac music is stored in Apple Lossless files. But on the iPad I use a transfer rate of 128kpbs. Recently while on a holiday I hooked up my iPad to a Yamaha AVR and Wharfedale Diamond 8.4 towers. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to music on this set up. The iPad has replaced my basic 512mb shuffle iPod as my mobile music system. I have never used an iPhone but I suppose it would provide a similar experience.

All the 7-8 mobile phones that I have bought in the past have been Nokias. In recent times I have lost interest in buying expensive mobiles and am quite happy with my humble 5230! If I happened to be in the mood of spending 20K on a cell phone then I would opt for an iPhone 3. I would also consider the Lumia 710 and the HTC Desire.

 

[jaudere]

Download FolderPlay 1.8 for Symbian Free - A gapless audio player for Symbian, oriented on lossless compression. - Softpedia

Try this if your phone can also played FLAC .

Tried it. Unable to install because apparently the certificate has expired. i tried oggplay. Worked on my n82 but not on E6.

 

[jaudere]

A little ot as this is not about a cell phone but about an iPad! At home I prefer using the iMac and only resort to its little brother when the big screen/big processor is being monopolized by my wife or daughter. But away from home the iPad connected to Sennheiser HD 180 headphones is a decent 'hifi' system. On my iMac music is stored in Apple Lossless files. But on the iPad I use a transfer rate of 128kpbs. Recently while on a holiday I hooked up my iPad to a Yamaha AVR and Wharfedale Diamond 8.4 towers. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to music on this set up. The iPad has replaced my basic 512mb shuffle iPod as my mobile music system. I have never used an iPhone but I suppose it would provide a similar experience.

All the 7-8 mobile phones that I have bought in the past have been Nokias. In recent times I have lost interest in buying expensive mobiles and am quite happy with my humble 5230! If I happened to be in the mood of spending 20K on a cell phone then I would opt for an iPhone 3. I would also consider the Lumia 710 and the HTC Desire.

For me,The huge advantage of E6 was full QWERTY keyboard with well implemented touch screen. I prefer it anyday over full touch screen with or without slider key board. I tried Lumia 710.Lumia and none of the full touch phones could give an enjoyable experience while typing.having all Nokias in home also helped in easy synchro of all phones. My dad told me to stay away from HTC in general. With kids around, any slider phone was out of my options. The marathon battery is another added advantage.By the way, all the posts in this thread except the first one have been typed on mobile.

 

[roseboy24]

Entire family of apple devices dependent on iTunes and library , which is really hassle for playing songs through iTunes and only support 16 bit files system either even on AALC format ,due to this I have added NP 30 from Cambridge which can play and control all know format with highest quality via iPad apple full control of device .