[kalo86]

I think that Samsung can promise also the pure gold within their production smartphones, but please keep in mind that some hardware is intended and specially designed for a determined goal.
Samsung smartphones are making calls and pictures with one of the best Amoled displays in the market.
DAP are intended for other reasons.
Every car has 4 wheels, as well as the racing cars.
But the racing car must not be compared to the city car only basing on the number of wheels.

 

[bobbooo]

I think that Samsung can promise also the pure gold within their production smartphones, but please keep in mind that some hardware is intended and specially designed for a determined goal.
Samsung smartphones are making calls and pictures with one of the best Amoled displays in the market.
DAP are intended for other reasons.
Every car has 4 wheels, as well as the racing cars.
But the racing car must not be compared to the city car only basing on the number of wheels.

The car analogy with audio equipment is a tired one...and not fit for purpose. But if you insist on using it, here's a more accurate analogy in this case: the latest (Snapdragon) Samsung flagship phones are akin to receiving the upcoming Tesla Roadster, a state of the art all-rounder electric sports car with hardware that rivals the performance of a conventional supercar, but finding that the current firmware has limited its top speed from what it is actually capable of. The only thing that is needed for it to achieve its full potential is a software upgrade.

Same with the Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S10 series – all it needs to achieve its full audio potential and be able to play back native DSD and DoP is a firmware upgrade, as the capability is already there in the Qualcomm WCD9341 audio chip it uses (see here: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/wcd9341). I'll repeat that: this is not a hardware limitation, but a software limitation, and so could be fixed relatively easily.

 

[dmitrykos]

way to move songs to a different folder on the same disc and not lose their rating

Currently Neutron binds rating to track unique ID and ID is based on absolute path. Moving files outside Neutron's logic will change ID and Neutron will think that old track removed and new added. But I will add task to make it possible to move folders and files inside Neutron's logic and thus Neutron could just update IDs without loosing associated data: rating, normalization.

 

[dmitrykos]

I understand this is out of the developer's control, but this incompatibility / limitation with some devices should be made clear before people pay for the app

Please note that Neutron's description advertises capabilities but it does not say that DSD must work without any preconditions just because hardware supports DSD. Also you could test Eval version or run apk downloaded from Neutron's web site for 5 days of trial period and try all scenarios you were interested in.

The most important in mobile device is software and if it does not support some usage scenario while hardware allows it, this scenario will never work. WCD9341 specification mentions support for DoP, so if Samsung's firmware did not apply any DSP on supplied PCM (from Neutron) then sending DSD over PCM (like Neutron does it) would work out of the box. May be there is some truncation or incorrect data conversion on the path from AudioTrack to the driver, may be there is some DSP processing such as software volume or another algorithm (may be compression?) which breaks DoP. Therefore you hear noise instead of DSD because chip will not see the DoP markers inside the bitstream (due to data modification) and will not switch the route to DSD.

In case of WCD9341 there would be very few work from the side of firmware developer, the only condition is to guarantee bit-perfect path for the PCM data received from application further up to the hardware.

Samsung is a huge corporation and it is the same difficult (if ever possible) to reach their firmware developers for anyone, user or some 3-rd party app developer. Specifically for your request I will try to contact them via developer's technical support of Samsung Apps because Neutron is being distributed there too, just try a luck, but the chances to reach anyone who could hear and understand our concerns regarding DSD playback are minimal, around zero I think.

 

[bobbooo]

deleted

 

[bobbooo]

Please note that Neutron's description advertises capabilities but it does not say that DSD must work without any preconditions just because hardware supports DSD. Also you could test Eval version or run apk downloaded from Neutron's web site for 5 days of trial period and try all scenarios you were interested in.

The most important in mobile device is software and if it does not support some usage scenario while hardware allows it, this scenario will never work. WCD9341 specification mentions support for DoP, so if Samsung's firmware did not apply any DSP on supplied PCM (from Neutron) then sending DSD over PCM (like Neutron does it) would work out of the box. May be there is some truncation or incorrect data conversion on the path from AudioTrack to the driver, may be there is some DSP processing such as software volume or another algorithm (may be compression?) which breaks DoP. Therefore you hear noise instead of DSD because chip will not see the DoP markers inside the bitstream (due to data modification) and will not switch the route to DSD.

