Noob question for Quad DAC

[anon(10076979)]

I really can't distinguish the difference between the sound it makes when the Quad DAC is off and when it's on. For me it's just louder. Do I need a high bit audio for it?

 

[jpprice14]

High bit audio definitely helps. Headphones/earbuds also make or break.

 

[Rumblee1]

I really can't distinguish the difference between the sound it makes when the Quad DAC is off and when it's on. For me it's just louder. Do I need a high bit audio for it?

You should also start buying high resolution music. Buy the way, I've got the ZTE axon 7. The sound system on the ZTE blows the v20 away. It's got dual dacs and plays 32bit like the v20 but ZTE added dolby atmos which puts it in a rare class. Listening to your favorite tunes or watching movies through great headphones has to be experienced to appreciate.

 

[Mike Dee]

You should also start buying high resolution music. Buy the way, I've got the ZTE axon 7. The sound system on the ZTE blows the v20 away. It's got dual dacs and plays 32bit like the v20 but ZTE added dolby atmos which puts it in a rare class. Listening to your favorite tunes or watching movies through great headphones has to be experienced to appreciate.

Dolby Atmos is great if you like colorized sound..... No thanks

 

[Rumblee1]

Dolby Atmos is great if you like colorized sound..... No thanks

Dolby atmos does not change the sound of the music. What it does is just change it up to throw the sound in a way that you would be hearing it as if you were there. Just like 7.1 surround. That's all.

 

[Mike Dee]

Dolby atmos does not change the sound of the music. What it does is just change it up to throw the sound in a way that you would be hearing it as if you were there. Just like 7.1 surround. That's all.

Sorry but that's called changing the sound and most music is recorded in a studio so there is no "as if you were there". If you use good headphones you don't need marketing gimmicks to appreciate good sound.

 

[GrooveRite]

Dolby atmos is great if you have your HT setup with it! I'm not drilling any holes in my ceiling just yet, lol.

 

[irvine752]

Dolby atmos does not change the sound of the music. What it does is just change it up to throw the sound in a way that you would be hearing it as if you were there. Just like 7.1 surround. That's all.

I agree, the sound profile stays the same but the tricky part is the upscaling to 7.1 & that depends on the spacious sensetivity of your headphones to appreciate the benefits. Dolby Digital Plus was beyond it's years, and didn't have too many dependencies...not so sure about Dolby Atmos. I too had a ZTE Axon 7 for about a month, just to be sure I wasn't missing out on anything.

It works really great for movies & a select few audio tracks (slow tempo) if you pair it up with an open airy pair of headphones like the HD598s. Dolby Atmos creates sound permutations by taking advantage of open airy spaces to create the rich 7.1 surround sound, without open spaces the permutations fall apart. It was really meant to be used in open spaces with a specific speaker setup. For quiet listening with a pair of headphones, the algorithm has to overcompensate & do much more which includes upscaling the sound to 7.1 and if your headphones are not airy enough to begin with, the sound gets a little murky especially with anything up tempo.

If I were to rank sound quality using a pair of IE800s, I'd say...
B&O LG V20 > Vivo XPlay 5 Elite > ZTE Axon 7 > LG V20 > LG V10 > HTC10

 

[irvine752]

Sorry but that's called changing the sound and most music is recorded in a studio so there is no "as if you were there". If you use good headphones you don't need marketing gimmicks to appreciate good sound.

The 2 dimensional sound profile is still the same. The only change would be the 3rd dimension which would be the distribution over space to create the surround sound experience. It's not a marketing gimmick, if you go catch a movie with Dolby Atmos at the theater the difference is night & day.

 

[Mike Dee]

The 2 dimensional sound profile is still the same. The only change would be the 3rd dimension which would be the distribution over space to create the surround sound experience. It's not a marketing gimmick, if you go catch a movie with Dolby Atmos at the theater the difference is night & day.

We aren't talking about theaters.

 

[irvine752]

We aren't talking about theaters.

You don't have to go a theater to see a difference...even the audio capture you mentioned from a studio is three dimensional at its core.

 

[Mike Dee]

You don't have to go a theater to see a difference...even the audio capture you mentioned from a studio is three dimensional at its core.

As someone who has actually engineered sound in a studio and done live work I will professionally disagree.

 

[irvine752]

As someone who has actually engineered sound in a studio and done live work I will professionally disagree.

I also work in the Industry Mike (at a microchip level). I have done some work with the algorithms that go into HRTF filters + designing the hardware schematics for some equipment. Working in a studio doesn't really make you an expert, you really have to understand the desgin principles behind the process.

 

[Mike Dee]

I also work in the Industry Mike (at a microchip level). I have done some work with the algorithms that go into HRTF filters + designing the hardware schematics for some equipment. Working in a studio doesn't really make you an expert, you really have to understand the desgin principles behind the process.

I didn't tout myself as an expert. I understand the principles of sound engineering....beyond that my ears understand what they like to hear. I happen to like sound they way it's produced in its purest format. If you can't understand that I can't help you. The V20 with my headphones of choice allows me to hear things that most people don't appreciate and that works for me. If Dolby Atmos works for you, be happy.

 

[irvine752]

I didn't tout myself as an expert. I understand the principles of sound engineering....beyond that my ears understand what they like to hear. I happen to like sound they way it's produced in its purest format. If you can't understand that I can't help you. The V20 with my headphones of choice allows me to hear things that most people don't appreciate and that works for me. If Dolby Atmos works for you, be happy.

I'm glad you're happy with your headphone of choice, please don't get me wrong...but there's no such thing as a pure sound recording, it's a misnomer. It's just a really close approximation, to be more precise finite quantization that takes advantage of our human audible capabilities. The V20 is great because it provides tonal neutrality with very very little distortion but not studio purity, the source encoding is discrete & it's only a two dimensional sound reconstruction at best. It's great that you love the way your V20 can reproduce sound & you can't tell a difference between the studio recording & the output on the phone...but other models can do it even better.

Dolby is also not pure but it lets you recreate the sound stage with a certain degree of accuracy. It's also an industry standard for top earning movies & for those the encoding is done in a multi-channel lossless format. We all love the V20, but try to keep an open mind there's so much more to learn out there even for "studio gurus"

 

[Mike Dee]

I'm glad you're happy with your headphone of choice, please don't get me wrong...but there's no such thing as a pure sound recording, it's a misnomer. It's just a really close approximation, to be more precise finite quantization that takes advantage of our human audible capabilities. The V20 is great because it provides tonal neutrality with very very little distortion but not studio purity, the source encoding is discrete & it's only a two dimensional sound reconstruction at best. It's great that you love the way your V20 can reproduce sound & you can't tell a difference between the studio recording & the output on the phone...but other models can do it even better.

Dolby is also not pure but it lets you recreate the sound stage with a certain degree of accuracy. It's also an industry standard for top earning movies & for those the encoding is done in a multi-channel lossless format. We all love the V20, but try to keep an open mind there's so much more to learn out there even for "studio gurus"

For the record, I never said that there's such a thing as a pure sound recording and BTW... I do have an open mind, but thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Devhux]

If I were to rank sound quality using a pair of IE800s, I'd say...
B&O LG V20 > Vivo XPlay 5 Elite > ZTE Axon 7 > LG V20 > LG V10 > HTC10

Not all V20 models have the DAC? I'm confused here.

 

[Mooncatt]

Not all V20 models have the DAC? I'm confused here.

They all have the same hardware. It's my understanding that the B&O version has special audio tuning.