[WailingBanshee]

I don't have the V30 (yet), but do have a V20 and a Note 8. The V20 does sound better than the Note 8, it not just about being able to drive high impedance headphones to louder volumes. It is a better and cleaner sound. However I wouldn't call the Note 8 "garbage". It's on par with or better than most smartphone in the audio department. The LG V series is just better than just about anything else and pretty much in a leagues of it own as a modern flagship with HiFi audio quality chops.

If audio quality is you main concern the V30 is at the top of the list. If not and the other features of the Note 8 interest you more, then it a fantastic option. I carry two phone for work and personal so I can have both. If I could only have one it would be the Note 8, as audio on the go is a secondary concern ( have desktop dac/AMP for home use and a couple small DAPs if needed).

You could also pickup a V20 fairly cheaply currently and maybe even more so on Black Friday if there a deal somewhere. The V20 could be used as a nice Android DAP with WiFi streaming, while the Note 8 could be a daily workhorse.

It's just a matter of what's most important to you.

Thanks for the input! I don't currently have a good portable source and I take public transit to work so perhaps the v30 is the way to go for my use case. You're right about the v20 being a good deal. Though I hear the battery is terrible and that swapping batteries is likely if you're a heavy user. I guess I will have to ponder about this some more but so far still leaning towards the v30.

 

[kundica]

Having just listened to the beginning of Dark Side Of The Moon via Neutron player, I'd have to conclude those artifacts @kundica and I were hearing are indeed a result of the resampling. I don't hear them via Neutron.

Thanks for all the testing you've been doing. I just installed the paid version of Neutron but I'm still hearing the artifacts at low volume. I changed the app settings to see if I had something setup incorrectly but nothing seems to help.

Edit: Nevermind. It seems I missed some advanced settings under Generic Driver. Per the other gentleman's linked post on the Neurton forum, I also changed these and now it works:
1) Generic Driver = ON
2) Generic Driver -> Hi-Res Codec = ON
3) Generic Driver -> Hi-Res Speaker = ON

 

[csglinux]

its through usb.



It might be a setting somewhere. Try resetting everything or delete and redownload the player. I've been using Neutron for awhile and find it finicky at times when connecting an external device. This what i do, connect dac without it being on, open app, turn on dac. Usually works when i do that. Sometimes with my iphone, when it doesn't see the dac, i would need to reboot the phone. the iphone is purely a transport for the mojo


Through HO? I have no idea if its playing DSD right. But DOP is off when im using straight from HO.

I've also found the USB-out finicky - especially with UAPP installed, because it always wants to grab that output I'll persevere. Just FYI though, from my testing, Neutron does something weird with DSD through the HO. It "fails cleanly" with basically no audio output if DoP is on. With DoP off, it converts to PCM at whatever the last-used sample rate was. To my ears, it doesn't sound nearly as good as DSD-out through the LG music app.

Thanks for all the testing you've been doing. I just installed the paid version of Neutron but I'm still hearing the artifacts at low volume. I changed the app settings to see if I had something setup incorrectly but nothing seems to help.

Edit: Nevermind. It seems I missed some advanced settings under Generic Driver. Per the other gentleman's linked post on the Neurton forum, I also changed these and now it works:
1) Generic Driver = ON
2) Generic Driver -> Hi-Res Codec = ON
3) Generic Driver -> Hi-Res Speaker = ON

Yes, that Neutron UI is more complicated than a 747 cockpit Glad you figured it out and thanks for your initial post. I may not even have noticed the problem if you'd not pointed it out.

Thanks again to everybody for their feedback. You headfi folks are an awesome resource

 

[jusbe]

Thanks for the input! I don't currently have a good portable source and I take public transit to work so perhaps the v30 is the way to go for my use case. You're right about the v20 being a good deal. Though I hear the battery is terrible and that swapping batteries is likely if you're a heavy user. I guess I will have to ponder about this some more but so far still leaning towards the v30.

I'm coming from a Nexus 6P. Probably nothing to write home about but it was a very good smartphone all around. I've had smartphones (Apple and Android) before but I can honestly say the V30 feels like I'm getting about 3x as much device as the 6P and iPhone 5S I had before. The depth and array of capability is really something.

