Galaxy Nexus Sound Quality

[estebancam]

I am not speaking about the audio quality when making a phone call, but in the audio quality for music.

I am going to use my phone for music quite a bit, and I am wondering about the sound card quality on the Galaxy Nexus. The iPhone has always been better in this regard than any Android phone I have tried. I am wondering if the Galaxy Nexus will be the change to that, and I am really hoping for a great sound card inside the Nexus.

Anyone know any details? This is one thing none of the reviewers hit on.

I'm hoping that when AC does their review, they will try to crank up some music on good heaphones or good speakers.

 

[khuujo9809]

My Droid incredible sounds way louder than any iPhone

 

[solido888]

Louder does not equal better.

My fascinate has a Wolfson DAC I believe, the same card that is in the 5th generation iPods. I could be wrong, but I think that is the best card apple has used. No clue about the GN

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[sushiglobster]

Well, given that the HW specs of the GN aren't all that jaw dropping, I wouldn't be surprised if the DAC was of a lesser quality. The GN was built to tout ICS as an operating system, not be a beast to control all other beast phones, sadly.

 

[Lucki]

Lets just hope it is louder than the Nexus s was because I could not hear netflix in a room full of people @ max volume. Had to be like dead quiet -_- smh.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Anyone else ever use an OMAP 4 device? How is the sound? They all use the same audio codec. No info on the speaker and if it is used by any other devices... I'm actually surprised and delighted this isn't a typical samsung device except the display. Should prove to be an awesome device overall (Hated everything about the Epic 4G except the screen and GPU).

 

[ottscay]

In my experience on Apple and Android products the two biggest influences on sound quality are the amount of compression (the bitrate in your mp3) and the headphones/earbuds you use. Most ear buds simply cannot create compelling bass - regardless of DAC quality - unless they create a seal (this also blocks outside noise well), and this is true regardless of the quality of the driver as well. The physics of sound makes is hard to effectively create long sound waves (i.e. deep sound) from such a small driver without isolating the listening area (i.e., having it seal within or around your ear).

Over the ear headsets can produce excellent sound (they also of course are isolating the listening area), but a lot of people don't like them because they take up more space and are more cumbersome on the go.

So the short answer is either should be equally good unless you are using lossless audio and $200+ listening devices that either create a seal around your ears (either over the ear, or in-ear).

 

[solido888]

Lossless audio is for archiving. V0 is beyond transparent

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[anon(525422)]

So the short answer is either should be equally good unless you are using lossless audio and $200+ listening devices that either create a seal around your ears (either over the ear, or in-ear).

True (though I'm not sure you quite need to go to $200+ headsets), but the key word here is still "should".

I just returned a Droid Bionic -- it had several flaws, which have been well detailed here and elsewhere, but the absolute deal-breaker was when I finally loaded up some music and was hit with an incessant, high-pitched whining/buzzing that was clearly down to poor internal shielding somewhere. Admittedly I'm a little pedantic about my audio and I'm also pretty sensitive to high frequencies, but it was astounding to me that a $600+ media device could get through the QA process without such a glaring hardware fault being caught.

So, while there *shouldn't* be any problems with the Galaxy Nexus audio, I'm still hoping a reviewer finally thinks to plug in a set of headphones and check for us!

 

[kharrigan]

I assume that the priority of sound quality would be the same as the Nexus S. How was the sound quality on that device? (Please note that I did a search and did not find any posts that reviewed SQ on the Nexus S.)

 

[truemobius]

here is info about the audio chip on the OMAP 4

http://omappedia.org/wiki/Audio_Drive_Arch

 

[krohnjw]

The Nexus S uses the Wolfson DAC - I wouldn't be surprised to see it make a reappearance on the GN.

 

[ro1224]

On my rooted EVO (CM7 ROM), there is DSP Manager. This app gives me a great deal of options for customizing the sound output. A workout mix I created a while back sounded awesome over my Plantronics Backbeat 903+ Bluetooth headset.

 

[briankurtz79]

I use dsp manager with cm7 and I've never heard anything louder or better with the proper settings. (Evo 4g with headphones) as far as external speakers I haven't heard a speaker crappier than than the iPhone/ipad. Never been able to hear anything off a friends iPhone in a room full of people playing a YouTube video. And ipad? Low quality mono speaker compared to the 5.1 stereo speakers in my tab 10.1. I just don't understand how people can think the iPhone has any audio hardware better than current android high end phones.

 

[TechJunkie#AC]

My Droid incredible sounds way louder than any iPhone

My DINC sounds amazing compared to any iPod or iPhone and a lot of other portable devices. I have ~300 ALAC (Apple Lossless) songs loaded onto it through Easy Phone Tunes. Why ALAC? Because I use a 160gb iPod in my car for storage (I have an external processor for DAC) and it's easier to just keep iTunes to sync everything.

Between DSP Manager and PowerAmp's settings you can get any sound you want. Even without DSP Manager PowerAmp gives you enough control to manipulate the sound anyway you want especially in the 2.0 beta. A lot of my friends who just want bass have been blown away by the bass knob on PowerAmp and I'll admit it does a great job at pleasing bass heads.

I use Ultimate Ears Triple Fi Pros as my portable music headphones and they get driven nicely with the phone. I've never needed to go above 85% and that's even on deck at loud swim meets. Distortion doesn't kick in until 95%. Most headphones won't have a problem unless they don't have a built in amp but if you get any of those you will know what you're doing.

In order of my preference of hardware to drive my Triple Fi's. Asus Xonar Essence STX > DINC > HP Envy 14 w/Beats (Such a gimmick) > Creative Zen > HP TouchPad w/Beats > iPod Touch 3G > iPod Classic

 

[radgatt]

Here is to hoping that all concerns will be answered when this phone hits shelves...

 

[TuxDotKing]

Surprised no one's mentioned Voodoo Sound yet. It's definitely a mod worth flashing a custom kernel for.

 

[racedog]

I've wondered about the audio for the Nexus but I wasn't all that concerned about it. I agree that earbuds are the way to go. I have a pair of Shure 500 series and they are phenomenal. They require learning how to insert them because they need to shut off exterior sound. Learning to insert is not all that hard but they used to sell for $500. I don't know if they are cheaper now but they are the best sounding earbud/phones I have every used.

I never play audio through the phone speaker so I really don't care about that. I also use bluetooth to play music through my car system.

 

[lionsson]

PowerAmp that's all you need to now.

 

[xolanir]

Surprised no one's mentioned Voodoo Sound yet. It's definitely a mod worth flashing a custom kernel for.

The voodoo sound app will do wonders for the GN once the kernel source is released. I'm pretty sure at this point we can't definitively say what the audio quality will be until it is released.