[milkyspray]

So I just did a quick comparison between my V30, V10 and DF Red using my nighthawks. Audio was played through the stock LG music app or USB aap with the df.
Since the nighthawks are easy to drive I tried both standard and aux mode.

First and foremost the DF red to my ears was the standout. It had rich deep bass and decent sparkle when called for. Seemed more aggressive tonally almost like a "loud" eq setting. The dragonfly sounds great with this combo but I feel I could only listen for a little while before it fatigues my ears even at moderate levels.

The V30 seemed thin in the low end and had a brighter high-end then the others Maybe a hair more open/separation then the df. Might be the flattest tonally of the three. The V30 just didn't have the same low end kick the rest had but I feel it's from being closer to a ruler flat tune. It was not lacking any frequency it just wasn't as pronounced as the rest.

The V10 had less separation then the others and had a more pronounced low end then the V30 and a little less up top. Overall my ears seemed to like the V10 more tonally but that is probably because I've used it the most the past 2 years.

Here's my quick little review that I hope helps some people but as with everything in this field YMMV.

my take away from doing it is that I feel the V30 is probably closer to what the music is actually supposed to sound like and not colored in one way or another.

When i a/b my v10 and v30, the v30 has better separation but the v10 has better dynamics. There are times when I'm listening to the v10 i skip a breath because the v10 can go from very noisy to absolute black void of silence with ambience still present. It's a truly breathtaking experience. The track I used is
Chameleon Eyes" by Wide Open http://tidal.com/track/28991388

 

[subguy812]

The V30 appears to have a black background, I detect zero hiss or noise. It has fantastic clarity and does allow all of the details to shine through.

 

[subguy812]

Can someone with a T-Mobile version, leaving your heaphones/iem's plugged in, toggle between Quad dac and off and report if you hear major differences.

 

[dragion]

Can someone with a T-Mobile version, leaving your heaphones/iem's plugged in, toggle between Quad dac and off and report if you hear major differences.

As a quick test, I plugged in my B&O headphones that was a free promo from my V20.
Based on them, there is a difference in volume, soundstage and separation...not huge but noticeable.
I played Eagle's Hotel California 24bit 192.0Khz on LG Music Player with volume at 40.

I hope this helps.

 

[subguy812]

Thank you...the changes are not huge. I assume when off the Qualcomm dap is being utilized.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Hey ya'll - sorry if this has been addressed, but I would like to ask for those of you who have experience with the LG V20/30, how does the quad-dac stand up to portable headphones amps, like the Oppo HA-2se, in terms of quality? Thanks.

 

[subguy812]

Hey ya'll - sorry if this has been addressed, but I would like to ask for those of you who have experience with the LG V20/30, how does the quad-dac stand up to portable headphones amps, like the Oppo HA-2se, in terms of quality? Thanks.

Not trying to shut you down but did you even search this thread?

 

[dragion]

Thank you...the changes are not huge. I assume when off the Qualcomm dap is being utilized.

You are correct.

 

[tommo21]

I've seen a videoreview somewhere that said when quad dac funtion is turned off, it only uses one of the 4 quad-dac chips. So that means it still uses one of the 4 SABRE ES9218P chips for the dac decoding. Would be simple to back this up if I found the video...but I can't at the moment----

Correction:
I've found the Block Diagram, and from that I can se that the quad dac's are completely bypassed when turned off.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Not trying to shut you down but did you even search this thread?

Yes I did. I searched for comparisons to the Oppo specifically. In a single exchange a user stated that it was not worth spending the money on the V30 if one were to own both the HA-2 SE and Mojo, as the user who had asked the initial question did. I own only the HA-2 SE and was hoping to get a more direct comparison if, by chance, a Headfier on this thread had experience with both.

Was there some information you had in mind that I missed?

 

[saj2001ind]

I've seen a videoreview somewhere that said when quad dac funtion is turned off, it only uses one of the 4 quad-dac chips. So that means it still uses one of the 4 SABRE ES9218P chips for the dac decoding. Would be simple to back this up if I found the video...but I can't at the moment----

Correction:
I've found the Block Diagram, and from that I can se that the quad dac's are completely bypassed when turned off.

