LG V20 - DAC Problem?

[Mike Dee]

If it's not proven by science it's your imagination playing tricks on you...it's called a placebo effect. Human ears were never meant to hear any more than CD quality sound. Unless you claim to have super hearing different from the rest of us lol.

Not speaking for myself but different people do have different hearing capabilities I have a friend at work who is very sensitive to high frequencies that nobody else can hear.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

If it's not proven by science it's your imagination playing tricks on you...it's called a placebo effect. Human ears were never meant to hear any more than CD quality sound. Unless you claim to have super hearing different from the rest of us lol.

Nope. I have ruled that out.

 

[irvine752]

Not speaking for myself but different people do have different hearing capabilities I have a friend at work who is very sensitive to high frequencies that nobody else can hear.

The scientific studies are based on a generic population model. Just like with any scientific study there will be a very few exceptions. This debate of compressed vs original audio has been going on for ages.

The only advantage to FLAC or other lossless formats is not that it sounds better, but that if you want to re-encode your file to another format, you won't lose more quality, as you would with the semi lossy formats such as 320 mp3 files.

People shouldn't be hung up on bitrates. Just use the highest quality medium you can afford, and by "afford" I mean things like hardware support, data storage and battery consumption. I could play all lossless on my V20, but I'd do so at the cost of slightly reduced battery life, and if I can't hear the difference anyway, why bother? At home, though, with a high-capacity NAS and fast computers, why would I play compressed music when I can both store and play in a future-proof format that I can transcode as needed?

 

[X1tymez]

If people missing that little small details. I can assume this headphone will help.

 

[stackberry369]

Re: Serious V20 Problem!!

simple. Stop using neutron player, and use the LG audio player.

Your problem is that the DAC is not supported by 3rd party apps.

Sprint doesn't have the LG player

 

[tadpoles]

I can hear the difference in 128bps MP3 and 320bps MP3. It's not even a challenge to do so. Its hard to accept the idea that bitrate doesn't matter or did I misinterpret the arguments above?

 

[irvine752]

I can hear the difference in 128bps MP3 and 320bps MP3. It's not even a challenge to do so. Its hard to accept the idea that bitrate doesn't matter or did I misinterpret the arguments above?

The difference between 128bps & 320bps should be clearly noticeable to most people. When you get any higher than 320bps that's when it starts to get blurry. A 2000bps is clearly better than a 320bps on paper, but the perceivable audible difference to the human ear is nonexistent.

 

[pvcleave]

I do not care about audio above 48kHz and 16 bit resolution, but what I do care about is that the DAC is actually doing something. I previously said I did not hear a difference with the DAC. What I was referring to is, going into the DAC settings and turning it off and on. The sound is amazing. I am using CDs that I ripped to FLAC. Depending on the headphone, it gets louder when turned on. My question is, is turning the DAC off, using a different DAC or just turning of circuitry to drive higher impedance headphones? I love the phone. One of my top reasons, not sole reason, was for improved audio. I have read where audio people have used equipment to say it was very good output. With what is being said, if I wanted use higher definition files it would not help. I did download the HiFI tracks from LG World and they are higher and sound amazing.

All my babbling is to ask, should I hear a difference with the DAC turned off? Are there multiple DACS in the phone?

I love the phone and will not return it, but I am curious if high end audio is wasted on me, or is the setting I am turning on and off, not going to effect the audio quality?

 

[irvine752]

I do not care about audio above 48kHz and 16 bit resolution, but what I do care about is that the DAC is actually doing something. I previously said I did not hear a difference with the DAC. What I was referring to is, going into the DAC settings and turning it off and on. The sound is amazing. I am using CDs that I ripped to FLAC. Depending on the headphone, it gets louder when turned on. My question is, is turning the DAC off, using a different DAC or just turning of circuitry to drive higher impedance headphones? I love the phone. One of my top reasons, not sole reason, was for improved audio. I have read where audio people have used equipment to say it was very good output. With what is being said, if I wanted use higher definition files it would not help. I did download the HiFI tracks from LG World and they are higher and sound amazing.