All of the audio features here have been/are being discussed at length - it is surprisingly good. Then there's that 'fast' camera. And an additional wide angle lens too, to expand options. Then there's the cine log function. Then I've added some more storage and suddenly I feel like I'm getting a surprising amount of phone for my money, even at it's selling price. And that beautiful screen!

And we haven't even got Oreo yet.

 

[chillaxing]

chillaxing, may you please briefly compare sound characters between mojo and directly from V30 ?

Mojo has warmer closed presentation. V30 has a brighter more spacious sound.

Detail and seperation still goes to mojo. v30 is good, but mojo has the upper hand in this section.

 

[ljnew]

Sorry for steering things slightly back to audio - I don't think I've even used the camera on my V30 yet

The reason for this post is that there seems to be no single music app for the V30 that's optimal (or even works) in all situations. Here's my attempt at a (hopefully) not-too-techy summary of where we're at. If I'm wrong, or have missed something crucial (or if anybody knows a fix for Neutron DSD playback), please let me know.

Ok, I give up with html tables! Here's the basic text stuff:

LG Music app
Pros:
Plays all hi-res PCM formats without down-sampling and plays DSD via DoP
Cons:
Up-samples all 44/16 FLAC to 48/16 and outputs everything via USB as 48/16

Neutron
Pros:
Plays all PCM files at original sample rate through the internal DAC (or through USB-out if the "Direct USB Driver" option under the Audio Hardware menu is set to on)
Cons:
DoP doesn't work, so Neutron converts all DSD to user-given-sample-rate PCM (via both internal DAC and USB out)

USB Audio Player Pro
Pros:
Outputs everything correctly via USB
Cons:
Can't (yet) play anything other than 48 kHz Android-resampled audio through the internal DAC

Why does all this matter? The V30 is an awesome-sounding phone, but it sounds even better if you play files back in their native formats. On certain tracks, the audio quality improvement in native 44/16 playback on Neutron versus up-sampled 48 kHz/16 via the LG Music app is easily noticeable.

I think USB Audio Player Pro fixed in the last update.

 

[csglinux]

I think USB Audio Player Pro fixed in the last update.

I've been helping Davy test their latest beta. Unless you have a version newer than yesterday's build, it still doesn't work via the HO (it plays, but re-samples everything via the Android OS to 48 kHz). The good news is they're aware of the issues and are working on it

I've had less success working with the folks from Tidal. They basically seem to be in denial and can't even give an indication of when they're ever going to support the V30 DAC (which they'll have to do, if MQA is ever going to work properly on their Android app). I've had even less luck with LG. I've filed numerous support requests about the 44->48 kHz upsampling and have had zero response.

 

[Swiftfalcon]

Mojo has warmer closed presentation. V30 has a brighter more spacious sound.

Detail and seperation still goes to mojo. v30 is good, but mojo has the upper hand in this section.

I have found PC laptop and iPad Pro 9.7 to be significantly better sources for the Mojo than iPhone 7 plus. This with all 3 devices streaming Apple Music. I guess usb output can be a factor. Do we know where the usb output of v30 stands? If it is at par with pc, fine...otherwise this gap might widen.

 

[csglinux]

I have found PC laptop and iPad Pro 9.7 to be significantly better sources for the Mojo than iPhone 7 plus. This with all 3 devices streaming Apple Music. I guess usb output can be a factor. Do we know where the usb output of v30 stands? If it is at par with pc, fine...otherwise this gap might widen.

I've found this with my Hugo 2 also - which was unexpected, because according to Rob Watts, the H2 shouldn't care about the digital transport. I think it may be to do with noise from the USB port. Sadly, Apple doesn't seem to care anymore about audio from their phones. They just seem to have thrown in the towel in that regard. Just imagine if they'd retained the headphone jack and put in a decent DAC and amp like LG have done...

As for the V30, it's an excellent transport, as long as you use the right app. You don't want to do USB-out via the stock LG music app. But via UAPP, it's my current favorite transport device.

 

[chillaxing]

I have found PC laptop and iPad Pro 9.7 to be significantly better sources for the Mojo than iPhone 7 plus. This with all 3 devices streaming Apple Music. I guess usb output can be a factor. Do we know where the usb output of v30 stands? If it is at par with pc, fine...otherwise this gap might widen.

