Nexus 6P - Sound Quality Issues?

[ForceofWill]

Anyone try the 6p with a fiio e18?

 

[whtchdr]

The Nexus 6P produces less than .5 watts of power at the 3.5mm headphone jack which is one of the lowest outputs I've seen. Samsung devices are also quite low but not quite this poor. The iPhone on the other hand puts out a full watt of power.

 

[AnnDroid]

Comparing my Nexus 6 to my 6P, through the speakers, same podcast (not music), same player. Using a meter, the volume was exact. I love the loudness of both phones. Hubby is an audiophile and his ears heard the same quality in both phones.

 

[xiLLeNtz]

By far one of the best sound experiences I've had in my car came from an HTC One M7.

I just ditched my iPhone 6 Plus to get a Nexus 6P. In the office I have, downloaded onto my devices, songs from Spotify in extreme quality. With my Nexus 6P I am currently having the worst listening experience in my life right now. The sound is so flat!

 

[Mark Stronge]

I had those same issues trying my Shure SE215s on the headphone jack - it sounds just awful. On some songs there's this really weird reverb going on too of the songs which makes songs with reverb sound even weirder. Hopefully this gets fixed in a future update.

You have a problem with the headphones plug. It is not a hardware issue. Your left and right channels are cancelling each other out soi that all that is left is out of phase sound, which is generally low in volume and reverb. Try removing your case as it is probably not allowing your headphone socket to be pushed in fully.

I am an audiophile and have tested the sound quality and volume against my Oneplus one. The volume is about the same, possibly louder with the Nexus 6P. I was using the Google Play music app on both phones. No eq or maxaudio was used.

I was most impressed with how the Nexus could drive my professional high impedance headphones, DT770s. The deep bass was excellent and these headphones really allow the music space and air, great clarity, absolutely no issues.

I've been using Bluetooth both in the car and with a headset every day for the past few weeks. Again, fairly flawless, as good as Bluetooth can be, which can be great but, as with all previous bluetooth devuces, at times it can cut out if you block the phone with something metallic.

 

[anon(596177)]

I have noticed no issues with bluetooth sound, but I mean it's bluetooth. You wont normally notice issues there other than connectivity problems so if you connect you are pretty much gold.

Headphones have been fine too. I got nervous when people started saying they were BARELY loud enough. Maybe its just my headphones but I cant have my headphone volume turned all the way up and comfortably listen at the gym, its just too much. I have earbuds that fit snug and block out external sound pretty well.

 

[Go0gle]

Just tried out bluetooth with the 6P and my UE BOOM and a streaming music source (significantly quieter than on-device music) - it will go about as loud as my ears can handle.

Same thing with earphones (SHURE SE215) and at max volume there is zero distortion and it's about as loud as I can take (people always tell me I listen to music too loud to add some context). It's even louder with on-device content (that is normal).

So, no issues that I can tell with mine. Everything goes as loud as I would ever listen to it with zero issues. Bluetooth paired with my UE Boom in about 1 second as well.

Another thing is that some people complaining about poor sound might have shi*ty earbuds, so they need 200%++ the volume of a proper IEM earphone just to hear decent sound, while most of it spills out of your ears.

 

[hpilot]

Just tried out bluetooth with the 6P and my UE BOOM and a streaming music source (significantly quieter than on-device music) - it will go about as loud as my ears can handle.

Same thing with earphones (SHURE SE215) and at max volume there is zero distortion and it's about as loud as I can take (people always tell me I listen to music too loud to add some context). It's even louder with on-device content (that is normal).

So, no issues that I can tell with mine. Everything goes as loud as I would ever listen to it with zero issues. Bluetooth paired with my UE Boom in about 1 second as well.

Another thing is that some people complaining about poor sound might have shi*ty earbuds, so they need 200%++ the volume of a proper IEM earphone just to hear decent sound, while most of it spills out of your ears.

Well actually that's not true. I have Shure SE535 earphones for which I paid $500, and the sound quality is not as good as on my OnePlus One.

 

[hpilot]

On phone calls, I have the volume at max, and it is barely loud enough to hear the caller in a quiet place. If there is a lot of background noise, forget it - I can't understand anything.

 

[short_rant_only]

I bought a Sony Z5 and returned it the next day thanks to the appalling quality of the built-in speakers & poor performance (screen stuttered when scrolling up and down in *settings* FFS). Horrible cheap angular box that *rattled* with the speaker up loud & gave me a headache with its tinniness.
Waited over a month for my new Nexus 6P (graphite 128), which is at a totally different level of quality. A beautiful phone with much better speakers & for me perfectly decent headphone output. Beats the hell out of the Nexus 5 in that regard, which had very weak relative ouput. I love it so far. Finally can replace my iPhone 6, with much better screen size at the same time; bigger, but way more usable as a mobile computer.
If you buy online you can just return it if you don't like it, like I was able to do with the Sony. The guys complaining sound like they need to return their phones, (or headphones), perhaps problems with an early batch.
No idea why I'm bothering to leave this review, I never normally do, but I'm very much impressed with this phone.

 

[Supa Mint]

It is interesting to hear such different opinion about the sound quality of the 6P.

For those that are using the front facing speakers to judge sound quality - those micro speakers, which are admittedly nice for a cell phone, are complete garbage for determining the true audio capabilities. If the front facing speakers sound like quality audio, then I have to assume that you probably don't know what good audio is. Quality headphones allow you to much more accurately judge the audio. I've done A/B comparisons between the iPhone 5C and the Nexus 6P, and the 5C sounds dramatically better to me at the same volume level; and the 5C will play much louder than the 6P.

