[TJ Max]

Regarding Bluetooth and AptX. I was just able to get a visual confirmation that the V20 does in fact support the regular AptX. At the time I first looked into it, I didn't have an Avantree Oasis. And I never thought about testing with this device since I bought it, because I never intended to use it with the V20.
Anyway the Avantree Oasis displays the stream format. When it's set to receive bluetooth from the V20 is does indeed display a AptX stream. I was skeptical of the Qualcomm website because the very first time I tried to get information from it, it turned out to be inaccurate and was confirmed by the FiiO manufacturer to be incorrect.

 

[Plej]

Hi guys I switched from Galaxy S7 to V20 because of DAC/AMP. It is great indeed However I prefer my GeekOut 450 sound better. It was working with Galaxy S7 via otg easily but it doesn't work with V20. I saw in this topic that some of you had issues with connecting external dac/amp to V20, has it been solved somehow?

 

[yfei]

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.

Now I have tried Vivo XPlay6. XPlay6 is not as good as LG V20 or Meizu Pro5. Vivo's sound signature feels it is under powered, even for very efficient IEM still have this feeling. The sound is not engaging, and not enough bass. Which is strange, because Xplay6 has 3 OPA1622 op-amps, this should deliver great top notch amplification. Don't know what goes wrong.
Rating Meizu Pro5 = LG V20 > Vivo xplay 6.
LG V20 is more 'digital' and modern sounding. Meizu Pro5 is more analog, hifi sounding. Which is better subjects to personal preference. (Pro5's sound stage is better than V20)

 

[ljnew]

You only have to wait a few years and call your carrier and instruct them to unlock!!

V4A is especially appealing now that I read further as it appears to better leverage the ES9218, possibly getting around the limitations we currently have for hires playback.

Bah!

Edit: Whatever - I'm loving this thing playing lossless redbook music on PowerAmp anyway.

V20 = Best sounding audio equipment I've ever owned or personally listened to.

The settings I mentioned previously, plus the BAP-mod, make my HE-350's sound completely amazing!!

Thats' because you haven't used v4a yet. You're not getting the most out of your device.

The reason why v30 is including dsp customization settings now as an improvement.

 

[artpiggo]

Now I have tried Vivo XPlay6. XPlay6 is not as good as LG V20 or Meizu Pro5. Vivo's sound signature feels it is under powered, even for very efficient IEM still have this feeling. The sound is not engaging, and not enough bass. Which is strange, because Xplay6 has 3 OPA1622 op-amps, this should deliver great top notch amplification. Don't know what goes wrong.
Rating Meizu Pro5 = LG V20 > Vivo xplay 6.
LG V20 is more 'digital' and modern sounding. Meizu Pro5 is more analog, hifi sounding. Which is better subjects to personal preference. (Pro5's sound stage is better than V20)

Did you use same trick as V20 using extender adapter to increase output from xplay6?

Did you upgrade FW and imusic to latest version yet?

 

[Amitl]

This must have been talked about already, but my question is: will the dac in the V20 make a difference\better sound vs. any other phone, when coupled with *low impedance* iems such as JVC ha-fxt90, Sony mdr-ex650 etc.
Thanx a lot

 

[jt25741]

My personal experience is that the quality of the V20 DAC/output headphone amp is very good for a phone, if not the best. The impedance of a headphone is independent of this fact, and that feature of the V20 to increase output with higher impedance devices is just to allow them to be driven to adequate volumes. They all sound better than they would plugged into just about any other phone. With that said, I think the V20 sounds most dynamic and less strained with better bass response when driving low-impedance headphones. This is from my various headphones and differing impedances up to 300ohms.

 

[jt25741]

After testing a bunch of players, the n7player according to

adb shell dumpsys media.audio_flinger

output, passes 16/44.1 directly to the HI-Fi DAC, and sample rates higher natively. I was upset to find that even Tidal doesn't work properly, and all content is resampled by the android mixer to 48K. The purity of tone, apparently noiselessness surrounding gobs of detail is quite nice to hear with the n7player. Local FLAC/CD quality files sound considerably better than they do through Tidal. This is all quite upsetting, since I cannot enjoy 100% quality of the ESS9218 part in this phone with any streaming service. Granted Tidal still sounds better than on most phones through the V20, but taking that same album played bit-perfect through the DAC is so much better. For now, I have 5000 or so nice tracks on local phone flash and will listen to Tidal when I need to I hope they sort out these problems soon!