In case of WCD9341 there would be very few work from the side of firmware developer, the only condition is to guarantee bit-perfect path for the PCM data received from application further up to the hardware.

Samsung is a huge corporation and it is the same difficult (if ever possible) to reach their firmware developers for anyone, user or some 3-rd party app developer. Specifically for your request I will try to contact them via developer's technical support of Samsung Apps because Neutron is being distributed there too, just try a luck, but the chances to reach anyone who could hear and understand our concerns regarding DSD playback are minimal, around zero I think.

Thanks, I appreciate you trying to get Samsung to fix this issue. It still baffles me why I can hear the original music beneath the noise when PCM to DSD is turned on – I would have thought it would either work and play the music correctly, or not at all and play pure noise, but it seems to do both. It's bizarre.

Edit: By the way, when you do contact Samsung, link them to the specs page for the S10 here: https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-s10/specs/ which says the phone does have DSD64/128 playback support, so this is false advertising as it does not currently function properly.

 

[dmitrykos]

so this is false advertising as it does not currently function properly

Ok, then this matter should be checked more thoroughly, I agree. I actually overlooked that statement about DSD support for Galaxy S10 devices.

 

[bobbooo]

Ok, then this matter should be checked more thoroughly, I agree. I actually overlooked that statement about DSD support for Galaxy S10 devices.

Thanks, yes this needs proper investigation really. I can send you logs from Neutron using my Snapdragon S10e if that would help?

 

[kalo86]

The car analogy with audio equipment is a tired one...and not fit for purpose. But if you insist on using it, here's a more accurate analogy in this case: the latest (Snapdragon) Samsung flagship phones are akin to receiving the upcoming Tesla Roadster, a state of the art all-rounder electric sports car with hardware that rivals the performance of a conventional supercar, but finding that the current firmware has limited its top speed from what it is actually capable of. The only thing that is needed for it to achieve its full potential is a software upgrade.

Same with the Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S10 series – all it needs to achieve its full audio potential and be able to play back native DSD and DoP is a firmware upgrade, as the capability is already there in the Qualcomm WCD9341 audio chip it uses (see here: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/wcd9341). I'll repeat that: this is not a hardware limitation, but a software limitation, and so could be fixed relatively easily.

You insist, but you are stuck only in the DAC chipset. The DAP and it's capabilities don't rely only on the good DAC chipset. Why don't you talk on the amplification design of your smartphone? You are totally ignoring what is the impact of a proper filtering on the electronic board, the selection of the best components to minimize the electrostatic noise and somethings which I never know since I am a Mechanical Engineer.
There is a huge gap in audio quality between a smartphone and a dedicated DAP with swappable amplification modules.
I already know that the Snapdragon capability is well known in the world, but the very good DAC brands are only a few in the audio world and there is a why.

 

[rjoudrey]

You insist, but you are stuck only in the DAC chipset. The DAP and it's capabilities don't rely only on the good DAC chipset. Why don't you talk on the amplification design of your smartphone? You are totally ignoring what is the impact of a proper filtering on the electronic board, the selection of the best components to minimize the electrostatic noise and somethings which I never know since I am a Mechanical Engineer.
There is a huge gap in audio quality between a smartphone and a dedicated DAP with swappable amplification modules.
I already know that the Snapdragon capability is well known in the world, but the very good DAC brands are only a few in the audio world and there is a why.

Excluding the LG V Series of course. The only smartphone that is a DAP.

 

[bobbooo]

Excluding the LG V Series of course. The only smartphone that is a DAP.

All smartphones are also DAPs (Digital Audio Players).

You insist, but you are stuck only in the DAC chipset. The DAP and it's capabilities don't rely only on the good DAC chipset. Why don't you talk on the amplification design of your smartphone? You are totally ignoring what is the impact of a proper filtering on the electronic board, the selection of the best components to minimize the electrostatic noise and somethings which I never know since I am a Mechanical Engineer.

There is a huge gap in audio quality between a smartphone and a dedicated DAP with swappable amplification modules.

I already know that the Snapdragon capability is well known in the world, but the very good DAC brands are only a few in the audio world and there is a why.