Whenever you see hifi enabled had dac is used, its only when you disable it it bypasses ESS Quad DAC and uses internal Qualcomm dac

 

[jusbe]

"It's doing Apple better than Apple right now."

"it's hard for me to get over how much the V30 is the phone the iPhone X should have been."

 

[csglinux]

I did a comparison of the note8 and the v30 today... The sound quality of the note had more bass and was clear but i had a hard time driving lg quadbeats.

That's likely because of a higher output impedance from the Note. Not necessarily the worst thing in the world - some folks might even like the extra low-end. I've not been able to find any specs about output impedance of the V30. If I keep drawing blanks with these specs, I'll try to find the time to do some measurements this weekend...

Hey ya'll - sorry if this has been addressed, but I would like to ask for those of you who have experience with the LG V20/30, how does the quad-dac stand up to portable headphones amps, like the Oppo HA-2se, in terms of quality? Thanks.

That's a great question. Hard to know how much sound quality is limited by the DAC and how much by the amp. I no longer own a dedicated amp. I have a Hugo 2, but that has no analog line-in, only digital in, so using H2 requires me to bypass both DAC and amp in the V30. And that does sound better than the direct output of the V30. I'm not going to try and say how much better, because 87.365% of these kinds of number you read about are entirely made up. I'd say the V30 holds its own against dedicated low-to-mid-priced DAPs, which is still very impressive for a phone and - for me - is enough that I wouldn't need or want to carry around a separate device, in addition to my phone. That's the whole point of the LG V30 to me. We went from a world where people carried pagers, phones, mp3 players, personal digital assistants, GPS navigation devices, etc., and then the smartphone converged all these devices into one. Until.... Apple came along and crapped on everybody's parade by having the "courage" to remove the headphone jack. This was no doubt a joyous day for Apple/Beats share-holders, but a huge step back in my view, made worse by certain sheep-like Android manufacturers that have decided to follow suit. So, yes, I'm sure you can improve on the V30's sound by carrying a separate amp. You can definitely improve on the V30's sound by carrying a really good quality (but big & clunky) DAC/amp combo around with you, but that's not really the point of the V30. Its sound output is easily good enough that you shouldn't need to.

 

[mariowar]

That's likely because of a higher output impedance from the Note. Not necessarily the worst thing in the world - some folks might even like the extra low-end. I've not been able to find any specs about output impedance of the V30. If I keep drawing blanks with these specs, I'll try to find the time to do some measurements this weekend...



That's a great question. Hard to know how much sound quality is limited by the DAC and how much by the amp. I no longer own a dedicated amp. I have a Hugo 2, but that has no analog line-in, only digital in, so using H2 requires me to bypass both DAC and amp in the V30. And that does sound better than the direct output of the V30. I'm not going to try and say how much better, because 87.365% of these kinds of number you read about are entirely made up. I'd say the V30 holds its own against dedicated low-to-mid-priced DAPs, which is still very impressive for a phone and - for me - is enough that I wouldn't need or want to carry around a separate device, in addition to my phone. That's the whole point of the LG V30 to me. We went from a world where people carried pagers, phones, mp3 players, personal digital assistants, GPS navigation devices, etc., and then the smartphone converged all these devices into one. Until.... Apple came along and crapped on everybody's parade by having the "courage" to remove the headphone jack. This was no doubt a joyous day for Apple/Beats share-holders, but a huge step back in my view, made worse by certain sheep-like Android manufacturers that have decided to follow suit. So, yes, I'm sure you can improve on the V30's sound by carrying a separate amp. You can definitely improve on the V30's sound by carrying a really good quality (but big & clunky) DAC/amp combo around with you, but that's not really the point of the V30. Its sound output is easily good enough that you shouldn't need to.

Amen

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Can someone with a T-Mobile version, leaving your heaphones/iem's plugged in, toggle between Quad dac and off and report if you hear major differences.

Using P1/Quad/ZS6, instantly noticeable in all areas.