[Vargulf]

Hey all,
I'm almost ruing the day I came across this site :-S. Since exploring the posts I have spent more than I thought was possible on audio gear, (bear in mind I knew nothing of audio matters before coming here). I've got ath-esw9's and Shure 535's and am waiting for the FiiO e17 to go with my laptop. I'm getting a PC soon too so then I have to start looking at a better qual DAC for that!
My question: Without buying another DAP that I have to cart around everywhere can I make my smartphone sound top qual? It's got a 16gb sd and plays flac. but it hisses with top headphones (I know why so please no explanations just solutions . Will the little FiiO E5 be enough or can someone recommend something better thats small enough to fit in the pocket with the phone? This is for with the headphones mentioned in the post so no epic impedance to have to deal with. Audio t's are 47ohms I think and Shures might be a bit higher.
 
Cheers

 

[ZARIM]

The iPhone 4s has lineout and Nokia N8 accept external Dac/amps through USB for better soundquality. Samsung Galaxy S and Capitivate with Voodoo control sound better than many DAPs and can drive these easily(at loud volume).

 

[Inks]

IP4S, IP4 and 3GS are the best sounding smartphones (LO isn't needed). I don't think Voodoo is all of a sudden going to decrease the high output impedance of the Galaxy S which isn't proper for a lot of IEMs which will cause roll-offs or peaks. 

 

[Uncle Erik]

I find my iPhone just fine. Plug in IEMs and it sounds plenty good enough for on the go.

 

[Vargulf]

Sorry I should have said I have a HTC Desire. About a yr old and one yr left on my contract. Is the FiiO E7 the best DAC to connect to it to remove the slight noise I can hear in the backround with ATH-ESW9?

 

[batphink]

You could try an attenuator instead.  It appears 75ohm attenuators do the best job at eliminating hiss without affecting sound quality.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/440217/question-se530s-hiss-attenuator
 
Here are more recent links to the Etymotic adaptors mentioned in the thread.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etymotic-ER4P-ER4S-3-5MM-plug-resistor-adaptor-/270837009344?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0f24cbc0#ht_1852wt_1139
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ETYMOTIC-P-S-RESISTOR-ADAPTOR-RIGHT-ANGLE-PLUG-/300374135521?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45efb192e1#ht_5776wt_952
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ETYMOTIC-ER4P-ER4S-RESISTOR-ADAPTOR-3-5MM-PLUG-/290372905689?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item439b92ead9#ht_3754wt_805
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etymotic-Headphones-ER4P-ER4S-75-Ohm-Convertor-Cable-/280732730536?pt=Other_MP3_Player_Accessories&hash=item415cf984a8#ht_3297wt_905

 

[Vargulf]

AHAHAHA Batphink I hated/loved that show. Cheers. I'll check these attenuator's out they might be the answer to my probs...
Thanx

 

[Inks]

That 75ohm attenuator will affect the sound, specially for those multi BA IEMs. All smartsphones outside of the ones I mentioned are actually pretty poor in terms of sound, they're noisy (hiss/artifacts) and cause roll-offs and peaks. 

 

[rawrster]

My sgs does not sound poor in terms of sound at all with my customs.

 

[bcasey25raptor]

My iphone 4 sounds great with my shure srh750dj, srh840, se215, or alessandro ms1.

 

[Vargulf]

Ok so I could try the Etymotic ER4P to ER4S which are only $10! Further down on the post it says SQ will be effected by these though. I don't fully understand what it does but would I be best with a FiiO E5 or E7 hooked up as well?  I understood that the E7 took the digital sound and recreated it in analog to a better quality. That's why I'm getting it for my laptop. Since it has it's own Li-ion battery and a smartphone is essentially a tiny computer wouldn't it improve the sound from that device equally as well?  Will the attenuator make a E7's final product better or worse?

 

[Peyotero]

 
Quote:

IP4S, IP4 and 3GS are the best sounding smartphones (LO isn't needed). I don't think Voodoo is all of a sudden going to decrease the high output impedance of the Galaxy S which isn't proper for a lot of IEMs which will cause roll-offs or peaks. 

What's the output impedance of the Galaxy S?
 
 

 

[Inks]

Can't say for certain but based on measurements compared to other DAPs/Smartphones it's about 8. 
 
Actually the LG Optimus 2X is pretty good as well, it's oi is like 3.
 
These measurements don't say the headphone load, but they told me they use a 32ohm AKG. The GS pretty much adds a 5 db of subbass and some grain in the midrange, whereas the IP4 stays flat. The differences are going to be even bigger with a 16ohm load. If you're using something over 50 ohms I guess you should be fine with the GS, but I doubt most will. 

 

[Peyotero]

Heh you made me got through 40 pages on the XDA forums
So I've done some sniffing around and here's what, that graph you refer to was publicized on 06 August 2010 and the phone they used at the time had one of the earliest firmwares which was "bugged". Whenever you'd plug headphones in the frequency response was modified. As it was discovered in this thread. This was fixed in one of the later firmwares as supercurio (maker of the voodoo kernel) confirms in this quote:
 
 
Quote:

A good friend of mine loaned me his Galaxy S for 1 day.
It's running XWJM5 firmware, he upgraded his phone yesterday from stock XWJF3.

And I have some really surprising news, begging your attention to be confirmed or not on you device 

[size=medium]Facts :[/size]

Default volume : 55
1 point lower than mine on XWJM2. Hiss with my earphones is a bit lower, max volume is a bit lower too.

Amp power up and down produces much less "pops" : very good work done here !

and..
[size=x-large]No trace of any hardware Equalizer for headphones !![/size]

Yep 

I checked with RMAA signal analysis with headphone attached -> flat response.
I double checked with my ears, and I can confirm that !

