Sony Xperia Z3 Audio Quality

[NuckinFutz]

What dac and amplifier is inside this M7? Does this mean M8 is better?

Both M7, M8, and just about every phone I've looked at recently (including Z2 and Z3), use the Qualcomm WCD9320 as the DAC/DSP. Both M7 and M8 supposedly have dedicated headphone amps but I don't know what they are (not sure anyone does). That's why their output voltage is significantly more than any other android and, in the case of the M8, more than any other phone.

Doesn't mean it's better, should be louder and easier to drive high impedance headphones, but doesn't instantly equate to anything more than that.

 

[NuckinFutz]

Holy moly, I take the M8 comment back. Just reading a review on the Meizu MX4 Pro on PA and it has 1.92V on the headphone OP and some very interesting dedicated components!

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Meizu-MX4-Pro-Review_id3899/page/3

 

[Whitigir]

Holy moly, I take the M8 comment back. Just reading a review on the Meizu MX4 Pro on PA and it has 1.92V on the headphone OP and some very interesting dedicated components!

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Meizu-MX4-Pro-Review_id3899/page/3

Meizu MX4 is a fully dedicated portable music player....it is half ased phone...as it doesn't support the Us 4G...if you are on att, it works with 3gb but 4G...mezh, same as tmobile.

I was asking for a phone with these music spec last year, and Meizu did it. I am sure the Us is craving for it now, as Apple is trying to catchup in specs...is being behind. Chinese will imply the receiver for Us 4G....until then, I will jump again. Here, and waiting.

Meizu MX4 Pro, and Oppo R5 max, and another one...all three are heavily species in portable music.

Infact for the price of an MX4 Pro as a dedicated high res music player vs Sony Nx2 at 1200$ is still too good.

Actually Oppo R5 will possibly support us later version, as words has it. Now the first version will only work with China and some Asian countries 4G. Crossing my fingers....and never looked down, underestimate oppo music capability

 

[peter123]

That's interesting, you are in the same transition as me, from M7. I genuinely really love the SQ from the M7, I'm not in a rush to let it go that's for sure.

OK, so I spend the last two hours or so comparing the Z3 Compact to the M7 and also through FiiO X3 in the mix just for fun and this is a short summary of my findings:

Compared to the M7 the Z3 Compact sounds leaner and smoother. The M7 has more subbass impact but I find the highs getting a bit "shouty" occasionally. The subbass on the the Z3 Compact rolls of earlier compared both to the X3 and the M7. I also find the bass to sound more one dimensional, especially compared to the X3 that does a much better job at presentnting the different layers of bass. On the other hand this makes the Z3 Compact feels clean in it's presentation but it does lack clarity and separation compared to the X3, this is especially obvious in voice reproduction which the X3 does way better.

To sum it up I prefer the Z3 Compact over the M7 that was considered to be one of the best music phones ever just a little over a year ago. I wouldn't say it's a night a day difference but the Z3 Compact is a step up to my ears (straight from the HO). Compared to the $200 dedicated DAP FiiO X3 theres no question that the X3 is a step up.

Adding a amp (Cayin C5) to the chain actually narrows the gap between the M7 and the Z3 Compact and I would probably choose the M7 for this setup (the lack of details and subbass impact on the Z3 is much more obvious here). The X3, having a dedicated line out, is even more superior combined with the C5.

All in all I'd say the Z3 Compact is pretty good with IEM's straight from the headphone jack (not clearly beaten by any phone that I've heard but not necessarily superior to all either, personal preference will play a pretty big part here). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to scale we'll with an amp in the chain and have a limited power output.

I've been listening with the MH1C (which it actually have enough power to drive), Fidelio X2 (I don't know what I did yesterday but with volume at max it actually reach sufficient listening level) and the very revealing (and easy to drive) ATH-CKR10. All files were FLAC ripped from CD.

Edit: Spelling

 

[NuckinFutz]

Interesting, thanks for you insight.

Sounds line a bit of a trade off, everyone likes extra clarity but I have a weakness for sub bass and is usually the only frequencies I boost with EQ.

How much of a volume cut does using the built in 'Dynamic Normalizer' give? I'm wondering if I could use this instead on enabling replaygain using Poweramp.

 

[peter123]

Interesting, thanks for you insight.

Sounds line a bit of a trade off, everyone likes extra clarity but I have a weakness for sub bass and is usually the only frequencies I boost with EQ.

How much of a volume cut does using the built in 'Dynamic Normalizer' give? I'm wondering if I could use this instead on enabling replaygain using Poweramp.

Sorry, I forgot to mentioned that I used USB Audio Player Pro as player on both phones and that setting doesn't seem to have any impact at all on that app.

I just tested with the stock music place and is not able to hear any difference whatsoever with that either........

 

[Whitigir]

Agreed. The sub bass on the Z3 is not that strong, but the clarity is good. Thanks for a great review.

