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Google Pixel 4a Smartphone Audio Review

Jimbob54

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I manage a large team of engineers. I would cut or punt #2 without blinking an eye, target the 90% market and move on to higher priority features.

This is one area where I find ASR disconnected from reality. Sacrificing battery life or engineering cycles to satisfy a niche market in a $400 phone makes no sense. How many users do we expect to walk around with this phone and an HD650?

You're right. If there was an$800 phone I wanted with quality dac and 3.5mm output and the same phone for $450 with no analog and good dac I would take the latter in a shot and get a quality dongle and pocket the difference. But if there was only $100 to $150 difference I'd get the "audiophile" version.
 

Soniclife

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How many users do we expect to walk around with this phone and an HD650?
None that make rational decisions, a sound leaking, zero isolation headphone with lowish sensitivity that does not fold makes no sense. With IEMs it should go loud enough for most people.
 
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amirm

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Asking for less output is like asking that your car have 1/3 the horsepower it has today because you fear fuel consumption. You don't have to use the max output if you don't want. But if you don't have it, you can't use it. In workplace you can leave your phone plugged in and use it as a streaming player independent of your work computer and its potential corporate restrictions.

As I showed, my Samsung phone outputs three times as much so it is not like there is no precedence.
 
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amirm

amirm

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On dongles, I gave one to my wife to use because she was hearing noise from her onboard dac in her laptop. She was happy for a month and then gave it back to me saying it stopped working! I don't know why they don't make them more robust.
 

tomtoo

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Asking for less output is like asking that your car have 1/3 the horsepower it has today because you fear fuel consumption. You don't have to use the max output if you don't want. But if you don't have it, you can't use it. In workplace you can leave your phone plugged in and use it as a streaming player independent of your work computer and its potential corporate restrictions.

As I showed, my Samsung phone outputs three times as much so it is not like there is no precedence.

Yes @amirm but there are laws and the lawmaiker fear that childs use phones and headphones and they could hurt them self over time without knowing the danger. I dont like it, but somehow i understand.
 

Vasr

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I manage a large team of engineers. I would cut or punt #2 without blinking an eye, target the 90% market and move on to higher priority features.

This is one area where I find ASR disconnected from reality. Sacrificing battery life or engineering cycles to satisfy a niche market in a $400 phone makes no sense. How many users do we expect to walk around with this phone and an HD650?

I agree with this entirely. #2 isn't meant to imply Google/OEM engineering cycles. Third party apps which would enable higher output through platform API calls. I use AIMP app on my Android phone, for example, for some additional features and flexibility.
 

Vasr

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Asking for less output is like asking that your car have 1/3 the horsepower it has today because you fear fuel consumption. You don't have to use the max output if you don't want. But if you don't have it, you can't use it. In workplace you can leave your phone plugged in and use it as a streaming player independent of your work computer and its potential corporate restrictions.

I could be wrong on this particular phone but I believe the output limit is software controlled not a hardware limitation.

On previous Pixels the Audio mode setting could be changed by going into Developer Mode to expose some options (not meant for consumer use). But this can be exposed via APIs to third party apps to enable higher output which would make it an explicit opt-in for lower battery life and/or hearing damage. Those apps would also calibrate the volume slider for the output level. It is a policy decision not an engineering decision.

This is more an issue of what is the default and what safeguards do you provide and how you provide it. It is not a simple binary.

The problem with having a very high level available by default is that your volume control would become very sensitive to changes even when you are not using headphones that require them. Users would have to worry about limiting their volume controls artificially between a small range on the lower side (affecting 90%+ usage) to accommodate the remaining use cases. This is not considered a good UX design.

The volume level getting bumped up accidentally is also very high on a phone device (either via the software slider or the hardware buttons).

These review recommendations would be much more relevant to reality if the usage context was taken into account as @stunta posted. Applies to all multi-functional units including AVRs for example.
 

flyzipper

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I was considering an update to the Pixel 4a, but I use headphone out to aux-in for car audio connectivity.
Any thoughts about whether 0.3V output will be sufficient?
Thanks for the measurements!
 