I've found this with my Hugo 2 also - which was unexpected, because according to Rob Watts, the H2 shouldn't care about the digital transport. I think it may be to do with noise from the USB port. Sadly, Apple doesn't seem to care anymore about audio from their phones. They just seem to have thrown in the towel in that regard. Just imagine if they'd retained the headphone jack and put in a decent DAC and amp like LG have done...

As for the V30, it's an excellent transport, as long as you use the right app. You don't want to do USB-out via the stock LG music app. But via UAPP, it's my current favorite transport device.

I have had no problems using android or iphone for a source. I've had problems with noise when using a pc or laptop thats why i don't listen to music through a pc anymore. As for it sounding different, i don't know how that comes about when all the source is doing is just sending data to the dac for processing.

anyways, this phone is going back today. As much as i love the thing as a whole, i couldn't get pass the two things that I think is a BIG problem, the screen and the headphone jack. Especially the headphone jack. As much as people like us abuse the jack, don't know how so many can look pass it.

 

[csglinux]

I have had no problems using android or iphone for a source. I've had problems with noise when using a pc or laptop thats why i don't listen to music through a pc anymore. As for it sounding different, i don't know how that comes about when all the source is doing is just sending data to the dac for processing.

anyways, this phone is going back today. As much as i love the thing as a whole, i couldn't get pass the two things that I think is a BIG problem, the screen and the headphone jack. Especially the headphone jack. As much as people like us abuse the jack, don't know how so many can look pass it.

There are so many things that shouldn't make a difference, but apparently do. Jitter and RF noise are the two prime suspects via USB: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-230#post-12681548

Sorry to hear the phone didn't work out. I've had no issues with the headphone jack on mine. As for the screen - I can see the slight blue-ish tinge off-axis and in very low light, with the screen dimmed, and a plain gray background displayed on the phone, I can just about make out some slight banding. But these are all extreme situations that have no impact during my actual day-to-day use of the phone.

 

[chillaxing]

There are so many things that shouldn't make a difference, but apparently do. Jitter and RF noise are the two prime suspects via USB: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-230#post-12681548

Sorry to hear the phone didn't work out. I've had no issues with the headphone jack on mine. As for the screen - I can see the slight blue-ish tinge off-axis and in very low light, with the screen dimmed, and a plain gray background displayed on the phone, I can just about make out some slight banding. But these are all extreme situations that have no impact during my actual day-to-day use of the phone.

Trust me, for the past month i've been trying to talk myself into exchanging it and keeping the phone At this moment i'm still thinking about exchanging it, but my ocd kicks in knowing the problems might still be there with the new unit. I'm not trying to talk anyone out of getting this device, because it is great, but there are things for people to put into consideration.

 

[kundica]

I've been helping Davy test their latest beta. Unless you have a version newer than yesterday's build, it still doesn't work via the HO (it plays, but re-samples everything via the Android OS to 48 kHz). The good news is they're aware of the issues and are working on it

I've had less success working with the folks from Tidal. They basically seem to be in denial and can't even give an indication of when they're ever going to support the V30 DAC (which they'll have to do, if MQA is ever going to work properly on their Android app). I've had even less luck with LG. I've filed numerous support requests about the 44->48 kHz upsampling and have had zero response.

Might be running into the same issue with Qobuz. I need to get some debug going to check.

 

[csglinux]

Trust me, for the past month i've been trying to talk myself into exchanging it and keeping the phone At this moment i'm still thinking about exchanging it, but my ocd kicks in knowing the problems might still be there with the new unit. I'm not trying to talk anyone out of getting this device, because it is great, but there are things for people to put into consideration.

You get a 2-year warranty with this phone. If mine broke, I'd swap it in a heartbeat. If it got lost or stolen, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat

 

[csglinux]

Might be running into the same issue with Qobuz. I need to get some debug going to check.

I've never used Qobuz, but I suspect most apps will have the 44->48 kHz re-sampling issue. I'm actually amazed and very impressed that Dmitry had managed to figure a work-around for that in Neutron. But there's hope if other app devs have the will - we know it can be fixed.