All my babbling is to ask, should I hear a difference with the DAC turned off? Are there multiple DACS in the phone?

I love the phone and will not return it, but I am curious if high end audio is wasted on me, or is the setting I am turning on and off, not going to effect the audio quality?

Yes, the phone has two distinct DACs. The first comes on board with the Snapdragon 820. The other DAC (actually four in one chipset ES9218) is for the HiFi sound which you trigger on & off from the drop down. When it's off, the V20 defaults to the Snapdragon chipset. As for the high impedance gains, that's driven by amplifier on the ES9218.

The American markets were not so lucky with the V20 this time around. They left the choice of decoding preference to the consumer. The Asian markets had a dedicated team from B&O to fine tune & fully take advantange of the clinical sound from DAC. I have another post under the Neutron Player thread with a little more detail on how to fully showcase the true power of the DAC. Let me know if it helps.

 

[pvcleave]

Yes, the phone has two distinct DACs. The first comes on board with the Snapdragon 820. The other DAC (actually four in one chipset ES9218) is for the HiFi sound which you trigger on & off from the drop down. When it's off, the V20 defaults to the Snapdragon chipset. As for the high impedance gains, that's driven by amplifier on the ES9218.

The American markets were not so lucky with the V20 this time around. They left the choice of decoding preference to the consumer. The Asian markets had a dedicated team from B&O to fine tune & fully take advantange of the clinical sound from DAC. I have another post under the Neutron Player thread with a little more detail on how to fully showcase the true power of the DAC. Let me know if it helps.

I read your other post and used the Amazon player to do a blind test. I am able to pick the ES DAC over the 820 DAC.

 

[tadpoles]

I do not care about audio above 48kHz and 16 bit resolution, but what I do care about is that the DAC is actually doing something. I previously said I did not hear a difference with the DAC. What I was referring to is, going into the DAC settings and turning it off and on. The sound is amazing. I am using CDs that I ripped to FLAC. Depending on the headphone, it gets louder when turned on. My question is, is turning the DAC off, using a different DAC or just turning of circuitry to drive higher impedance headphones? I love the phone. One of my top reasons, not sole reason, was for improved audio. I have read where audio people have used equipment to say it was very good output. With what is being said, if I wanted use higher definition files it would not help. I did download the HiFI tracks from LG World and they are higher and sound amazing.

All my babbling is to ask, should I hear a difference with the DAC turned off? Are there multiple DACS in the phone?

I love the phone and will not return it, but I am curious if high end audio is wasted on me, or is the setting I am turning on and off, not going to effect the audio quality?

I believe I read in a review that the ESS 9218 used in the V20 can decode DSD and FLAC files whereas a lot of lesser mobile DACs cannot. That gives an advantage right there. It would mean you can listen to DSD files on the V20 whereas on the S7/S7e/Pixel/iPhone you cannot.

If I'm mistaken please correct me as I'm not hunting for links now to prove this. Tired, somewhat lazy right now too.

 

[anony_mouse]

Re: Serious V20 Problem!!

Science that is not settled no matter how much you keep saying it.

Your argument is that your ears are better than any that "science" has ever tested. Remember that the 48/44.1kHz and 16 bit resolution figures were decided on after very extensive testing of large numbers of people.

Obviously I can't prove over the Internet whether your ears are special or not. But I can say that it is very very unlikely.

BTW you (and others) might enjoy this webpage: https://www.facebook.com/audiophilex/

 

[anony_mouse]

I can hear the difference in 128bps MP3 and 320bps MP3. It's not even a challenge to do so. Its hard to accept the idea that bitrate doesn't matter or did I misinterpret the arguments above?

Yes you are misinterpreting the arguments above. MP3 is an audio compression format. You probably can tell the difference between MP3 compressed audio at 128kb/s and 320kb/s. Subjective tests suggest that people generally can in the right conditions. Put simply, it removes "detail" from the sound, based on how likely you are to hear that detail. At 320kHz, much less detail is removed than at 128kHz.

