[psikey]

Yes, my exynos S10+ also faced this problem.

I had to turn off GPS to lessen stutters and make the connection more stable. I think this is normal. I had to do this with other phones I used to own too. From my past experience, turning wifi off also helps.

Works fine at 990 with the LG V30+. May still give it a try myself.

Could be the BTR3 metal shell as I found the EarStudio LDAC BT much more stable with no drop outs if too much body gets in the way.

 

[MozartMan1201]

As an audiophile with a keen ear trained in classical music, I'd like to chime in to say LG phones' Quad-DAC has the best sound coming out of a smartphone headphone jack. The power, clarity and sound stage are quite unmatched among smartphones and compare favorably with my high-end desk gear.
Unless Samsung decide to put in a high-end *hardware* DAC in their phones, LG will always hold the audiophile sound trophy.

As far as storage, you can put the new $400 Scandisk 1TB card into a $200 LG V30 and still come out ahead of Samsung.

For photography, the Google Pixel camera port works so well on my LG V30 that I rarely use my real cameras anymore.

So IMHO for value and everything else for my needs, LG is my current smartphone of choice.

 

[Strung0ut]

As an audiophile with a keen ear trained in classical music, I'd like to chime in to say LG phones' Quad-DAC has the best sound coming out of a smartphone headphone jack. The power, clarity and sound stage are quite unmatched among smartphones and compare favorably with my high-end desk gear.
Unless Samsung decide to put in a high-end *hardware* DAC in their phones, LG will always hold the audiophile sound trophy.

As far as storage, you can put the new $400 Scandisk 1TB card into a $200 LG V30 and still come out ahead of Samsung.

For photography, the Google Pixel camera port works so well on my LG V30 that I rarely use my real cameras anymore.

So IMHO for value and everything else for my needs, LG is my current smartphone of choice.

I respect your choice, and you are right about LG being no. 1 when it comes to their DAC/amp. I’ve owned the G6 and V30. But I’m done with LG. Here in Australia, they released the V40 the same month that they announced the V50 (about the same price as an S10). We’re getting the gimped version of the G8 without the quad dac, which I’m sure LG Australia will release at least 3 months after the rest of the world. They have some of the slowest software/security patch updates, their UI is terrible. As for their cameras, they insist on sticking the IMX351 in their flagships - a cheap and very mediocre sensor commonly found in cheap Chinadroids. The google cam apk helps a lot, but the mediocre camera hardware remains very evident. The S10 (Exynos) is doing an admirable job of pushing my HD58x, and my iFi Nano Black attached to the S10 kills the LG quad dac set up in every respect.

 

[psikey]

I still have my V30+ but for low demand earphones such as my SE846's the sound quality difference between the Exynos S10+ & V30+ is now small and if using my LDAC BT adapters no difference at all.

All the other aspects of the S10+ are better than the V30+ other than weight, as the V30+ must be the lightest phone for its screen size. I love the design of both phones and V30 is also still No 1 if you don't like curved edge phones.

If I still used demanding headphones then of course it still has to be the V30+ for wired music use. The V30+ also has MQA hardware decoder so you get full unfold of MQA while only single on S10+ (not that I can hear the difference).

 

[QuadraKev]

I still have my V30+ but for low demand earphones such as my SE846's the sound quality difference between the Exynos S10+ & V30+ is now small and if using my LDAC BT adapters no difference at all.

All the other aspects of the S10+ are better than the V30+ other than weight, as the V30+ must be the lightest phone for its screen size. I love the design of both phones and V30 is also still No 1 if you don't like curved edge phones.

If I still used demanding headphones then of course it still has to be the V30+ for wired music use. The V30+ also has MQA hardware decoder so you get full unfold of MQA while only single on S10+ (not that I can hear the difference).

Would you say that the V30+ has a higher maximum loudness?

 

[psikey]

Most certainly.

 

[psikey]

I did my own test with Developer mode with LDAC at 990kbps vs 660kbps.

As was mentioned above, totally stable at 660kbps 96/32 but what I found with 990kbps is a bit strange. Yes, if you have the screen on you get glitches/drops at 990kbps but with the screen off with music playing in background it is stable. Tested with Spotify & UAPP Tidal streaming MQA masters.

I do find the BTR3 generally is more affected by "body getting in the way" compared to my older AptX Samsung adapter.

The S10+/BTR3 combo via default LDAC mode still sounds great anyway and certainly good enough as an alternative to wired while away from home (I still use wired at home as I have 2 pair of SE846's so leave one with my premium Sony cable and other via short Fiio cable to BTR3).

 

[Extrasensory]

I forgot to share something very serious about audio. My S10 Plus speakers are very bad. The sound is unacceptable and not as load as I expected. Everything is being displayed in treble. I mean what I can hear is piercing treble. People, especially in head-fi, are not complaining about this. My unit may be the faulty one. Not sure if this is really tuned by AKG.