So imho the graph you linked to should be ignored on that regard. It was about messed up firmware and not the output impedance. The frequency was perfectly flat when hooked to an external amp and a equalization was applied whenever you plugged headphones. While it is possible that different equalization was applied for headphones with higher impedance, it's obsolete now because it was fixed by firmware.
 
As for the voodoo fix itself it has nothing to do with this issue although it grew out of it indirectly. By trying to fix the above issue supercurio discovered something bad ass :
 
 
Quote:

Allright !

First of all, the wait was long. I'm sorry for that, I didn't mean to.
I'm cooler than yesterday, you could saw that I quite a bit excited by the discovery 

[size=medium]What is this all about ?

It's all about analogic gain !
Android volume control is just a digital reduction of the amplitude's signal.
You cannot get higher volume for demanding high-impedance headphones, you cannot lower the hiss for sensitive earphones.


[size=medium]Linux sound system[/size]

Behind Android media server, there is still the whole Linux sound system. On the Galaxy S and most phone platforms, hardware is driven by software based on the ALSA model.
This driver architecture allow powerful controls, much more versatile than those used by the basic Android APIs.


[size=medium]Take control of the sound mixer[/size]

The program named amixer is the simplest interface to the hardware mixer exposed by ALSA sound cards.
Samsung's WM8994 sound driver allows some parameters to be controlled :
Here is the complete list :[/size]

Code:

[size=13px][left] Simple mixer control 'Codec Tuning',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'OFF' 'ON' Item0: 'OFF' # alsa_amixer Simple mixer control 'FM Radio Path',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'FMR_OFF' 'FMR_SPK' 'FMR_HP' 'FMR_SPK_MIX' 'FMR_HP_MIX' 'FMR_DUAL_MIX' Item0: 'FMR_OFF' Simple mixer control 'Playback',0 Capabilities: volume Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: 0 - 63 Front Left: 0 [0%] Front Right: 0 [0%] Simple mixer control 'Playback Headset',0 Capabilities: volume Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: 0 - 63 Front Left: 54 [86%] Front Right: 54 [86%] Simple mixer control 'Playback Path',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'OFF' 'RCV' 'SPK' 'HP' 'BT' 'DUAL' 'RING_SPK' 'RING_HP' 'RING_DUAL' 'EXTRA_DOCK_SPEAKER' 'TV_OUT' Item0: 'OFF' Simple mixer control 'Playback Spkr',0 Capabilities: volume Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right Limits: 0 - 63 Front Left: 60 [95%] Front Right: 60 [95%] Simple mixer control 'Capture',0 Capabilities: cvolume cvolume-joined Capture channels: Mono Limits: Capture 0 - 239 Mono: Capture 192 [80%] Simple mixer control 'Clock Control',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'OFF' 'ON' Item0: 'OFF' Simple mixer control 'Codec Status',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'FMR_VOL_0' 'FMR_VOL_1' 'FMR_OFF' 'REC_OFF' 'REC_ON' Item0: 'FMR_VOL_0' Simple mixer control 'Codec Tuning',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'OFF' 'ON' Item0: 'OFF' Simple mixer control 'MIC Path',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'Main Mic' 'Hands Free Mic' Item0: 'Main Mic' Simple mixer control 'Voice Call Path',0 Capabilities: enum Items: 'OFF' 'RCV' 'SPK' 'HP' 'BT' Item0: 'OFF'[/left][/size]

The most useful control is named 'Playback Headset'.
It controls the analog gain of the amplifier driving the headphone output and the line output, depending on what's plugged in.
It accept 64 values : 0 to 63 but volumes from 0 to 31 are the same lowest level.

I guess the 'Capture' control will capture interest of some people here too 

[size=medium]Results

- For sensitives earphones or headphones :
With low gains, you can shrink the hiss down to some levels so low that the phone amplifier becomes black : no noise !
Yesterday I was amazed because I never experienced such sound with my earphones, for the first time, I had some great dynamic, appropriate level and noise were absent, even in pauses.
With isolating headphones, this is something very special 

- For any other device :
Adjusting the analog ouput gains allow to obtain the best Signal to Noise Ratio.
Old Hi-fi headphones (some required almost a speaker amp) are no problem for the powerful amp included.
And for people who like strong effects or corrections, like +12 EQ on some bands, this is cool because you can still get enough juice and the effect without saturation.[/size]

 
 
Quote:

[size=medium]SNR Gains[/size]

I had troubles today with measurements. Something produced noise around and I did not get the usual SNR in the default configration.
Instead of 90dB, I had 87.5.

But you'll see in this graph the effect of increasing the output gain at the line-out level (without headphone attached)

Volume 56 (default) : 0dB (reference)
Volume 60 : 0.7dB SNR improvement
Volume 61 : 2.1dB SNR improvement
Volume 62 : 4dB SNR improvement 

Volume 63 work but distortions levels increase abruptly (this need to be verified, the level is so high that it could saturate my sound card line-in even at minimum record gain)

 
Later on he came up with the voodoo app which allowed him get get almost all the juice that the Wolfson WM8994 can deliver. Something that Samsung didn't bother to mess with.
Anti-Jitter
DAC 128X oversampling
DAC direct (bypasses analog channel mixer)
Various FM radio and recording optimizations
Low distortion bass boost etc
 
But where it realy shines is the analog gain control. He just turned this phone into a beast of a DAP. It can drive just about anything crystal clear and can compete with some of the best DAPs out there. I don't know where your iPhone stands on that regard
One of my coworkers  have an iphone 4. I should borrow it and do a comparison for sports.
 
 
 

 

[gnarlsagan]

Is there anything remotely close to voodoo for HTC phones? Finding nothing.