My point is about the uncompressed format - what is recorded on a CD or in a WAV file, or what decompressing an MP3 file results in. In all cases, studies suggest that 48kHz (or 44.1kHz) sampling with 16 bit resolution is sufficient for audio transparency in humans.

 

[tadpoles]

Yes you are misinterpreting the arguments above. MP3 is an audio compression format. You probably can tell the difference between MP3 compressed audio at 128kb/s and 320kb/s. Subjective tests suggest that people generally can in the right conditions. Put simply, it removes "detail" from the sound, based on how likely you are to hear that detail. At 320kHz, much less detail is removed than at 128kHz.

My point is about the uncompressed format - what is recorded on a CD or in a WAV file, or what decompressing an MP3 file results in. In all cases, studies suggest that 48kHz (or 44.1kHz) sampling with 16 bit resolution is sufficient for audio transparency in humans.

I've read that 16-bit 48khz is the low side and that higher 24bit/192khz is audibly better but it sounds like you're disputing that.

 

[BigRalphN]

While I find it silly to get a phone to be an audio player first and phone second,it is his choice. And just because we do not see issues does not mean one does not exist. I also think there are better players cheaper than the phone on the market. But the phone should be up there with this DAC setup. Neutron. It is a great player but it uses its own software engine instead of the built in android model. You really notice this if you start the lg music app. Both it and Neutron will play. I wonder if, because of this, Neutron is not properly utilizing the DAC. He may need to look into it, contact LG, or do an update. Using his logging and running the Neutron app may not actually be showing you if the phone is utilizing the DAC. Is Neutron using it? No. But maybe the internal music player is. Poweramp should be (the alpha is awesome). Onkyo also has a great player though it has nowhere near the options and is expensive. I think the only way to,get a proper look would be to,enable debugging in the developer section and get a logging app to,save the debugging info. Then try a variety of headphones and apps and have someone who knows what they are looking at analyze it

 

[Mike Dee]

While I find it silly to get a phone to be an audio player first and phone second,it is his choice. And just because we do not see issues does not mean one does not exist. I also think there are better players cheaper than the phone on the market. But the phone should be up there with this DAC setup. Neutron. It is a great player but it uses its own software engine instead of the built in android model. You really notice this if you start the lg music app. Both it and Neutron will play. I wonder if, because of this, Neutron is not properly utilizing the DAC. He may need to look into it, contact LG, or do an update. Using his logging and running the Neutron app may not actually be showing you if the phone is utilizing the DAC. Is Neutron using it? No. But maybe the internal music player is. Poweramp should be (the alpha is awesome). Onkyo also has a great player though it has nowhere near the options and is expensive. I think the only way to,get a proper look would be to,enable debugging in the developer section and get a logging app to,save the debugging info. Then try a variety of headphones and apps and have someone who knows what they are looking at analyze it

Interesting point.....Neutron and the internal player will play at the same time, however Poweramp and internal don't. So I'm lead to believe Neutron is not accessing the Quad DAC.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Serious V20 Problem!!

Your argument is that your ears are better than any that "science" has ever tested. Remember that the 48/44.1kHz and 16 bit resolution figures were decided on after very extensive testing of large numbers of people.

Obviously I can't prove over the Internet whether your ears are special or not. But I can say that it is very very unlikely.

BTW you (and others) might enjoy this webpage: https://www.facebook.com/audiophilex/

Well. The frequency range and bit depth were also decided based on means of transportation for recordings to CD publishing houses. It was not purely based on absolute sound quality.

You have provided effectively zero data to debunk why a properly mastered high resolution file sounds better than CD quality and have instead stuck to frequency response and bit depth.

I have not claimed it has anything to do with frequency or bit depth specifically (though but definition of "high resolution" I also can't say unequivocally that it doesn't). I have claimed that I can hear a difference and that one sounds better than the other. I have stated that I ruled out placebo. I did not state why I think it sounds better because science does not know the answer.

We're stuck with non-scientific terms like "airyness", "dynamics", "impact" and others that can be interpreted in different ways.

My point is that your insistence on making the point of "CD quality is all we need" does not properly explain why people can hear an audible difference between better than CD quality and CD quality.

