LG V20 Sound Quality

[Zildon]

Hello. Did you properly diagnose that UAAP was the culprit ? (is it shown in battery status as the one eating the battery ?) Did you try to erase all data and cache (from settings/apps/UAAP) from UAAP ? You could also back up the phone, factory reset, reinstall just UAAP and see if the problem is still there... If not, reinstall apps one by one to see if there's a conflict somewhere.
Did you root the device ? Did you change the kernel or something else ? Did you change something in UAAP settings ?
By the way, you could try to contact the UAAP developer(s) if everything fails, they seem to be quite supportive. You should also post on xda forums (or did you already ?) for such issues.

Hi, thanks for your quick reply. I have checked the the battery stats each time and UAPP shows more percentage than the screen or android system. Thanks for you suggestions about factory resetting and uninstalling and reinstalling all my apps one by one. That would certainly show if UAPP was in conflict with another programme. However, this would take so much time to affect for an app that I am unsure sounds any better than the LG stock app when using the internal quad dacs like I do with this phone. Just was wondering if anyone else experienced the same heat/ battery drain issues. Have uninstalled UAPP now and alternating between LG stock app, poweramp alpha, and player pro; still cant make my mind up!

 

[Budi Setiawan]

Hi

Just bought this phone(h990ds). I have read this thread but still have many confusion. Hope you guys can give some answers.
1. Do i need to root my phone?
2. Is lg stock music player better than any other players?
3. When using spotify, does it uses the dac?
4. When i plug my iem it's show high impedance but my iem is 32 ohm. Is the defect on my phone or my iem? I'm using ath ckx9i.
5. If the defect on my iem, could you recommend iem that trigger high impedance under 200$ ( mostly listen to folk, tropical house and instrumental sax and piano)

Really appreciate before.
Thanks

 

[Plej]

1. You don't need to root your phone
2. Yes, stock player is the best. You will get the best sound quality without rooting and modifications out of it.
3. Yes, Spotify will use quad dac as well - just make sure to tick "hifi DAC" in phone settings. But you will get much worse sound quality out of Spotify comparing to Hi-Res audio files played through stock LG app.
4. "High impedance" mode is not only triggered by earphone impedance but efficiency as well. It doesn't mean that your V20 is broken.
5. You can trigger high impedance mode on any headphones using simple tricks.

 

[Jesus Follower Daniel S]

Poweramp does volume control and resampling by itself, and does it much better than the OS.
That's why it offers better quality for 16/44.1 than generic players on V20.

Provided you've not rooted your phone and modified the prop line to get ride of the resampling.

I have searched the web, but I can't find how to disable resampling, only how to change the quality. Could you perhaps give me a link that explains how to disable resampling, please?

Thank you

 

[ljnew]

Hi

Just bought this phone(h990ds). I have read this thread but still have many confusion. Hope you guys can give some answers.
1. Do i need to root my phone?
Yes
2. Is lg stock music player better than any other players?
Yes
3. When using spotify, does it uses the dac?
Yes, but you want flac and uapp and Tidal
4. When i plug my iem it's show high impedance but my iem is 32 ohm. Is the defect on my phone or my iem? I'm using ath ckx9i.
Rooting would solve this set high impedence mode
5. If the defect on my iem, could you recommend iem that trigger high impedance under 200$ ( mostly listen to folk, tropical house and instrumental sax and piano)
Rooting would solve this set high impedence mode

Really appreciate before.
Thanks

 

[chillaxing]

This is an inconvenient truth. But I need to say to reduce misunderstanding as much occur in smartphone music lover.

Using stock music player is the best quality that company can give to you because they implement their own API to bypass the limitation.

Did you know. Even onkyo are reducing sampling rate to 48kHz cuz they cant make android to play natively like fiio or ibasso xoxo.

Sorry for the old quote but i didn't follow this thread till now.

So the only way to get bit perfect playback for high-res files on a phone is to use the stock player?

 

[artpiggo]

Sorry for the old quote but i didn't follow this thread till now.

So the only way to get bit perfect playback for high-res files on a phone is to use the stock player?

In general, yes. the reason is as you quote.

By the way, neutron music app is developing how to play bit-perfect on Hi-Res Device.
http://neutronmp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4014 with this setting, V10,20,30,G6 could be beneficial for real sampling rate playback now.

 

[chillaxing]

for the US people using this phone. Does the us996 work on verizon?

 

[vladstef]

In general, yes. the reason is as you quote.

By the way, neutron music app is developing how to play bit-perfect on Hi-Res Device.
http://neutronmp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4014 with this setting, V10,20,30,G6 could be beneficial for real sampling rate playback now.

I've just tried it and finally... we have the best player for V20 imho. It sounds just like it should now, and the difference is quite big for the regular 44.1 and 48 files compared to other players. For those that don't have it, there is a 5 day trial on play store without limitations as far as I know.

 

[Plej]

I've just tried it and finally... we have the best player for V20 imho. It sounds just like it should now, and the difference is quite big for the regular 44.1 and 48 files compared to other players. For those that don't have it, there is a 5 day trial on play store without limitations as far as I know.

How is that possible? I tried neutron and in "Audio Hardware" in settings I can see only 48000 frequency. I still "hear" LG stock app much better when playing good quality 24/192 file through both apps. I'm not rooted thou.

 

[vladstef]

How is that possible? I tried neutron and in "Audio Hardware" in settings I can see only 48000 frequency. I still "hear" LG stock app much better when playing good quality 24/192 file through both apps. I'm not rooted thou.

