Degru
Active Member
I'll put in my own 2c on the sound of the LG DAC. Got an LG G8 recently. Note I'm not a believer in SINAD and think there is more to a DAC than its distortion.
Overall sound wise, I really don't think it's much better than a Galaxy S9. The amp is better, there's maybe a bit more detail, but that's about it. My Modius destroys it. Main thing lacking for me is dynamics; the Modius is able to hit a lot harder.
The LG DAC does however have a few glaring flaws. The biggest one is actually the non-hires-mode performance with easier to drive cans.
The way Android stock audio chain works is the audio gets attenuated according to your volume setting *first*, and then it goes through the resampler. This means that the crust from the ****** resampler gets sent to your DAC full blast. This is an issue if you need to use volumes below about half for easier to drive headphones.
On most phones I only notice this with very quiet tracks and sensitive IEMs. However, since the quad DAC gets louder than a typical headphone jack there is more attenuation taking place and I even notice it with my CD900st, which is easy to power but not extremely sensitive. That's at a volume setting of 41, if you have to go lower it will only get worse.
The hires mode through an app like Poweramp, UAPP, Neutron, LG music, etc. will bypass this and eliminate the problem, but streaming services that UAPP doesn't support are left out in the cold. If you use local music from SD card you're all set tho.
The other issue is the automatic impedance detection making the false assumption that low impedance = easy to drive. If you have hard to drive cans with below 100 ohm impedance you need to use the workaround with a resistor and extension cable to trick it into high gain mode. You can probably take a spare 3.5mm jack and wire a single 300 ohm resistor through it to have a simple and cheap diy dummy load to accomplish this.
Personally, for my usage, I would rather just have a Galaxy S9. It has less power and less volume steps, however it doesn't have the resampler issue and still sounds good. But the G8 was a much better price.
Update: I just found a "hifi status" app that shows the status of quad dac depending on what is plugged in. I measured output with my multimeter. 0.125 Vrms unloaded in "normal" mode (under 50 ohms), 0.4Vrms in "aux" mode (infinite impedance), and 0.75Vrms in "high impedance" mode. It seems they reserved the high power output for the V series, so the quad dac on the G series is NOT the same implementation.
Overall sound wise, I really don't think it's much better than a Galaxy S9. The amp is better, there's maybe a bit more detail, but that's about it. My Modius destroys it. Main thing lacking for me is dynamics; the Modius is able to hit a lot harder.
The LG DAC does however have a few glaring flaws. The biggest one is actually the non-hires-mode performance with easier to drive cans.
The way Android stock audio chain works is the audio gets attenuated according to your volume setting *first*, and then it goes through the resampler. This means that the crust from the ****** resampler gets sent to your DAC full blast. This is an issue if you need to use volumes below about half for easier to drive headphones.
On most phones I only notice this with very quiet tracks and sensitive IEMs. However, since the quad DAC gets louder than a typical headphone jack there is more attenuation taking place and I even notice it with my CD900st, which is easy to power but not extremely sensitive. That's at a volume setting of 41, if you have to go lower it will only get worse.
The hires mode through an app like Poweramp, UAPP, Neutron, LG music, etc. will bypass this and eliminate the problem, but streaming services that UAPP doesn't support are left out in the cold. If you use local music from SD card you're all set tho.
The other issue is the automatic impedance detection making the false assumption that low impedance = easy to drive. If you have hard to drive cans with below 100 ohm impedance you need to use the workaround with a resistor and extension cable to trick it into high gain mode. You can probably take a spare 3.5mm jack and wire a single 300 ohm resistor through it to have a simple and cheap diy dummy load to accomplish this.
Personally, for my usage, I would rather just have a Galaxy S9. It has less power and less volume steps, however it doesn't have the resampler issue and still sounds good. But the G8 was a much better price.
Update: I just found a "hifi status" app that shows the status of quad dac depending on what is plugged in. I measured output with my multimeter. 0.125 Vrms unloaded in "normal" mode (under 50 ohms), 0.4Vrms in "aux" mode (infinite impedance), and 0.75Vrms in "high impedance" mode. It seems they reserved the high power output for the V series, so the quad dac on the G series is NOT the same implementation.
Last edited:
