Good showing by the Alex Cavelli and the Liquid Spark. I have never owned his previous products but some people who did described it like this:
I use my LG V series phone for the vast majority of listening these days.
While I understand that this DAC is generally for laptops, phones without decent DAC's and other such connections, out of curiosity does anyone think that there would be audible differences between an LG phone with the "quad" DAC and this little unit?
I could never buy something called Nobsound, no matter how good it is.I like the name better than some of the Chi-fi brands. Loxjie sounds a rare disease.
The problem with phones is the output power, not the dac, but since as you point you can’t get better than the weekest link, the performance of the dac has not much significance.No there won't. Not only that, there won't be any audible difference between this DAC and an average smartphone either e.g. the now three and a half year-old Samsung Galaxy S8 with a SINAD of 96dB (the ranking tables incorrectly show it as 89dB for some reason). The same goes for the S9, S10, Note8 and Note9 series which all use the same Qualcomm WCD9341 DAC, as do many other phones, or other similarly performing DACs.
This is because this level of distortion in a smartphone is already way below the distortion of a headphone transducer. In fact, even if you had the $60,000 Sennheiser HE1, the lowest distorting headphones in the world at 0.01% THD (which translates to -80dB), the combined distortion with a smartphone having THD at -96dB would be (worst case, in phase) -79.9dB i.e. an inaudible 0.1dB additional distortion. The DAC SINAD required for audible transparency with a typical headphone with (much) higher distortion would obviously be even lower.
The problem with phones is the output power, not the dac, but since as you point you can’t get better than the weekest link, the performance of the dac has not much significance.
Thanks for letting me know. What is amazing is that I read Google News a dozen times a day and not once has it shown me any of my own reviews! It shows me audio reviews from others but not from ASR. Shows how dumb their algorithms are.@amirm your review showed up in my Google News feed
What is a "portable" headphone? And no, they are not good enough for vast majority of headphones. Try to listen to one on an airplane. Even at max volume you will have trouble getting sufficient volume.Most smartphones will have enough output power to directly drive the vast majority of portable headphones to loud enough levels, and enough power to act as a DAC to feed a desktop amp to drive non-portable headphones to loud levels too.
loud level is not synonim of sufficient power, depending on the impedance curve of the headphone, when you have like 5 or 10 miliWats, You may be have enough volume, but the bass response will suffer and you won’t get proper headroom for loud transient in dynamic recordings. As for using them as a line out, they have an output voltage below 1V, often considerably less, this is far from optimal when used this way.Most smartphones will have enough output power to directly drive the vast majority of portable headphones to loud enough levels, and enough power to act as a DAC to feed a desktop amp to drive non-portable headphones to loud levels too.
Thanks for letting me know. What is amazing is that I read Google News a dozen times a day and not once has it shown me any of my own reviews! It shows me audio reviews from others but not from ASR. Shows how dumb their algorithms are.
Thanks for letting me know. What is amazing is that I read Google News a dozen times a day and not once has it shown me any of my own reviews! It shows me audio reviews from others but not from ASR. Shows how dumb their algorithms are.
It would be heck of an algorithm if it knows I wrote them!They know you wrote them and filter them out?
A "portable" headphone is one specifically designed to be used with a phone or other portable player, so efficiency is a necessary part of the design. You've seen all those people out and about using such, I'm sure. In my case, I use efficient and good sounding IEMs rather than over-ear headphones that to me just look silly outdoors. Headphones designed for use indoors with a proper amp are another matter.What is a "portable" headphone? And no, they are not good enough for vast majority of headphones. Try to listen to one on an airplane. Even at max volume you will have trouble getting sufficient volume.
Try StartPage and DuckDuckGo and see if either works any better.Google sucks. When I do a search for something, it returns more unrelated ads. It's becoming useless.
It would be heck of an algorithm if it knows I wrote them!
The other issue is AKM DAC chips will dry up soon due to the recent problems at its factory :/The only issue now is too many options.