Much like 24fps for video was decided on because of film cost, CD quality was decided because it was the bare minimum needed to reproduce the frequency range of human hearing on the available means of transportation at the time. It was at least partially (if not entirely) a cost saving decision.

That does not make it the "ceiling" for audio quality.

 

[irvine752]

Well. The frequency range and bit depth were also decided based on means of transportation for recordings to CD publishing houses. It was not purely based on absolute sound quality.

You have provided effectively zero data to debunk why a properly mastered high resolution file sounds better than CD quality and have instead stuck to frequency response and bit depth.

I have not claimed it has anything to do with frequency or bit depth specifically (though but definition of "high resolution" I also can't say unequivocally that it doesn't). I have claimed that I can hear a difference and that one sounds better than the other. I have stated that I ruled out placebo. I did not state why I think it sounds better because science does not know the answer.

We're stuck with non-scientific terms like "airyness", "dynamics", "impact" and others that can be interpreted in different ways.

My point is that your insistence on making the point of "CD quality is all we need" does not properly explain why people can hear an audible difference between better than CD quality and CD quality.

Much like 24fps for video was decided on because of film cost, CD quality was decided because it was the bare minimum needed to reproduce the frequency range of human hearing on the available means of transportation at the time. It was at least partially (if not entirely) a cost saving decision.

That does not make it the "ceiling" for audio quality.

I'll say this again...Just like with any scientific study there will always be a few deviations from the norm. If that scientific study can be replicated then it's regarded as a norm. Such norms can regarded as a rule of the law if there are grave safety concerns.

For example, we are required by law to wear seat belts. It's been proven that seat belts save lives through numerous scientific studies that could be replicated. Since all these studies are based off a gaussian distribution, we also have a few deviations from the norm such as the individuals that are better off without the seat beat & science can not fully explain this as well. Such is the case with all these studies, the general public around the bell curve or within the standard deviation always comes first disregarding the small variations on the margins. Hence everybody is mandated by law to wear a seatbelt.

In the case of audible differences between CD quality sound & anything higher, there will always be a small group around the margins that hear these so called audible differences & science cannot explain it. The CD quality sound is there as a standard due to the fact that it caters to the needs of the general public which always comes first. They CD quality sound can & could be improved upon, but they won't improve it because it's overkill for the general public. Visual in-take is different story. The starndard is clearly shifting towards higher resolution with increased frame rates. Keep in mind that will also reach a plateau or threshold as we approach the general publics' visual limitations.

 

[tadpoles]

While, TBH, I have not heard DVD-A or Blu-ray audio I am the impression that it is audibly superior to CD quality. Not just because it can offer 5.1+ channels but because of higher bit rates and sampling. This is also part of these products marketing as I recall. When, and if they offer music that fits my tastes I may invest and hear for myself. For now, I choose to believe the hype until I have a reason not to as shown by credible publications and authors. That seems reasonable to me.

 

[irvine752]

While, TBH, I have not heard DVD-A or Blu-ray audio I am the impression that it is audibly superior to CD quality. Not just because it can offer 5.1+ channels but because of higher bit rates and sampling. This is also part of these products marketing as I recall. When, and if they offer music that fits my tastes I may invest and hear for myself. For now, I choose to believe the hype until I have a reason not to as shown by credible publications and authors. That seems reasonable to me.

Yep, it is audibly superior to CD quality but that mostly due to the multi-channel Dolby encoding (surround sound) that's mandated for all blu ray disks. It can get as high as Dolby TruHD which lossless & has a 24 bit resolution. If you strip it down to stereo it's the same quality. For a quick stereo 16 bit resolution, the bit rate calculation is as follows:

44100 samples/sec (Hz)
X 2 bytes/sample (16 bit)
X 2 channels (stereo)
---------------------------------
176400 bytes/sec == 1411200 bits/sec

The higher the channel count, the higher the bits per sec. The human constant factor or limitation would be with the sample frequency & bit resolution.

For more info you can look at this:
High-Def FAQ: Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Explained | High-Def Digest