[lantian]

Problem with the original axon and axon mini is that they have no microsd expansion, other than that they should be pretty good

 

[SergeSE]

  The distortion I'm talking about it the phase shift that different bandwidths set by the unit under test.  All of them are likely to have a low pass filter after the DAC, and perhaps the amp, and some may have a high pass filter in the low frequencies.  This will cause different phase shifts for each unit, which will be measured as a error.  It is an error, but is it one you want to include?  It will swamp the others distortions I suspect.
 
I wasn't criticising the Pink Floyd as a test. Just saying for a re-issue the quality is disappointing compared to some

Yes, phase inaccuracy has its contribution to resulting waveform degradation. According to generally recognized approach if something is measured then it should be weighted against human perception before the parameter can be used for SQ assessment. This approach is extremely complicated in practice - impact of separate distortion factors and their combinations on perceived SQ with real-world audio signals is practically unpredictable. I propose another approach - to solve the problem of objective assessment of SQ from the opposite side. All audible differences have their "tracks" in waveform. In other words, if something changed in sound then something changed in waveform. I research relationship between SQ perception and waveform degradation, trying to find the conditions when degradation measurements correlate well to perceived SQ. The research is still in progress - http://soundexpert.org/news/-/blogs/objective-difference-measurements-to-predict-listening-test-results- but early results show that if nature of waveform degradation for two devices under test is similar (measure of similarity is also proposed) then Df measurements can be used instead of listening tests for these two devices. To be true, the map of Df measurements of portable players lacks for this important measure of degradation similarity. Exactly this measure indicates whether it is correct or not to compare Df values for judging SQ. The next version of Df testing will include such parameter as well as new test signals. PF album consists of varied audio material but a set of different tracks from different artists, genres and years is even more varied and better reveals shortcomings of devices under test.

 

[Mustang80]

The Axon Mini has expandable storage, but not the 7 mini - Just wondering why the 7 mini gets all the attention?

 

[lantian]

Ok, scratch that the axon didn't have any but mini did have sd support, well the difference is also down to the dac and it's implementation.

 

[Mustang80]

  Ok, scratch that the axon didn't have any but mini did have sd support, well the difference is also down to the dac and it's implementation.

 
Any opinion on how it sounds?

 

[lantian]

Haven't hear axon mini, but axon 7 mini sounds better than the big axon 7

 

[Gojira]

Earlier in this thread we investigated the x3 vs x3 lite issue and the conclusion was reached that the x3 lite does not have the same chips. In fact it seems that the only thing it has besides the Qualcomm SoC audio path is the Wolfson codec. I'm not completely clear on what that codec thing means though. Is that a physical IC or just software? Nevertheless I think more than 1 headfier has vouched that the x3 lite has better than average SQ for a phone. It could just be that it has a particularly good implementation of the Qualcomm SoC audio which is already not too bad when implemented well depending on how sensitive your ears and headphones/IEMs are.

My friend has the ZTE Zmax 2 which only has Qualcomm SoC audio and he is really impressed with the SQ and with how loud it gets with his Tenores and I think even his full sized AKG headphones but I'm not sure on that. I plan to buy one of those Zmax 2s as soon as I get back to the states or maybe even before that. At $50 I don't think any other phone can even come close in terms of value for the money in a budget phone. In theory there is also a battery drain advantage to using SoC audio, but of course going with a phone with external chips can give you much better audio, but that comes with a price. Such phones cost more than twice as much as the Zmax 2. Since the headphone jacks on my phones seem to break in 3-6 months no matter what brand I buy I don't like to spend too much on them.

I think Lenovo, ZTE, Xiaomi, and Asus all have pretty good implementations of Qualcomm SoC audio in some of their phones. The best version I have heard is actually from an older 5" model called the A6010 although I think that has another name too. To me it sounds more neutral in tonal balance and slightly clearer sounding than the newer Vibe K5 that I think was supposed to replace it. Just don't expect the X3 Lite to compete with the X3 itself. It can't because it doesn't appear to have the chips.

I recently even listened to an ultra-budget $60 phone with the best implementation of Mediatek SoC audio I have ever heard. Still not as good as Qualcomm, but amazingly good for a $60 MSRP phone. I am thinking about buying it. I have no doubt that the Zmax 2 would clobber it in every way and is even $10 cheaper if you happen to live in the US, but I don't live in the US and the Zmax 2 seems designed specifically for use there with only very limited UMTS/3G frequencies that work here in Asia.

 

[To.M]

X3 Lite comes with Mediatek MTK6753 not Qualcomm, I have it and indeed its SQ is above the average.

 

[Gojira]

Oops. I forgot the X3 Lite had Mediatek. Yikes. I don't understand how that phone can sound so good with a Mediatek SoC but then it also has this.
 