 

[Exit]

Because of the Ldac 990kbps problem, I put my btr3 aside. Then I started to experiment with different settings with wired. To me Hifiman's Re800s match quite well with the following setting. Dolby OFF, UHQA ON (Bit Upscaling only, not with the bandwidth one), No EQ, Adapt Sound ON (Under 30 - Soft). Steaming music through Tidal and UAPP app, I like what I hear.

 

[jeremyr62]

Been a LG V20 used for 18 months. With Soundmagic E80 in ear headphones it was more than good enough for me.
Just got a S10+ (Exynos). Not bad at all. I had a S7 in 2016 and I thought that was not great. Samsung have upped their audio game.
I was worried I would miss my V20, but probably not.

 

[QuadraKev]

Got my S10 (Snapdragon) recently, and I gotta say it sounds pretty damn good. It doesn't quite have enough power to drive my DT 770 250 Ohms to the volume I'd like, but considering I'm mainly using my portable sources with IEMs, it's fine by me. I haven't set up a side by side with my R6, but I'd be surprised if I heard a significant difference.

 

[bobbooo]

Could someone with an S10 (preferably the 'e' variant) do a quick measurement of its output impedance? This is an important value for DACs driving low-impedance headphones like balanced-armature IEMs as it can adversely affect frequency response if too high.

It's a relatively easy measurement. Taken from another thread:

You need: 60 Hz sine test signal, digital multimeter, dummy load (e.g. cheap 30 ohm resistor).

Measure the voltage unloaded and with dummy load.

Calculate: Zout = (Rload * (Vnoload - Vload)) / Vload

Example: We measure 1V unloaded, 0.9V loaded and our dummy load is 30 ohm ==> (30 * (1 - 0.9)) / 0.9 = 3.33 ohm output impedance at 60 Hz.

 

[QuadraKev]

Could someone with an S10 (preferably the 'e' variant) do a quick measurement of its output impedance? This is an important value for DACs driving low- impedance headphones like balanced-armature IEMs as it can adversely affect frequency response if too high.

It's a relatively easy measurement. Taken from another thread:

You need: 60 Hz sine test signal, digital multimeter, dummy load (e.g. cheap 30 ohm resistor).

Measure the voltage unloaded and with dummy load.

Calculate: Zout = (Rload * (Vnoload - Vload)) / Vload

Example: We measure 1V unloaded, 0.9V loaded and our dummy load is 30 ohm ==> (30 * (1 - 0.9)) / 0.9 = 3.33 ohm output impedance at 60 Hz.

If I can find a resistor, I can do the measurement. Otherwise, I'll have to order one and wait for it to come in.

 

[QuadraKev]

Could someone with an S10 (preferably the 'e' variant) do a quick measurement of its output impedance? This is an important value for DACs driving low- impedance headphones like balanced-armature IEMs as it can adversely affect frequency response if too high.

It's a relatively easy measurement. Taken from another thread:

You need: 60 Hz sine test signal, digital multimeter, dummy load (e.g. cheap 30 ohm resistor).

Measure the voltage unloaded and with dummy load.

Calculate: Zout = (Rload * (Vnoload - Vload)) / Vload

Example: We measure 1V unloaded, 0.9V loaded and our dummy load is 30 ohm ==> (30 * (1 - 0.9)) / 0.9 = 3.33 ohm output impedance at 60 Hz.

Alright, so take these results with a massive pile of salt. I have no idea if this is a valid measurement, but it's the best I can do with the materials on hand.

Instead of a resistor, I used something with a known impedance: My DT 770 250 Ohms. I plugged a double-sided 3.5mm male into my S10 and measured the voltage of a 60 Hz sine wave until it held a consistent 0.5436V.

Next, I put the extension cable's plug and the DT 770's plug side by side and laid the multimeter probes across each of them so they're contacting both. I kept measuring until it held a consistent 0.5398V.

Using these two voltages, the output impedance of my S10 (SD855, not Exynos) can be calculated to be 1.76 Ohms.

Unfortunately, I don't have an S10e.

 

[bobbooo]

Alright, so take these results with a massive pile of salt. I have no idea if this is a valid measurement, but it's the best I can do with the materials on hand.

Instead of a resistor, I used something with a known impedance: My DT 770 250 Ohms. I plugged a double-sided 3.5mm male into my S10 and measured the voltage of a 60 Hz sine wave until it held a consistent 0.5436V.

Next, I put the extension cable's plug and the DT 770's plug side by side and laid the multimeter probes across each of them so they're contacting both. I kept measuring until it held a consistent 0.5398V.

Using these two voltages, the output impedance of my S10 (SD855, not Exynos) can be calculated to be 1.76 Ohms.

Unfortunately, I don't have an S10e.

That was quick, thanks!

I'm not sure that is a valid measurement though, as I think most headphones have varying impedance at different frequencies, so you won't know the true impedance at 60Hz. If you could order a cheap 30-ohm resistor for a couple of dollars or so, and re-test that would be much appreciated!

PS: just saw you said you have a non-Exynos version. I think that has a different audio chip to the Exynos that I'm after. I'd still be interested to see the value for your model though. But if anyone else has an Exynos model they could test I'd really appreciate it.