As I showed a couple of pages back (Post #747), the Snapdragon S10’s output is audibly transparent (after the amplification stage, so no I'm not just talking about the DAC), and in some areas better than a dedicated DAP (e.g. the iBasso DX200, very similar to your DX220). To make this 100% clear, I’ll post these measurements again below, along with the LG G7 and the $1600 Cowon Plenue P2:

Snapdragon S10:

As you can see, they’re all pretty similar. The two smartphones actually have cleaner output than the dedicated DAPs though, with the most expensive (the Cowon Plenue P2) being the worst performing (highest number and magnitude of THD spikes). That’s moot really though, as all these devices are likely audibly transparent (noise + distortion below -110dB). So no, there isn’t a huge gap between the audio performance of a modern flagship smartphone and a dedicated DAP. In fact, there's no gap. The hardware is just as good as each other within the limits of audibility.

 

[Steve Guppy]

All smartphones are also DAPs (Digital Audio Players).


As I showed a couple of pages back (Post #747), the Snapdragon S10’s output is audibly transparent (after the amplification stage, so no I'm not just talking about the DAC), and in some areas better than a dedicated DAP (e.g. the iBasso DX200, very similar to your DX220). To make this 100% clear, I’ll post these measurements again below, along with the LG G7 and the $1600 Cowon Plenue P2:

Snapdragon S10:

As you can see, they’re all pretty similar. The two smartphones actually have cleaner output than the dedicated DAPs, with the most expensive (the Cowon Plenue P2) being the worst performing (highest number and magnitude of THD spikes). That’s moot really though, as they are all likely audibly transparent (noise + distortion below -110dB). So no, there isn’t a huge gap between the audio performance of a modern flagship smartphone and a dedicated DAP. In fact, there's no gap. The hardware is just as good as each other within the limits of audibility.

Great work there!
I currently use my Note 9 in conjunction with my Q5, and to be honest, at no point do i think I'm getting sub-par audio. In fact, i think i'd be hard pressed to notice any audio improvement with anything other than a high-end dap. Like, really high.

 

[bobbooo]

Great work there!
I currently use my Note 9 in conjunction with my Q5, and to be honest, at no point do i think I'm getting sub-par audio. In fact, i think i'd be hard pressed to notice any audio improvement with anything other than a high-end dap. Like, really high.

I didn't do the measurements, just a lot of googling to find them
Yep, the Note 9 likely also has very good audio performance, as it uses the same DAC as the S10 (and S9), with probably a similar amplification stage as the S9, the measurements of which can be seen here:

I'd actually argue that you probably wouldn't even be able to hear any improvement with a 'really high-end' DAP, as your Samsung's noise + distortion is likely already below the threshold of audibility, so any further decrease would be an inaudible change.

 

[Steve Guppy]

I didn't do the measurements, just a lot of googling to find them
Yep, the Note 9 likely also has very good audio performance, as it uses the same DAC as the S10 (and S9), with probably a similar amplification stage as the S9, the measurements of which can be seen here:

I'd actually argue that you probably wouldn't even be able to hear any improvement with a 'really high-end' DAP, as your Samsung's noise + distortion is likely already below the threshold of audibility, so any further decrease would be an inaudible change.

Tbh, i just use it as music storage, playing through Neutron straight into the Q5 dac via USB (and occasionally BT, especially when watching YT), using "follow source frequency" and all the other good stuff ticked to my personal preference. It's my own slice of nirvana. ‍

 

[Seazer]

Thanks, I appreciate you trying to get Samsung to fix this issue. It still baffles me why I can hear the original music beneath the noise when PCM to DSD is turned on – I would have thought it would either work and play the music correctly, or not at all and play pure noise, but it seems to do both. It's bizarre.

Edit: By the way, when you do contact Samsung, link them to the specs page for the S10 here: https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-s10/specs/ which says the phone does have DSD64/128 playback support, so this is false advertising as it does not currently function properly.

Actually this happens with any dsd that is played through something that doesn't support dsd. I forget exactly why but I know it's part of the failsafe when playing dsd is played out of something incompatible. It will play white noise with a very quiet version of the song in the background. If I load up a dsd on my pc and try to play it out of an sdac, that is exactly what will happen. It is inherent in how dsd is built.