My hope is that an external DAC and Headphone amp will work with the 6P to give me the sound that I'm looking for. But I can't help but be frustrated that they couldn't build better audio into the 6P. I guess that no phone is perfect.

 

[Go0gle]

Well actually that's not true. I have Shure SE535 earphones for which I paid $500, and the sound quality is not as good as on my OnePlus One.

So in your completely different situation, with a completely different earphone, you have a different opinion? Haha ok that's fine but no need to call other people a liar if their personal experience differs from yours

 

[drone3]

It is interesting to hear such different opinion about the sound quality of the 6P.

For those that are using the front facing speakers to judge sound quality - those micro speakers, which are admittedly nice for a cell phone, are complete garbage for determining the true audio capabilities. If the front facing speakers sound like quality audio, then I have to assume that you probably don't know what good audio is. Quality headphones allow you to much more accurately judge the audio. I've done A/B comparisons between the iPhone 5C and the Nexus 6P, and the 5C sounds dramatically better to me at the same volume level; and the 5C will play much louder than the 6P.

My hope is that an external DAC and Headphone amp will work with the 6P to give me the sound that I'm looking for. But I can't help but be frustrated that they couldn't build better audio into the 6P. I guess that no phone is perfect.

There's only two things holding me back from the 6p - no OIS and average internal audio quality. Coming from the S6 I just can't give those up. Have you heard the audio quality on any of the latest Samsung flagships?

dreaming of electric sheep

 

[davidb423]

Sigh I have a nexus 6p and its going back, I wanted to get the 128 gig model to have more of my music collection on hand, but I learned

1) No apt-x for bluetooth, yeah I know should use wired headphones, but this was just annoying
2) front facing speakers should be good in theory, but the particular phone I got, when playing some songs at full volume noticed some static and breaking up...not sure if a defective unit or not....but concerning...
3) even on headphones the sound was not as good as a galaxy note 5

Given I Wanted the phone for the 128 gig storage for media and music...but it won't play with aptx over bluetooth, the sound quality is just ok, it's a bummer
why couldn't they just make a galaxy note 5 with 128 gig of storage! ugh!

 

[trekk]

The sound quality is not the best, their was a big difference between my S6 and S6 edge+ and the 6P in sound quality on my Bluetooth headset. I needed the volume on almost full blast with the 6P for me to hear properly compared to half way with the Galaxy. Also the sound clarity is not comparable, even when making phone calls via Bluetooth in my car their was a big difference I found the 6P very weak.

 

[dmlv]

I have a note 5 and now the 6p... Using on T-Mobile (and tested on my at&t line as well).
The call quality is so clear on the 6p... Even better than the note. Gets HD voice and all tmob features right out of the box.
I've tested calls with ppl to ask how I sound on their end and all said it was like I was speaking next to them. I tried to mimic the noise canceling mic thing but it didn't happen.
I do use Bluetooth sport headphones and again quality and volume = the Note 5 and the s6 I had previously.

So those with issues.... I would call Google (hauwei if bought from them) and try another.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[jojoe42]

Sigh I have a nexus 6p and its going back, I wanted to get the 128 gig model to have more of my music collection on hand, but I learned

1) No apt-x for bluetooth, yeah I know should use wired headphones, but this was just annoying
2) front facing speakers should be good in theory, but the particular phone I got, when playing some songs at full volume noticed some static and breaking up...not sure if a defective unit or not....but concerning...
3) even on headphones the sound was not as good as a galaxy note 5

Given I Wanted the phone for the 128 gig storage for media and music...but it won't play with aptx over bluetooth, the sound quality is just ok, it's a bummer
why couldn't they just make a galaxy note 5 with 128 gig of storage! ugh!

How do you know there's a lack of aptx? I thought all Android phones with a BT 4.0 radio had it by default.

Also do remember most speakers will have distortion at max volume

I will say the DAC/amp in the 6P isn't the best built into a phone I've owned, almost tempted to pick up a headphone amp now

 

[davidb423]

google--if you look google says that they would like to include APTX but they would have to pay to license it...and they don't want to . Kind of an odd decision since this is suppose to be the premium nexus phone.
it is not in the 6p
it's a nice phone ....but too many tradeoffs for me to keep it over the note 5 at the moment. Every one else will likely have different thoughts.

 

[Nevpaurion]

I consider my self an audiophile and for several years paid the bills with my ears.

I've currently got a set of grace digital reference monitors with Bluetooth connection for lounging and entertaining guests, and senheiser gen 2 momentums, the big over ear leather cup version. The phone sounds as good and loud as my moto x style and nexus 5 did through headphone jack. Drives my momentums beautifully, I love it.

As for Bluetooth audio it's much better than my old nexus 5 and s5, and equal to my moto x style. You tell you lose fidelity over blue tooth but much progress has been made. It's now not noticeable when engaged in social events and takes focusing on to hear.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[charlesaf3]

I can confirm there are manufacturing headphone jack issues.

Google sent me 2 phones in error. Using same headphones (apple iphone stock) the first one was very quiet, ie insufficient volume. The second one was equal to my galaxy s5, which is still not enough for me, but is "normal"

So clearly some people are getting bad headphone jacks, it's not in their head