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amirm

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The problem with having a very high level available by default is that your volume control would become very sensitive to changes even when you are not using headphones that require them. Users would have to worry about limiting their volume controls artificially between a small range on the lower side (affecting 90%+ usage) to accommodate the remaining use cases. This is not considered a good UX design.
This is long overdue for a fix. They should make the range/resolution of the volume control a setting. It would be trivial to do so and is needed today with external bluetooth devices that get loud as well.
 
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amirm

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Yes @amirm but there are laws and the lawmaiker fear that childs use phones and headphones and they could hurt them self over time without knowing the danger. I dont like it, but somehow i understand.
Such things should be clearly stipulated so that there is awareness around it and better solutions come about. Parental controls could be used to address this for example.
 

stunta

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In workplace you can leave your phone plugged in and use it as a streaming player independent of your work computer and its potential corporate restrictions

Isn't that a niche within a niche? People who really care about this will get a VPN and/or use an external amplifier.

This is a tough one to argue about, but I don't think this is about whether they can or cannot make it higher output. It is likely just they don't care or deem important enough. Sure, ASR can decapitate a panther for it, but since when is this community representative of the mass market?
 

Vasr

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This is long overdue for a fix. They should make the range/resolution of the volume control a setting. It would be trivial to do so and is needed today with external bluetooth devices that get loud as well.

I don't disagree. But it may not be trivial as a OS settings UI change with an additional parameter into the core OS audio. They would also need to propagate this parameter via the platform API so that third party apps that use other audio setting modes can use it and/or be consistent with it and they need to make it backward compatible so that it doesn't break existing audio apps, etc. Someone who knows the exact implementation within Android platform would be in a better position to evaluate the cost of re-engineering

Whether they find it a priority to do so will depend on how many complaints they receive or if the current design makes it a non-issue.

Pixel owners can give feedback to Google as described at
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/6398243?hl=en
 
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amirm

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I don't disagree. But it may not be trivial as a OS settings UI change with an additional parameter into the core OS audio. They would also need to propagate this parameter via the platform API so that third party apps that use other audio setting modes can use it and/or be consistent with it and they need to make it backward compatible so that it doesn't break existing audio apps, etc. Someone who knows the exact implementation within Android platform would be in a better position to evaluate the cost of re-engineering
You mean stuff that the OS vendor gets paid to do? :)

All it takes is a champion inside the company to push the changes through. I did that at Microsoft and overrode my teams objections that "it is not a mass market feature." My answer was: do it for me! And they did. As long as you are not doing this every day, the team will respond and get it done over time.

This is how the new audios stack/WASAPI came about in Windows. The one in Windows XP was so poor as far as fidelity so I asked them team to rewrite it and that is what they did. Things were very bad in Windows XP. The resampler was awful and even simple things like volume control were broken.
 

Racheski

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Isn't that a niche within a niche? People who really care about this will get a VPN and/or use an external amplifier.
No because it is common for corporations to block access to Spotify or other music streamers, and prevent users from downloading unapproved software. My company blocked Spotify about a year ago, but so many people complained IT security begrudgingly made an exception.
 

stunta

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Ok boys... how about you all complain to google support about the output voltage of the headphone jack on their budget phone while they are about to launch Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5. Don't forget to tell them you are behind a corporate firewall that blocks streaming music and that you will be listening to music over your unlimited data plan with a high-impedance headphone.

Lets see if they fix it :D I am rooting for you, tbh.
 
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Chromatischism

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You mean stuff that the OS vendor gets paid to do? :)

All it takes is a champion inside the company to push the changes through. I did that at Microsoft and overrode my teams objections that "it is not a mass market feature." My answer was: do it for me! And they did. As long as you are not doing this every day, the team will respond and get it done over time.

This is how the new audios stack/WASAPI came about in Windows. The one in Windows XP was so poor as far as fidelity so I asked them team to rewrite it and that is what they did. Things were very bad in Windows XP. The resampler was awful and even simple things like volume control were broken.
Really. We have you and your team to thank for WASAPI? That's pretty cool.
 

Jimster480

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In a world where every smartphone maker is gimping their headphone audio (either through elimination of the 3.5mm jack or weak output), let's hope LG continues to hold out and provide both a headphone jack and high output.
LG dropped the Headphone jack on the Wing. I hope its not a new trend for them. My G8 has a great headphone jack!
 
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