I have listened to a lot of cheap phones with Mediatek SoC audio and they nearly always sound underpowered, weak, and just lifeless when playing music. Even speech is a bit difficult to understand with my aging ears unless I have unusually sensitive IEMs. But probably this idea that Mediatek has one particular sound and Qualcomm has another is an oversimplification. There are probably differences between different SoCs from the same manufacturer as well as differences due to surrounding circuitry and other tweaks even with exactly the same SoC model. I have reason to believe for instance that the early Qualcomm 400/410/415 series had particularly strong/powerful audio which may or may not have been tamed down a bit in later chips.
 
I guess what that means is that unless it has been vouched for by headfiers you really have to listen to any phone before you buy it. Having said that almost every Mediatek SoC phone I have personally heard has had that anemic sound when compared to Qualcomm SoC phones. The only exceptions I have noted have been the Acer Liquid Zest and some Qnet (Philippines only) phones which have somewhat better and louder audio than most of the other budget Mediatek SoC phones I've heard. Nevertheless they still can't compete with phones like Lenovo A6010 or Vibe K5, Xiaomi Redmi series, or the Asus phones with Qualcomm SoCs and probably not with the ZTE phones that have Qualcomm SoCs either. So it's a useful rule of thumb I think, but no doubt there will be some exceptions especially in the case of the X3 Lite which probably benefits a lot from the Cirrus Logic / Wolfson WM8281 chip which does appear to be a physical IC rather than just software/firmware.
 
The headphone jack on my latest phone has just gone single channel so I am planning to buy yet another phone. It could be an opportunity to try out the PPTV King 7 that I have had my eye on, but right now my money is pretty tight so I'm not sure I can justify it when it will probably only last 3-4 months before the headphone jack goes intermittent or single channel on me and I am not too confident of sending it to China to get warranty service. The ZTE Zmax 2 would be a no-brainer but I would have to have it shipped from the US raising the cost from $50 or so to at least $75 with some chance of it not arriving at all and it doesn't have most of the local UMTS frequencies making it almost unusable for internet. So after my discovery of the $60 (flagship) Qnet phone that looks pretty good I think I am going to do an exhaustive listening comparison of all the ultra-budget 5.5-6.0" Mediatek SoC phones available locally. I'd like to make a list of phones using an Mediatek SoC audio path that have at least somewhat decent sound quality. A very short list I think
 
I'm tempted to just buy some sort of USB DAC+Amp device from Audioquest or Fiio so that I can hopefully just plug it into the usb port of one of these phones to keep using it when not if the headphone jack breaks, but I'm hesitant. I really like to be able to charge the phone while listening/watching and I am not at all sure about the whole chain of devices I need to do it and how reliable they are or how large or portable etc. Going with external audio processing would probably allow me to keep a phone for much much longer though. Even after the warranty expires. Maybe years. I haven't had any reliability problems at all from the cheap Chinese brands I have been buying except for the headphone jack and on the Flash Plus 2 an intermittent microUSB slot connection but that was defective from the start (another reason why I will try to avoid ever buying another device from Alcatel/Flash).
 
I am really starting to think however that Apple and LeTV sort of have the right idea when it comes to these pathetic 3.5mm jacks which always seem to break at least when implemented in these ultra-thin phones. Probably a manufacturer would have to go out of their way to intentionally design them to be more durable and that might require a thicker phone which of course they are not going to do. The headphone jacks on my portable CD players, Sansa Clips, Clip+, and even the Fuze+ seemed to last a long time: measured in years and not months or weeks as with all of the smartphones I have tried so far. It's hard to know if it's a design flaw inherent to 3.5mm jacks mounted on thin PCBs in thin phones or just an implementation problem that the cheap Chinese brands I have been buying have. The only well known brand smartphone I have owned was an Asus and it got stolen after only 2 days.

 

[CharlesRievone]

  Click the image and click "Original", should be in high res

Thanks for the work on this. Just a suggestion, turning this to a Google Sheet instead would be a lot better. That way we can sort and filter based on what we want, not just by sorting the screen size. It would also be a lot easier to share the link on other platforms like facebook for example. Just set the sheet so that it is not editable by others.
 
Nevertheless, this list you made is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Jimster480]

  Oops. I forgot the X3 Lite had Mediatek. Yikes. I don't understand how that phone can sound so good with a Mediatek SoC but then it also has this.
 
I have listened to a lot of cheap phones with Mediatek SoC audio and they nearly always sound underpowered, weak, and just lifeless when playing music. Even speech is a bit difficult to understand with my aging ears unless I have unusually sensitive IEMs. But probably this idea that Mediatek has one particular sound and Qualcomm has another is an oversimplification. There are probably differences between different SoCs from the same manufacturer as well as differences due to surrounding circuitry and other tweaks even with exactly the same SoC model. I have reason to believe for instance that the early Qualcomm 400/410/415 series had particularly strong/powerful audio which may or may not have been tamed down a bit in later chips.
 