 

[ljnew]

After testing a bunch of players, the n7player according to

adb shell dumpsys media.audio_flinger

output, passes 16/44.1 directly to the HI-Fi DAC, and sample rates higher natively. I was upset to find that even Tidal doesn't work properly, and all content is resampled by the android mixer to 48K. The purity of tone, apparently noiselessness surrounding gobs of detail is quite nice to hear with the n7player. Local FLAC/CD quality files sound considerably better than they do through Tidal. This is all quite upsetting, since I cannot enjoy 100% quality of the ESS9218 part in this phone with any streaming service. Granted Tidal still sounds better than on most phones through the V20, but taking that same album played bit-perfect through the DAC is so much better. For now, I have 5000 or so nice tracks on local phone flash and will listen to Tidal when I need to I hope they sort out these problems soon!

Why not just use lg music app?

 

[TJ Max]

Why not just use lg music app?

Not all V20s come with the LG Music Player, and its not available for download.

 

[maxh22]

After testing a bunch of players, the n7player according to

adb shell dumpsys media.audio_flinger

output, passes 16/44.1 directly to the HI-Fi DAC, and sample rates higher natively. I was upset to find that even Tidal doesn't work properly, and all content is resampled by the android mixer to 48K. The purity of tone, apparently noiselessness surrounding gobs of detail is quite nice to hear with the n7player. Local FLAC/CD quality files sound considerably better than they do through Tidal. This is all quite upsetting, since I cannot enjoy 100% quality of the ESS9218 part in this phone with any streaming service. Granted Tidal still sounds better than on most phones through the V20, but taking that same album played bit-perfect through the DAC is so much better. For now, I have 5000 or so nice tracks on local phone flash and will listen to Tidal when I need to I hope they sort out these problems soon!

You could use UAPP and stream Tidal bitperfectly, the sound is much better when bitperfect as you mentioned.

On the other hand, a user mentioned somewhere that Android O will not have the crude android upsampling implemented so you could use UAPP in the meantime and when Android O drops in about half a year you could play files natively.

 

[jt25741]

You could use UAPP and stream Tidal bitperfectly, the sound is much better when bitperfect as you mentioned.

On the other hand, a user mentioned somewhere that Android O will not have the crude android upsampling implemented so you could use UAPP in the meantime and when Android O drops in about half a year you could play files natively.

I thought of that early on. Note that I am only interested in the V20 as a listening device...not as a front-end to an external USB DAC. So even though UAPP can output bitperfect through USB, it is not going to help my use-case.

Unfortunately my recent tests confirmed that UAPP does indeed resample through the android Mixer for all use of internal DACs, including V20 Hi-Fi DAC. I even tested Tidal integration in UAPP...and still unfortunately it does the SAME. Still resampled and butchered. It is even worse than this since UAPP has no access to Tidal offline/downloaded content. If UAPP used bitperfect output to internal DAC and did the same with Tidal...it would be my goto Mediaplayer for sure. BTW, Bubble UPNP also offers Tidal integration and suffers from the identical treatment of non 48Khz source material.

Any other ideas? Goal for me is to stream Tidal and access local file server while maintaining bitperfect output to INTERNAL Hi-Fi DAC. Until then.....N7player with local FLAC is my limited method.......it sounds so good, there is something to look forward to when more things work correctly.

 

[maxh22]

I thought of that early on. Note that I am only interested in the V20 as a listening device...not as a front-end to an external USB DAC. So even though UAPP can output bitperfect through USB, it is not going to help my use-case.

Unfortunately my recent tests confirmed that UAPP does indeed resample through the android Mixer for all use of internal DACs, including V20 Hi-Fi DAC. I even tested Tidal integration in UAPP...and still unfortunately it does the SAME. Still resampled and butchered. It is even worse than this since UAPP has no access to Tidal offline/downloaded content. If UAPP used bitperfect output to internal DAC and did the same with Tidal...it would be my goto Mediaplayer for sure. BTW, Bubble UPNP also offers Tidal integration and suffers from the identical treatment of non 48Khz source material.

Any other ideas? Goal for me is to stream Tidal and access local file server while maintaining bitperfect output to INTERNAL Hi-Fi DAC. Until then.....N7player with local FLAC is my limited method.......it sounds so good, there is something to look forward to when more things work correctly.

Under settings you can change the sample rate to "Fixed 44100hz" and files are not upsampled.

 

[jt25741]

Under settings you can change the sample rate to "Fixed 44100hz" and files are not upsampled.

Ill look at it again.. I looked all over their forums and saw no reference to this and the V20 native playback problem. I hope your right. What does it do with the Tidal streams? Now what it will do with my 48Khz and higher sample rate content presuming it works at 44.1?

 

[theaudiologist]

Not all V20s come with the LG Music Player, and its not available for download.

and it's ugly and outdated. lol.