[Vergil]

Mi a1 sound quality is too average. It can be loud yes but lacks the warmth. Tested with apple music with the equalizer on with different presets and with equalizer off. It is loud, can drive full-size cans but the quality is not there. The call sound is on a bit low side, My old Samsung grand duos has nice call quality. But this phone is super smooth though. This phone tries to do a lot of things like expensive phones it is mimicking and fails. The camera too kinda same story. Guess at this price I can forgive the camera, Guess people better than me in equalizing can reproduce the sound they want with this hardware. I kinda succeeded with power amp, but it is too much hassle for me to manually tweak for each song. So I am kinda disappointed with the sound quality. For the rest , like for day to day tasks and gaming, this is a good choice. Will listen to more tracks in it. I generally listen to country and some indian and western classical.

sound signature ≠ sound quality

 

[Arunabha Lahiri]

Yes I understand that, sorry my bad. I guess there will be many who like its sound signature.

 

[Abhi Dahiya]

Received my A1 yesterday. Listened to quite a few songs on it with Apple music and Spotify.
Tweaked sound with equalizer to turn it little bass heavy (my preference) and i would say AQ is really good. Sound is not flat or dull at all. There is enough warmth. Bass doesn't overshadow mids or treble either. Also it can get pretty loud. Was enough for me at 45-50% volume. It can sure compete with 800-900 dollar phones out there and does a better job than many.

 

[Arunabha Lahiri]

Received my A1 yesterday. Listened to quite a few songs on it with Apple music and Spotify.
Tweaked sound with equalizer to turn it little bass heavy (my preference) and i would say AQ is really good. Sound is not flat or dull at all. There is enough warmth. Bass doesn't overshadow mids or treble either. Also it can get pretty loud. Was enough for me at 45-50% volume. It can sure compete with 800-900 dollar phones out there and does a better job than many.

Guess I will have to tweak around a bit then. Glad you liked it. The phone is great though.. I got the black one.

 

[Arunabha Lahiri]

Generally in my other devices I didn't have to use the equalizer at all. I liked them out of the box. But in mi a1 it seems I have to tweak a lot with custom equalizer to match my preference. And the snapdragon equalizer in apple music or google play music is pretty limited. And just one step increase in volume, increases the loudness a lot. I would have liked to bring the equalizer in power amp to apple music. I get somewhere close to how i want but finetuning seems problematic.

 

[Vergil]

Guess I will have to tweak around a bit then. Glad you liked it. The phone is great though.. I got the black one.

What headphones/IEMs do you have? Maybe you got a bad pairing. Bright headphones/IEMs can sound thin, dull and lifeless when not paired with the right amplifier.

 

[Arunabha Lahiri]

What headphones/IEMs do you have? Maybe you got a bad pairing. Bright headphones/IEMs can sound thin, dull and lifeless when not paired with the right amplifier.

Nah.. Headphones not the problem, got a soundmagic e10c, apple earpods, and a sennheiser hd 598. I am mainly testing it with soundmagic though, because that's what i generally use to commute. It can drive the hd 598 well. I havent used them with it so much. Soundmagic sounds quite good with my laptop and my ipod. And sennheiser hd 598 is not that demanding... But yeah I am getting a bit thin sound.. I have to tweak around quite a bit. Maybe the synergy is not there.. It sounds okay with apple earpods though..

 

[Arunabha Lahiri]

I think I have gotten close to my desired sound in mi a1. Boosted the mids especially the 230 hz and 940 hz a bit and regressed the highs and the lows too. Kinda looks like a bell shaped curve. or more accurately a wave. I don't know if the original sound signature was flat or not, but definitely not ideal for country or classical. The highs were too harsh. And the default presets in the snapdragon sound+ made things worse. Mi a1 is a good audio player, not considering the price point.

 

[exitmrhat]

Is there any way we can get the DAC / amp specs for the Xiaomi Mi A1? I haven't seen them anywhere.

 

[Arunabha Lahiri]

There's nothing in the official website and the reddit too is quiet about this. So far all I know is Xiaomi is using a dedicated amp in Mi a1, the dac is the stock snapdragon dac. Now I don't know which specific amp they are using. But trust me things here can get really loud. I generally keep my volume at around 30 percent while listening with my soundmagic e10c, 45 to 50 percent volume is okay to drive my sennheiser hd 598. Though I rarely use them with mi a1. I have tinkered with the equalizer a lot, out of the box the sound signature was too thin and harsh. Not enjoyable at all.. It is a bit weird for me as I didn't have to tinker around with the equalizer on my ipod. But I should say, the experience is satisfactory....

 

[lxlx]

I'm happy to watch this thread, the Axon7 tip a few days ago made me think over it again, it was off my radar completely.
Got it for 250EUR and can't be more happy. Stock ROM B05 on Nougat and no problems.dolby off. Sound great, over IEM and loudspeaker!

 

[artpiggo]

Talking about axon series. I found the picture stating new product launch at NY on 17 October 2017. Not sure if it is a trustworthy source or not.



Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/zte-axon-8/

 

[exitmrhat]

The Xiaomi Mi 5x review is up at GSMArena: http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_5x-review-1658p7.php

The phone is identical to the Mi A1, except for OS (MIUI vs stock Android).

 

[Moys]

Hello, I really need a new phone ( i actually don't have one right now ) and I would like to have a decent audio setup when im outside, so I thought about getting an "audiophile" smartphone. I have a really nice discount on the meizu 6 pro plus at only 350€ ( which is my budget, instead of 550€ ) since the new meizu pro 7 is getting released and i was wondering if it's the best choice to make. I just noticed that there were a lot of interesting daps getting released ( Cayin n3, Aune m1s, fiio x2iii, shanling m2S ( i think i would go for this one ). I'm aware of the issue that the meizu would have ( low storage space ) but i guess i would have to manage it well and stream music a little more, if i get a dap, a big 256 gb card would be nice though.

So now i'm just wondering how would for exemple the shanling m2s perform, musically, versus the meizu pro 6. It wouldn't bother me much to have a crappy phone to receive and give calls, for outside, a music player would be more than enough ( i prefer to read a book rather than playing some game if I have to wait outside for some reason ). But honestly the meizu seems like a really cool phone, so either way would be nice, the only thing that can make my mind up is the sound quality.

 

[Sharshar]

You are right, Just use an adapter (female to male 3.5), now the sound is very full and musical. Recommended.

Newbie here! Hello headfi!

I preorder a meizu pro7 plus and can't wait to receive my phone since my daughter lose my Xduoo X3.. What do you mean by an adapter ? Is this active ?

I think i got it, this for cut the mic from the LO of the phone?