I guess what that means is that unless it has been vouched for by headfiers you really have to listen to any phone before you buy it. Having said that almost every Mediatek SoC phone I have personally heard has had that anemic sound when compared to Qualcomm SoC phones. The only exceptions I have noted have been the Acer Liquid Zest and some Qnet (Philippines only) phones which have somewhat better and louder audio than most of the other budget Mediatek SoC phones I've heard. Nevertheless they still can't compete with phones like Lenovo A6010 or Vibe K5, Xiaomi Redmi series, or the Asus phones with Qualcomm SoCs and probably not with the ZTE phones that have Qualcomm SoCs either. So it's a useful rule of thumb I think, but no doubt there will be some exceptions especially in the case of the X3 Lite which probably benefits a lot from the Cirrus Logic / Wolfson WM8281 chip which does appear to be a physical IC rather than just software/firmware.
 
The headphone jack on my latest phone has just gone single channel so I am planning to buy yet another phone. It could be an opportunity to try out the PPTV King 7 that I have had my eye on, but right now my money is pretty tight so I'm not sure I can justify it when it will probably only last 3-4 months before the headphone jack goes intermittent or single channel on me and I am not too confident of sending it to China to get warranty service. The ZTE Zmax 2 would be a no-brainer but I would have to have it shipped from the US raising the cost from $50 or so to at least $75 with some chance of it not arriving at all and it doesn't have most of the local UMTS frequencies making it almost unusable for internet. So after my discovery of the $60 (flagship) Qnet phone that looks pretty good I think I am going to do an exhaustive listening comparison of all the ultra-budget 5.5-6.0" Mediatek SoC phones available locally. I'd like to make a list of phones using an Mediatek SoC audio path that have at least somewhat decent sound quality. A very short list I think
 
I'm tempted to just buy some sort of USB DAC+Amp device from Audioquest or Fiio so that I can hopefully just plug it into the usb port of one of these phones to keep using it when not if the headphone jack breaks, but I'm hesitant. I really like to be able to charge the phone while listening/watching and I am not at all sure about the whole chain of devices I need to do it and how reliable they are or how large or portable etc. Going with external audio processing would probably allow me to keep a phone for much much longer though. Even after the warranty expires. Maybe years. I haven't had any reliability problems at all from the cheap Chinese brands I have been buying except for the headphone jack and on the Flash Plus 2 an intermittent microUSB slot connection but that was defective from the start (another reason why I will try to avoid ever buying another device from Alcatel/Flash).
 
I am really starting to think however that Apple and LeTV sort of have the right idea when it comes to these pathetic 3.5mm jacks which always seem to break at least when implemented in these ultra-thin phones. Probably a manufacturer would have to go out of their way to intentionally design them to be more durable and that might require a thicker phone which of course they are not going to do. The headphone jacks on my portable CD players, Sansa Clips, Clip+, and even the Fuze+ seemed to last a long time: measured in years and not months or weeks as with all of the smartphones I have tried so far. It's hard to know if it's a design flaw inherent to 3.5mm jacks mounted on thin PCBs in thin phones or just an implementation problem that the cheap Chinese brands I have been buying have. The only well known brand smartphone I have owned was an Asus and it got stolen after only 2 days.

This is the case because its really hard to make phones in this price tier, everything is bargin basement parts and thats why they literally fall apart after weeks/months. Technology just isn't there yet to make actual reliable and powerful phones for such a cheap price when you realize that a 6" 720p TN screen is like $15 or more depending on specs.
If you can get something like a FiiO K1 or a Q1 or an E18k then you are fine and don't have to worry about the audio jack breaking and you can probably keep the phone a long time and use it every day.

 

[Kyrts]

Sure, but then there is the issue of carrying around more than one device.

And for some people that one device to carry around may be too much already.

Just my 2c.

 

[Jimster480]

Sure, but then there is the issue of carrying around more than one device.

And for some people that one device to carry around may be too much already.

Just my 2c.

i don't disagree, but its price vs performance vs size compromises.
If you can't afford a flagship with top tier performance then you pick a different combination.
In the case of using cheap phones that keep breaking.... well then you should invest in a good dac/amp to carry around too.

 

[To.M]

My Lenovo X3 Lite is over 6 months old, used heavily every day, earphones plugged in and out regularly and so far, no problems. However, when it breaks down one day, I will have no heart attack. Expensive phones, no thanks!

 

[Jimster480]

My Lenovo X3 Lite is over 6 months old, used heavily every day, earphones plugged in and out regularly and so far, no problems. However, when it breaks down one day, I will have no heart attack. Expensive phones, no thanks!

To each their own, I run an online software company and as such I am always using my phone.
My phones performance and longevity is key, which is why I use HTC's I haven't had one break down on me yet (knock on wood).