Sansa Clip+ impressive bass, better than SI and SII

[truckdriver]

Just a minor observation.
 
I was just playing a rap song titled Put On by Young Jeezy and Kanye West from 2008 (or so, I think). It came up randomly on Poweramp in my newly acquired Samsung Galaxy SI (the Vibrant) that a friend just handed to me when he got a Galaxy Note recently. I, of course, rooted it and installed Voodoo Sound to hear what all the fuss was about.
 
On the SI, I have the bass boost gain on +11dB. I have the Headphone amp at -10dB. Other settings include Anti-Jitter, HiFi Play, and DAC Direct.
 
Put On is nothing special as a song but it starts with four consecutive long bass notes that get deeper in succession. Then, it moves to five bass notes with the fourth being a short higher bass hit,  then it drops for the fifth and deepest. All the bass notes in the song are of the same volume (weight and mass).
 
On the Galaxy SI (with Voodoo) the first note is loud and it fades with each note as they get deeper. On the last bass note (the deepest) the SI gets faint and weak (losing volume and weight). It's kinda sad.
 
Next, I tried my own phone,  the Galaxy SII (SGH-T989 T-Mobile). The SII did better than the SI. On the SII the first three notes are about the same with less of a loss on the fourth and deepest note. I was shocked. I assumed the SII did it all (as well as any).
 
On my RockBox'd Sansa Clip+, all the notes have the same volume and weight thru the succession. Way to go Clip+. I knew it was the fun(est) on Hip/Hop and Rap music. Now, I have direct evidence as to why. It's a little bass monster. I just thought it paired well with portable headphone amps thru the headphone out. It's more than that though. Also, I have the RockBox setting V shaped.
 
I use to blame the headphones for a “mid(ish)” bass bump. It's not the headphones. BTW, I used the UE Superfi 5 EB, Sennheiser IE8, and AKG K26P for this little comparison. None of this headphones are shy when it comes to bass and they are all easy to drive.

 

[truckdriver]

Now,  I'll “Put On” my iPod Touch 3g to see how it fares in this little (unscientific) sub-bass experiment. I'm chuckling as I put the song on iTunes to transfer it. I already know the Touch is not going to be competitive.
 
As expected the Touch 3g is bland and weak (but consistent in volume) thru the first three bass notes, that is. However, on the last note the Touch 3g got particularly anemic and quite. I “put on” the Clip+ again for comparison. On the Clip+, the last note (the deepest) is actually the hardest hitting. There's a thunder to it that makes the AKG K26P vibrate and tickle my ears. That impact, I imagine, is the way the producers of the song intended.

Poor little Touch 3g. Half way thru the song (as Kanye begins his part) the bass-line in the song gets a little louder by design. On the Touch 3g, that louder bass splats incoherently. I could have sworn I heard Kanye say; “C'mon man, don't do that to my song”. Oh well, the Touch 3g is still a good little player for podcasts. It has very forward vocals for talking.
 
BTW, I tried helping the Touch 3g with EQu (and other players) but there is just no reviving that dead sub-bass. In fact, I think the sub-bass died on the design table at Cupertino.
 
Next “competitor” up, the Cowon IA9. Erm, I don't expect to hear the deepest note on my Cowon AT ALL. It's charging right now (warming up for a first round TKO).

 

[lorriman]

This could be due to output impedance issues.

Anyone know the output impedance of the Galaxies?

Also, what do you mean by rockbox on V setting?

 

[lvrhs]

I once had ipod touch- realy weak bass compared to cowons and teclast x19hd.

 

[truckdriver]

I was led to believe the “Incredible" Wolfson DAC 8994+Voodoo (in the Galaxy S1) would smash puny impedance like the Hulk and deliver the most “beautiful(est)” pristine portable sound south of the mighty DX100 (and other elite players).
 
The Wolfson DAC in my USB DAC cable has the same sub-bass disease. I'm starting to doubt the fable.
 
Seriously though, other than the sub-bass roll-off (or cliff dive), the SI actually sounds pretty good and has good synergy with the Sennheiser IE8s. In fact, I'm having second thoughts about having the IE8s altered by UM to add BA drivers. The SI clearly WON'T be a rap or hip/hop player, but it can bat in the minor-leagues until something better comes along. I think the rap/hip-hip songs are organizing a revolt to get off the micro-SD card in the Galaxy SI. I'm going to help them out and erase them.
 
The Galaxy SII is the adult player in this group (though it's output impedance is supposedly off the charts). It is the class of the bunch in SQ, sound-stage, transparency, and power. It reverberates on the deepest note of that rap song almost as much as the Clip+. And in comparison, the SII is a thicker deeper sounding bass. The song as a whole sounds much better on the SII.
 
The iPod Touch 3g should have pretty low output impedance. I don't know what's the excuse for the severe drop-off in bass. It's really weak and artificial sounding.
 
V-shaped just means I have the bass/treble turned up and the (lows/highs) up on the EQ. It's rap music friendly sound shaping.

 

[lostid]

The rockboxed ipod video has the hardware-based bass adjustment from -16 to +16. That's the only adjustment I use depending on the type of phones. It works very well.