Not rooted either. You have to follow some options in order to see more frequencies, but the best thing is that there is an option to let it adjust based on the file and it does so perfectly (at least how I hear it, a definitive upgrade to most/any players currently).
You have a forum link in @artpiggo 's post where you have a guideline for turning stuff on/off in "Audio Hardware" in order to utilize Neutron's software and bypass Android's limitations.
Hopefully Android 8 will fix all of these issues, but it's wishful thinking now that Pixels are removing jacks. At best we can expect Android to utilize bit-perfect digital transfer to external dac and perhaps improve blue tooth but all of the real audiophile stuff will have to happen outside of what Google is doing.

 

[Plej]

Not rooted either. You have to follow some options in order to see more frequencies, but the best thing is that there is an option to let it adjust based on the file and it does so perfectly (at least how I hear it, a definitive upgrade to most/any players currently).
You have a forum link in @artpiggo 's post where you have a guideline for turning stuff on/off in "Audio Hardware" in order to utilize Neutron's software and bypass Android's limitations.
Hopefully Android 8 will fix all of these issues, but it's wishful thinking now that Pixels are removing jacks. At best we can expect Android to utilize bit-perfect digital transfer to external dac and perhaps improve blue tooth but all of the real audiophile stuff will have to happen outside of what Google is doing.

Thanks mate, I will try. On my rooted MX4 pro I do have all frequencies in settings and also I know about functionality that will sample quality based on file - it doesn't work on my V20 thou. Anyway - comparing neutron best settings on MX4 pro vs stock LG app on V20 I consider V20 better sounding device - at least on my k702 (i know it's not hifi headphone, I'll try to upgrade it sometime soon ).

 

[ljnew]

Now V20 US stock (US996) arrived. Comparing to V20 B&O, Meizu Pro5, here is what I found:

V20 stock vs. V20 B&O
- They sound different. Stock is clean, pure, B&O version's fancy tune up is not there. What I hear is pure signature of DAC and opamp.
- So some issues with B&O version disappeared: 1) bloated mid-bass - no more. the frequency response is very good, very balanced. 2) details - all details are there, great details.

V20 stock vs. Meizu Pro5
- Have to say, I like the frequency balanceness of V20 stock better than Pro5. Compared to V20 stock, Pro5's highs is a little bit recessed. And Pro5's mid lows is a tiny little bit more bloated than V20 stock. V20's frequency response is very linear, it is just perfect.

In the follow areas, I like Meizu Pro5 better than V20 stock. The differences are very small though, only shows up when using very good IEM:

1. Naturalness
- V20 stock is extremely detailed. So is Meizu Pro5. But the details are presented in different ways. V20 sounds 'digital', while Pro5 sounds 'real'. Pro5 is able to render everything more realistic, more 'believable'. Pro5 can render everything in a 'believable' detailed way. While V20's sound is also detailed, but not as 'believable'.
I guess this may due to different opamp used in Pro5 vs V20, and due to filter settings to the ESS DAC chip. (ESS DACs has very complicated filter setting choices, by choosing different filters, the sound can come out more digital vs. more analog)

2. Sound stage
- Compared to Pro5, V20's sound stage is narrower, probably because of LG software engineer intentionally added digital crossfeed between left/right channels? this can cause such sound stage. I guess this is not due to hardware, it is due to software.

Conclusion: V20 has extremely good hardware, it holds the crown compared to other phones. But to my preference, Pro5 is still better, due to better filter tuning, and better opamp hardware. How it is able to present a immersive, natural, believable listening experience is very unique, only other DAC can achieve this is Schiit Yggy.

Next I will try Vivo XPlay6, and buy couple of 2nd hand Meizu Pro5 (new ones are no longer available) because it is so magical, save them in lockbox, in case the world fall into nuclear winter.

IMHO the Westone UM PRO 5 or 50 aren't good headphones to compare for the v20/v30. Um Pro is colored while the v20/v30 are technical. You really need flat iem to compare like the ath-e70 or other technical monitors. I have the Westones and besides being colored, the treble is recessed and colored.

 

[ljnew]

I too use the PM-3 with my V20. I have been experimenting with tricking the V20 into high impedance mode. I would have to say, other than the increase in gain, that there is not a lot of difference in how the phone sounds in high impedance mode compared to normal mode other than the highs. Conversely to some I don't find high impedance mode extends or increase the clarity of the high frequencies but does certainly make reproduction artificially brighter and harsher. The two things are absolutely not the same thing. If anyone has heard truly transparent high frequency extension they will know there should be no harshness or unnatural brightness unless it is in the recording itself already. Many people mistake smooth highs as rolled off highs while this is not neccessarily the case. True high fidelity reproduction allows high frequencies to be both extended and smooth. Harshness is a by product of distortion or poor recordings or both.

Direct volume matched comparison between high impedance mode and normal mode is nearly impossible due to the volume difference when switching between modes. Also the extension cable I purchased seems to be poor quality, with some crackling and intermittent drop outs. I have ordered what I hope is a much higher quality extension cable. Don't know if it will make much of a difference. Wish it was possible to keep the phone in high impedance mode without the use of an adaptor and an extender or rooting the phone.Will report back later.

I felt the same with high impedence. I tried to force myself to like it but definitely sound as good to me. I just increased the volume on normal mode.

 

[eio]

I have searched the web, but I can't find how to disable resampling, only how to change the quality. Could you perhaps give me a link that explains how to disable resampling, please?

Thank you

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lg-v20-sound-quality.816024/page-188#post-13674261