[riso1983]

Hows the fiio X5 2nd compare to LG V10/20.. which one is a better buy?

 

[lantian]

My Meizu Mx4 Pro decided to give up on me. I have to say as phone it aged really quickly, was sluggish and stuck on Android 5. But musically it was simply gorgeous.

I've got myself ZTE Axon 7 thinking it will be good replacement. But Poweramp doesn't work with AKM dac in hi-res mode as far as I can see and hear. Stock player is terrible, slow and plays everything in alphabetical order.
I feel that phone has little power - I have to crank volume up to get nice sound (using easy to drive Thinksounds on2) . One I do it's s not bad at all, comparable to Cayin N3 which has same DAC.

2 questions if anyone has experience with Axon
1. What's the power output?
2. Any way / player that would use AKM DAC?

Thanks

The axon always uses akm dac for music. The problem is ZTE's rom, at least earlier reviews said it can not do more than 16 bit and everything gets resampled to either 44,1khz or 48khz(haven't had a chance to test that claim without a rooted device). Poweramp works with the akm dac, but again though it is bugged and does not use the proper high res paths(if available) in most devices. The confusion of which dac it uses comes only because it says that it is using snapdragon 24bit path, that in no way/shape or form implies that it would be using snapdragon dac that is disabled(and probably not even wired to headphone jack or anything else).
On a side note you can play albums in correct order but you have to press the small play icon next to the album, axon 7 mini had the same issues with its stock player.

 

[shashankm]

Got a V30+ last week. Stellar phone but compared to V20, I find its sound signature a bit bright for my taste. Am I the only one or is it so?
And why it's so quiet? Headphones are Sennheiser HD DJ7.
Also, is their the impedance trigger in it same as V20? I couldn't find which so far.

 

[RicardoB]

Got a V30+ last week. Stellar phone but compared to V20, I find its sound signature a bit bright for my taste. Am I the only one or is it so?
And why it's so quiet? Headphones are Sennheiser HD DJ7.
Also, is their the impedance trigger in it same as V20? I couldn't find which so far.

Are you getting shrill piercing highs or just that the sound is too thin or airy? Remove the cable from your senns and plug it into the phone first then attach the senns, that should give you aux mode with more power and dynamics

 

[Rendster]

I wonder why did the thread starter recommended the meizu pro 5 and not the meizu pro 6 plus

 

[riso1983]

I was wondering about meizu 7 pro (p25) and its DAC/AMP quality..

 

[docentore]

The axon always uses akm dac for music. The problem is ZTE's rom, at least earlier reviews said it can not do more than 16 bit and everything gets resampled to either 44,1khz or 48khz(haven't had a chance to test that claim without a rooted device). Poweramp works with the akm dac, but again though it is bugged and does not use the proper high res paths(if available) in most devices. The confusion of which dac it uses comes only because it says that it is using snapdragon 24bit path, that in no way/shape or form implies that it would be using snapdragon dac that is disabled(and probably not even wired to headphone jack or anything else).
On a side note you can play albums in correct order but you have to press the small play icon next to the album, axon 7 mini had the same issues with its stock player.

Fantastic reply, thank you very much.

 

[artpiggo]

I wonder why did the thread starter recommended the meizu pro 5 and not the meizu pro 6 plus

Because they sounds different and p6+ is not a clear upgrade(SQ) from 5. That's why. While pro7 do keep meizu on track again.

 

[shashankm]

Are you getting shrill piercing highs or just that the sound is too thin or airy? Remove the cable from your senns and plug it into the phone first then attach the senns, that should give you aux mode with more power and dynamics

Is it so? Thanks for the tip. Will give it a shot

 

[artpiggo]

This is the phone list for next year that come with 845 snapdragon for your reference. #no845forxplay7 #feelbadman

 

[spinrite]

I would have to rank my iPad Pro 10.5 LTE, one of the best audiophile capable devices I’ve owned. Yes it’s my smartphone!

 

[Rendster]

Do you think Snapdragon 845 audio would be better or at least on par with some smartphones out there with dedicated DAC?

 

[Jerda]

Absolutely no.

 

[tienbasse]

I wonder why did the thread starter recommended the meizu pro 5 and not the meizu pro 6 plus

Because it's not an upgrade soundwise, and all Meizu Pro/Pro Plus since 6 have lost microsd expansion ability, so they all come limited to 64/128Gb, which is a misery unless you live in a area where network quality is good enough for streaming.

 

[InfyAsiX]

My Meizu Mx4 Pro decided to give up on me. I have to say as phone it aged really quickly, was sluggish and stuck on Android 5. But musically it was simply gorgeous.

I've got myself ZTE Axon 7 thinking it will be good replacement. But Poweramp doesn't work with AKM dac in hi-res mode as far as I can see and hear. Stock player is terrible, slow and plays everything in alphabetical order.
I feel that phone has little power - I have to crank volume up to get nice sound (using easy to drive Thinksounds on2) . One I do it's s not bad at all, comparable to Cayin N3 which has same DAC.

2 questions if anyone has experience with Axon
1. What's the power output?
2. Any way / player that would use AKM DAC?

Thanks

I grabbed an Axon 7 recently as a secondary device, primarily for multimedia consumption. With the likes of its AKM DAC, quality 2K OLED, Dolby Atmos front facing stereo speakers, relatively recent powerful SD820 SOC and Daydream VR support. It find it suits my demands for a multimedia device really well and is unmatched for these features. As it was released around a year and a half ago and discontinued, they can be found cheap. As for actual usage, being a budget flagship I find some root system modding is necessary to ensure some things are quality. Though even something like the V30 still requires a number of these mods to receive similar functionality. One downside of being a Chinese product is to date no device has included L1 Widevine DRM certification for HD paid video streaming. It's a recent restriction taking a step back from the ease of access content delivery that popularised streaming in the first place. I guess one obvious alternative is to having to rely on non DRM methods of getting content, which kind of defeats the intent and purpose the DRM requirement in the first place doesn't it?

For your first question, I'm haven't got a measurement. However I've read that the EU Global variant is maximum volume limited, On my Global model I've flashed the US firmware with Global modems to avoid this. Though I've read some people think that recently Global firmware doesn't have this audio restriction anymore.

For your second question I posted a mod link and description in this XDA thread that enables the AKM DAC for all sound output https://forum.xda-developers.com/axon-7/how-to/list-music-players-outputting-to-akm-dac-t3695058. In fact that mod is for Android in general, it allows the system sound effects like equaliser to affect all audio like how it was prior to 5.0 Lollipop. I don't use hi-res files as Viper4Android which is crucial for it's parametric graphic equalizer for all sound outputs at 48kHz, also I prefer the convenience of reasonably sized files and streaming,

Another simple but important mod for audio is increasing the available volume steps. The biggest non-audio mod I require is custom thermal throttling for gaming performance for example.