 

[runner84]

I played all day with the EQ from the Z3 Compact and used a different EQ and setted only the 60Hz Band to +3db.
Now the bass sound like my other Sony phones i had before, the clarity is better then the Sony phones before i had.
 
But also as i read here too somtimes the sound is a bit flat and not so much 3D, but this is only very minimal.
 
Anyway i like the phone a lot and as i read here too its one of the best Smartphones in sound or maybe the best.

 

[Whitigir]

I played all day with the EQ from the Z3 Compact and used a different EQ and setted only the 60Hz Band to +3db.
Now the bass sound like my other Sony phones i had before, the clarity is better then the Sony phones before i had.

But also as i read here too somtimes the sound is a bit flat and not so much 3D, but this is only very minimal.

Anyway i like the phone a lot and as i read here too its one of the best Smartphones in sound or maybe the best.

Also agreed. The best phone for the music at the moment, and in the US. The smaller 3d imagine is also good. Some electric and trance songs does have a very wide soundstage mix. Sometime with too much, it will becomes problematic. Bass is very tight though, and seems like sub bass is not that strong compare to others, but I guess this is because of human ears, we pick up more details of which stand out better than the one being sub down there. If you pay attention, you can still follow that subass, it is presents and clear. I kinda like this sound signature more. As it really means for sub bass, where as others have warmer and better sub bass, but the mid and high mid are mashed together with worse seperation. I personally like this set up from the Z3, clear senervation of mid, high mid, and enough low and sub bass to make it realistical

 

[Dragonz]

Hi, new to Head-fi, so Hello to all.

Could I interject on audio quality. Could someone help me out reading the audio quality results as conducted by GSMARENA please.
I have the Z3 compact and my gf has the Samsung S4 mini. I tried to understand the numbers but lost it lol.
Does it mean the Samsung has better sound quality than the Z3C, according to their tests?
 
Z3C - http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z3_compact-review-1135p7.php
S4 mini - http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s4_mini-review-953p8.php
 
Secondly, from what I am just getting my head around. I have a the Sony sbh50 bluetooth headset. And according to research, bluetooth compresses the sound from phone to the headset i.e. as lossy. So would that mean, any HI-RES files played via the headset would degrade in sound; possibly gets encoded into a lower bitrate to be sent? I would assume that 320kbps would sound even worse. Btw the SBH50 uses Bluetooth profile 3.0.
 
Thirdly, I was reading a post in this thread with someone detailing the the DAC and amp chips used in the Z3C. Without wondering if we can or cannot hear such frequencies. According to the audio setup, a maximum of 96kHz files are processed via the hardware, not 192kHz. Is this correct?
 
Thank you in advance

 

[BenKatz]

  Hi, new to Head-fi, so Hello to all.

Could I interject on audio quality. Could someone help me out reading the audio quality results as conducted by GSMARENA please.
I have the Z3 compact and my gf has the Samsung S4 mini. I tried to understand the numbers but lost it lol.
Does it mean the Samsung has better sound quality than the Z3C, according to their tests?
 
Z3C - http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z3_compact-review-1135p7.php
S4 mini - http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s4_mini-review-953p8.php
 
Secondly, from what I am just getting my head around. I have a the Sony sbh50 bluetooth headset. And according to research, bluetooth compresses the sound from phone to the headset i.e. as lossy. So would that mean, any HI-RES files played via the headset would degrade in sound; possibly gets encoded into a lower bitrate to be sent? I would assume that 320kbps would sound even worse. Btw the SBH50 uses Bluetooth profile 3.0.
 
Thirdly, I was reading a post in this thread with someone detailing the the DAC and amp chips used in the Z3C. Without wondering if we can or cannot hear such frequencies. According to the audio setup, a maximum of 96kHz files are processed via the hardware, not 192kHz. Is this correct?
 
Thank you in advance

 
Hello to you to.
 
As far as these magic numbers GSM arena puts out, according to other reviews done by serious sound sites (such as WhatHiFi), the Z3 is among the best, if not THE best sounding phone on the market right now. So basically these numbers mean nothing. And as I own a Z3 and compared it to an One (M8) and an iPhone 6 plus, I'm absolutely convinced that you can't even compare it to the S4 mini. Z3 compact as well, as it is idenitcal inside with the Z3.
 
As far as bluetooth goes - yeah, anything that goes through bluetooth is compressed, don't know exactly how much, but if for instance your headset supports aptX codec (just read the manual/online specs) you'll get decent audio, probably as high as 320kbs Mp3s, but nowhere near high-res obviously.
 
