[artpiggo]

I just switched from an iphone 5 to a huawei P8 Lite. 
I work as a live sound engineer and android does have a few really usefull audio apps that i couldn't get on IOS so i'm happy with that part.

However, the huawei built in DAC is so much worse then the iphone 5 DAC that it's almost funny. The headphone output (tested with sennheiser cx 1.00 and a few other models) sounds like there is some heavey EQ going on in the background and even adds some distortion into the signal. It's almost unistenable to me. Completly un-natural. 
I use "poweramp" as the audio player and i have checked, there is no EQ turned on anywhere in the software. Or any kind of DSP.

I'm running android 6.0 

So which android phones have audio outputs comparable to the iphone one? 
How does a huawei P9 lite compare to P8 lite in terms of sound (i have an oportunity to get the P9 lite) 

I need my phone not just for music listening but even for tuning and testing PA systems in clubs i work in. The iphone 5 output was really more then acceptable for this.

I can always buy a Fiio audio player but then i have to carry 2 devices around...

Try mate9 even though it has no dedicate dac, it is best sounding in huawei product line.

 

[athlon64]

I can only replace my p8 lite with a p9 lite. 
 
But of course i can also sell the P8 and buy something else.
 
I heard that HTC one series is quiet decent.  
M8 or M9 maybe? 

 

[eio]

stay away from p8 lite and p9 lite.

 

[athlon64]

Yes, i see they are crap in the sound department.
 
I can get some HTC ONE M8's for a really nice price here in my country.
From what i have read they are within the best of android when talking about audio. 
 
I don't need it to make my headphones sound like a pair of Adam monitors hooked up to a 1000 dolars RME card, i just need a decent relatively neutral output. 
The iphone one was great. The huawei **** in unusable. I simply can't believe how bad it sounds. 

 

[lantian]

Bought the axon 7 mini a week ago, it's got the akm 4962 dac . The sound from this phone on my soundmagic e80's is so much better than my htc one m8, thats it's not even fair to compare, They may say htc is a audio focused company, but nowhere near as much s they like to think, the dac's in those phones may be hi res but the quality is not, in any cse dont go for htc if you wat to enjoy lossless hifi audio

 

[athlon64]

The axon 7 used costs exactly 3 times as much as the HTC one M8 in my country. 
I don't need anything special, i will be using it with a pair of sennheiser cx300's or something similarly priced.
I don't listen to music much from my smartphone. But the huawei isn't "a bit bad" it's damn unusable. 
I would also be good if it sounded neutral, because i will be tuning PA systems in some clubs with it. 
The iphone was more then good enough. i wonder how an M8 would compare. 

 

[lantian]

The m8 does sound pretty neutral, a bit bass driven perhaps and by no means would it sound bad, just not quite hifi as advertised, with great headphone output compared to the iphone its hard to say probably will sound better

 

[athlon64]

I don't need an audiophile output good enough for running 250ohm 1000 dollar headphones. At home i have a pair of yamaha studio monitors, a focusrite soundcard and some beyerdynamic dt770's. 
 
I don't like using in ear headphones and my smartphone for listening at all. But you know, many times you find yourself bored while taking a walk, plus, at a 50 dollar pricerange sennheiser and beyerdynamic have some nice in ear headphones so why not have a budget but decent listening experience from a smartphone. 
 
Plus i need a source device for testing PA systems when i'm working. This also doesn't need to be anything special, i just need to find the ringing frequencies of a room and get a general picture of what a PA sounds like. 
 
But the huawei is damn unusable for any of these things. The audio output is completly deformed, the CX1.00's sound like a completly different pair of headphones on an iphone and on the huawei. 
 
So i'd love to find the DAC comparison with an iphone because i had an iphone 5 and it was decent for what i need. 
 
Again, i believe the ZTE is better but i'm not willing to spend that kind of money. 

 

[Genghis khant]

hey whats the best phone in terms of audio for 260$?

 

[Onitsuka]

leading chinese ROMs have very good built-in resource/privilege management feature, since it is an absolute necessity for chinese market, due to all the rogue behaviors of chinese app ecosystem.
but it is a feature that all users around the world can benefit from.

international brands have fewer compatiblity issue, and have less weirdness of those chinese iOS copycat ROMs.

I don't think average users need those features. Beside they don't help much, especially when vendors have completely control over the device, e.g just an suid binary is enough for everything. Furthermore, the previous privilege management in Android was proved a failure, and Google admitted that.

 

[lisztian420]

Omg! My LG v10 died last week,.. but what is surprising is that the engineer told me all LG flagships after g3 have the same boot-loop problem that's resulted by heat melting part of the motherboard... O.o

This is very alarming... WTH! I googled earlier tonite and saw LG g4, v10, g5, & v20 all have reported this boot-loop issue

I'm currently living in Taiwan and apparently LG here isn't supporting this prob for users that ran out of their one year warranty. I still have 2 months to go with my v10. By I gotta share this to all other headfiers that is considering LG v10, G5 or v20.

 

[Onitsuka]

Omg! My LG v10 died last week,.. but what is surprising is that the engineer told me all LG flagships after g3 have the same boot-loop problem that's resulted by heat melting part of the motherboard... O.o

This is very alarming... WTH! I googled earlier tonite and saw LG g4, v10, g5, & v20 all have reported this boot-loop issue

I'm currently living in Taiwan and apparently LG here isn't supporting this prob for users that ran out of their one year warranty. I still have 2 months to go with my v10. By I gotta share this to all other headfiers that is considering LG v10, G5 or v20.

Sad to hear. I also have a dead V10 because of bootloop. Ironically some people here on HeadFi just discarded it lol. I think we should stay away from LG phones for sometime, since even V20 also suffer.

 

[LaughMoreDaily]

I just bought a ZTE ZMAX 2 from Newegg for $109.99 Canadian. I'll get back to you on the Dolby Digital Plus sound quality when I get it this week.

 

[seamon]

Omg! My LG v10 died last week,.. but what is surprising is that the engineer told me all LG flagships after g3 have the same boot-loop problem that's resulted by heat melting part of the motherboard... O.o

This is very alarming... WTH! I googled earlier tonite and saw LG g4, v10, g5, & v20 all have reported this boot-loop issue

I'm currently living in Taiwan and apparently LG here isn't supporting this prob for users that ran out of their one year warranty. I still have 2 months to go with my v10. By I gotta share this to all other headfiers that is considering LG v10, G5 or v20.

I did a google search, all the G5 bootloopers were straight out of box - meaning that G5 only bootloops of it's a dud. There's no post of bootlooping after extended(3-4 months) of usage.

 

[s4tch]

hey whats the best phone in terms of audio for 260$?

(used) meizu pro 5
xiaomi mi note (pro)
leeco x800