Samsung galaxy nexus - Page 10

What do you even mean by "it compresses dynamics"? Why would Poweramp do dynamic range compression? That would result in an overall increase of the perceived volume.

I don't hear a difference between EQ (flat) on and off. Once I again I regret not having a soundcard with a line-in so I could record both and ABX them. In any case, my EQ settings sound great to me.

Recently purchased this phone after having used a Samsung Galaxy for about a half year.  Funny enough, I never ever played a single piece of music on my old Galaxy phone because I used a 160 Gb "7th" Gen iPod Classic which had all my music in loss-less format and I assumed this unit gave me the best playback.  Today, I decided to do a comparison of the three units for a high one... then I had my wife take a listen (she has much better ears than I do...)... I used quite a bit of music to compare (Green Day's "American Idiot", Sarah McLachlan's "Fallen", Daniel Lanois' "Falling at Your Feet" and "Here is What is", and Mark Knofler and Emmylou Harris' "Beyond my Wildest Dreams".  My most critical listening was in the latter piece as it has some great competing guitars, symbols and the two harmonizing (Knofler singing in a gentle baritone and Harris harmonizing in a quite, sparkly almost ethereal voice).  Here is what my wife and I noted using a pair of Grado SR60-i headphones with bowls:

 

Samsung Galaxy S: Very laid back sound, instruments and voices seem to be set up in front of you in a well damped room. The bizarre thing though was that while they felt almost veiled and missing sparkle, the imaging was incredible - I could pick out instruments from each other and voices were incredibly clear and distinct. Overall just incredibly relaxed, smooth, pleasant and neutral sounding presentation.  Bass was well balanced, neither boomy nor bloomy.

 

Samsung Galaxy Nexus: The Nexus sounded very much like the Galaxy S, except that there was more high frequency detail and the presentation of the music was a bit more forward than the Galaxy S. It felt a bit like the veil of the Galaxy S had been removed, but curiously not improved in any way.

 

6th Gen iPod: I was quite shocked to find that the music was quite thin and very forward (almost in your face), the highs had a hazzy, sibliant quality which produced unpleasant harmonics and killed any imaging. What I had thought was detail was actually quite the opposite - siblant and fatiguing.  Bass however, was deep and strong.

 

My favorite was the Galaxy S, my wife's favorite was the Nexus - we both agreed the iPod was terrible in comparison.

 

So I did some digging regarding the DACs.  Seems the Galaxy S uses the fantastic Wolfson's WM8994 DAC. The Nexus uses a Texas Instrument's (slash Burr Brown...) TWL6040.  And finally, while older iPods used Wolfson DACs, the current iPod Classic, Touch and iPhones all use Cirrus Logic chipsets. My iPod has the CS42L55.  Of interest, my favorite gear at home uses Wolfson DACs, my previous gear (which I also loved) was all Burr Brown. The Burr Brown kit always seemed a bit more forward and detailed, while the Wolfson kit was a bit more relaxed sounding.  I've never owned anything with Cirrus Logic chipsets that I know of - and I do not think I will be buying any soon given the garbage being put out by my current iPod.

 

 

Edited by bdesousa - 4/25/12 at 1:01pm

Was your Galaxy S rooted with Voodoo?

 

 

+1

how about your ipod, rockboxed or just everything stock?

Everything was stock - except I used PowerAmp as the player on the Android phones.  I've learned that the 5.5 generation iPods are considered by some to be the best sounding iPods for those who prefer the more laid back "Wolfson" sound.  Am currently trying to find one of those... 

 

Also, having read that the 3rd generation iPod nano also has Wolfson DACs and having one of these in the house, I gave i a listen.  I came away dissapointed - it had the same harshness as the 160 Gb Classic with the Cirrus DAC.  Perhaps, and most likely, there may be factors in addition to the DACs at work here...

Too bad about the 3rd gen ipod, that's always the guess though, it's really a sum of all parts.

We're sidetracking from the thread here but nevermind,
I think using the voodoo kernel with galaxy S would greatly increase the sound, at least from what I've read on this forum and other sites, it eclipses the gnex if it has the voodoo kernel.
I'm still on the fence about getting a new DAP, I keep thinking about getting a galaxy S or nexus S because of the wolfson DAC and voodoo, but then as a phone they don't satisfy all my expectations, camera flash for the galaxy, internal storage for the nexus. I guess I'll probably just get a clip+ or zip and go from there

Thanks for the thoughts btw

LG G2x/Optimus 2x. Same Wolfson chip as Galaxy S and Nexus S, dual core processor faster than either, one of the easiest phones to root with a plethora of custom roms compatible with Voodoo and Voodoo Plus, including some for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the newest OS. Camera flash, removable storage.

 

 

Edited by Gilly87 - 4/27/12 at 8:05pm

Thanks for chipping in Gilly,

 

You know I had thought about getting that phone and then changed my mind after reading the audio tests on gsm arena, so I had quickly discarded it, maybe too quick in fact.

Unfortunately, revisiting gsmarena shows that they have updated their audio tests with a retail handset and gotten very good readings in everything but stereo crosstalk with headphones, which is horrendous, here's a link:

http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_optimus_2x-review-564p8.php

 

Having said that, I see that it's not much worse than the galaxy S. Should those figures be taken with a pinch of salt? I have to say I don't completely understand their measuring procedure with the 'phones attached, I'll have to read up about that and the optimus in specific.

 

You wouldn't happen to own one of these would you gilly? anyways, thanks for the tip, I'll be looking into it ;)

I do own the G2x, and I can attest to the stereo separation being just fine once the phone is rooted. If they tested a retail, branded phone then it was not rooted, and did not have the Voodoo sound mod, which removes the crappy stock audio firmware and allows you to take advantage of the 62 dB-range headphone amplifier built into the Wolfson WM8994 DAC used in the Tegra 2 chipset.

Reading the article, I feel certain they did not have the Voodoo sound mod; they would have mentioned it, or at least that the phone was rooted. Their statistics are there for typical end users, 99.9% of whom neither know of rooting nor the voodoo sound mod.

I can attest to the G2x being a significantly better quality source than the Desire HD I own, the sound quality of which also improves noticeably with rooting. Any phone running a Cyanogen Mod build once rooted will have access to a built-in 6-band hardware equalizer which works much better than those in apps like PowerAmp, as well as a hardware bass boost, and numerous other effects. And of course once Voodoo and Voodoo Plus are installed, SQ will again improve noticeably, and you will have access to that 62 dB hardware amplifier.

*shrug* The difference is obvious to me. I've tried it on multiple phones using PowerAmp; it's subtle, but definitely there.

I hear the difference. I've since switched to neutron MP. I actually like it better in some ways not just the sound. There are some bugs which I hope will be worked out of the ui, but other than that it's fantastic.

Hi folks,

 

In terms of removing background hiss evident with my ie80s and the Galaxy nexus - would a headphone amp help? Im thinking of getting something that will run via the headphone out on the phone for now, with the possibility of connecting via usb if its ever enabled on the phone.. Any advice appreciated. I am using poweramp as my player. Listen to mainly flac and 320kbps mp3 Cheers mick

The amp will probably make it worse.

so what would you suggest to improve the situation?