As far as the (dual) DACs in the Z3, yeah it should be up to 96khz but that's not the important fact, the important fact is that the internals work in such a way that it makes the sound seem clear and lean, with good bass extension and a nice soundstage. Basically, numbers are more or less irrelevant (to a degree), which is clearly shown by those numbers GSM arena pops out (them being the last place you wanna go to check the audio quality of your phone). It sounds great, better in many ways than any other phone on the market, and it's capable of upscaling lower quality files to near high res, and natively play high res files, which sound spectacular, something that almost no smartphone can do right now, and the very few ones that do (LG G3) apparently do it much worse, as the guys at whathifi have compared them.

 

[Whitigir]

I hear technically human can only hear 20-20khz. But that is frequencies. Bit rate sample is what really help digital music to sound better. Also transition between parts, efficiency. As someone stated, the board circuitry and internal design also count.

 

[NuckinFutz]

Hi, new to Head-fi, so Hello to all.


Could I interject on audio quality. Could someone help me out reading the audio quality results as conducted by GSMARENA please.
I have the Z3 compact and my gf has the Samsung S4 mini. I tried to understand the numbers but lost it lol.

Does it mean the Samsung has better sound quality than the Z3C, according to their tests?

Z3C - http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z3_compact-review-1135p7.php

S4 mini - http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s4_mini-review-953p8.php

Secondly, from what I am just getting my head around. I have a the Sony sbh50 bluetooth headset. And according to research, bluetooth compresses the sound from phone to the headset i.e. as lossy. So would that mean, any HI-RES files played via the headset would degrade in sound; possibly gets encoded into a lower bitrate to be sent? I would assume that 320kbps would sound even worse. Btw the SBH50 uses Bluetooth profile 3.0.

Thirdly, I was reading a post in this thread with someone detailing the the DAC and amp chips used in the Z3C. Without wondering if we can or cannot hear such frequencies. According to the audio setup, a maximum of 96kHz files are processed via the hardware, not 192kHz. Is this correct?

Thank you in advance

Essentially the noise, distortion (THD), and crosstalk results you want as low as possible (remember I higher negative figure is actually lower).

The GSM figures are a good guide, but once you get down to small differences you will never notice. They are useful to spot poor audio, a phone with a noisy output.

An personal example of this is the Galaxy SII. It's the only phone I've owned where the noise level was noticeable: I could actually hear noise from the processor when using the screen, very noticeable and very annoying! If you look at the results on GSMarena you can see from the IMD Noise levels:

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-review-597p8.php

If I'd known about this site at the time I wouldn't have purchased the phone.

 

[projectdork]

Hello everyone. I'm not exactly new but I've followed things here on head fi for years. I have just never created an account XD.

Anyways...

Just reading through this entire thread which I've actually been checking in on from time to time over the past couples months.

My thoughts..

I'm going to have to say the z3 is one of the best I've heard from a mobile device if not the best. I originally had a note 4(kept for a month) which was not bad by any means but I sold it and bought the z3. Also was looking into the iPhone6+ which my brother had and tested it for 2 days. The z3 was simply better for me. It was by far the cleanest most clear sounding with superior sound staging separation(tho the lowest volume) I used all 3 devices with my shure se846(silver cable) and the z3 by far was the best. Absolutely no hiss whatsoever heard through my 9ohm 846(50-65% normal listening volume). What I've read here appears to be very true, if you can find a really nice pair of low impedance headphones the Z3 definitely delivers the goods. Gets very loud with 9ohm 846. Anyways thats all I can say. However looking forward to that root to boost volume levels.

-Cheers!

 

[Whitigir]

Hello everyone. I'm not exactly new but I've followed things here on head fi for years. I have just never created an account XD.

Anyways...

Just reading through this entire thread which I've actually been checking in on from time to time over the past couples months.

My thoughts..

I'm going to have to say the z3 is one of the best I've heard from a mobile device if not the best. I originally had a note 4(kept for a month) which was not bad by any means but I sold it and bought the z3. Also was looking into the iPhone6+ which my brother had and tested it for 2 days. The z3 was simply better for me. It was by far the cleanest most clear sounding with superior sound staging separation(tho the lowest volume) I used all 3 devices with my shure se846(silver cable) and the z3 by far was the best. Absolutely no hiss whatsoever heard through my 9ohm 846(50-65% normal listening volume). What I've read here appears to be very true, if you can find a really nice pair of low impedance headphones the Z3 definitely delivers the goods. Gets very loud with 9ohm 846. Anyways thats all I can say. However looking forward to that root to boost volume levels.

-Cheers!

Welcome new account

Excellent! I am glad that I did not mistake it, and I knew many people assumed that I was speaking out of my butt crack (fan boy) when I said Z3 is better than any other phones such as Note 4 and iPhone 6/+. I got a little offended when some people kept saying it is personal preference....like my ears are elephant ears or so lol.....I am no audiophile, just an enthusiast and enough to tell the differences.

So I am glad that you also confirmed what I stated, and found it to be accurate. I am too looking forward to lollipops and that root. Unless by that time Oppo R5 or Meizu Mx4 pro come to the states with LTE.

Those two phones are the one that really pull my attention.