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Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Review

Rate this smartphone audio

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 33 22.9%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 69 47.9%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 31 21.5%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 11 7.6%
  • Total voters
    144
amirm said:
I do. Wanted to avoid it but seems not possible. I am waiting for Feb 1 announcement of S23 if I go that route. I realized that with wireless charging, I can use the USB for audio and still be able to charge, albeit with the phone in the cradle of the charger.
Click to expand...
I am waiting for the 23+ because it finally comes with 512GB so that I can store my music collection on the phone 256GB is not enough anymore and streaming is not my cup of tea I have the Xperia 5 Mark 2. Like it, but SD card is not very convenient and the 21:9 ratio is OKish but not my preferred ratio. But very good battery life (should be even better on mark iv) and no notch or punch hole.
 
I am still keeping two Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phones with these three very good features: (1) Swappable battery, (2) Micro SD-card slot, and (3) 3.5mm jack. The version I have is having the Wolfson chip inside, which I supposed is not-that-bad? I am not a tech guy thus I don’t know if the phone is a good music player or not.
Sadly the choices with (1), (2) and (3) are getting fewer and fewer nowadays.
 
Every time I see something like that, can't help but makes me think of how much of a bunch of misfit weirdos us audiophiles are. Truth is, and the market trends are very clear, at least 95% of music lovers are totally, fully satisfied with listening trough a Bluetooth connection and in in the vast majority, lower bit rates ones. And many of those are very passionate about music, many spend way more time than me listening to music, love their music. Can they all be missing out that much? What are we chasing really? does this obsession to go get this very last bit of extra fidelity actually is a real benefit in actual enjoyment, ore are we just at a point where it's about well if I really really concentrate and do very critical listening I am able to detect a slight hint that my listening has less distortion than yours, kinda thing, but if you just sit back and enjoy, the music effectively sounds just as good and we are just biased into thinking we get something significantly better?
 
Nothing surprising, Sony has done nothing about the glaring issues since i've gotten my Xperia Z in 2013 (The cam issues have been persisting since 2012/2013).
I would not recommend a Sony phone to anyone in this current day and age, other companies are offering better products at lower prices.

Google and Samsung are offering guaranteed updates (os and security) for far longer than Sony, no reason to bother with Sony at all anymore.
 
PeteL said:
What are we chasing really?
Click to expand...
I am not looking for fidelity -- just convenience of not having to charge a wireless earbud, or needing a dongle for normal headphones.

The whole reason this is forced on us is to upsell what you say: a wireless earbud. There is no technical reason to have taken out the 3.5mm jack as evidenced by this flagship phone having plenty of room for it.

Let's remember that my current phone has this. And its performance is quite good despite its age. For just a bit more performance, I don't want to give up this jack.

Almost tempted to get a Samsung S10 which was the last generation with headphone jack. Alas, it has no 5G support. :( And security fixes will no longer be coming post this quarter.
 
amirm said:
??? List price for this phone is $999. I got it discounted before Christmas for $799 from Amazon. Same site now lists it as $980. So definitely flagship type pricing.
Click to expand...
Am I crazy or did I read $ 500 in your intro? I guess I am :facepalm:
 
amirm said:
I am not looking for fidelity -- just convenience of not having to charge a wireless earbud, or needing a dongle for normal headphones.

The whole reason this is forced on us is to upsell what you say: a wireless earbud. There is no technical reason to have taken out the 3.5mm jack as evidenced by this flagship phone having plenty of room for it.

Let's remember that my current phone has this. And its performance is quite good despite its age. For just a bit more performance, I don't want to give up this jack.

Almost tempted to get a Samsung S10 which was the last generation with headphone jack. Alas, it has no 5G support. :( And security fixes will no longer be coming post this quarter.
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more. For travel sometimes its nice to be able to just grab a set of headphones or IEMs and something to drive them with. Bit irritating to have to be weighed down by pockets stuffed with an assortment of electronics, which is the antithesis for these things since they are supposed to make our lives "easier" in principal. Instead manufacturers seem much more content to put design for manufacture and profit ahead of the end-user and their experience.
 
amirm said:
I am not looking for fidelity -- just convenience of not having to charge a wireless earbud, or needing a dongle for normal headphones.

The whole reason this is forced on us is to upsell what you say: a wireless earbud. There is no technical reason to have taken out the 3.5mm jack as evidenced by this flagship phone having plenty of room for it.

Let's remember that my current phone has this. And its performance is quite good despite its age. For just a bit more performance, I don't want to give up this jack.

Almost tempted to get a Samsung S10 which was the last generation with headphone jack. Alas, it has no 5G support. :( And security fixes will no longer be coming post this quarter.
Click to expand...
"Normal headphones" afaik very few phones with 3.5mm are powerful enough to drive something like a HD 600. LG phones (discontinued) and the said Asus ROG Phone 5 (not the newer 6) come in mind but the the Galaxy S10 (at least the S10e that I have) is not powerful enough especially if you like it loud.
.
 
Bam! said:
"Normal headphones" afaik very few phones with 3.5mm are powerful enough to drive something like a HD 600. LG phones (discontinued) and the said Asus ROG Phone 5 (not the newer 6) come in mind but the the Galaxy S10 (at least the S10e that I have) is not powerful enough especially if you like it loud.
.
Click to expand...
I don't lug big headphones with me outside of home. IEMs is what I use so these phones are fine for me.
 
amirm said:
I don't lug big headphones with me outside of home. IEMs is what I use so these phones are fine for me.
Click to expand...
Makes sense. So if it wasn't for the small screen and weak wifi in treasured places The Xperia with FD5 would be fine for you I guess.
 
And there is a gray area as far as what the Android Audio stack is doing (likely resampling to 48 kHz which is as dumb as similar decision in Windows)
Click to expand...
Contrary to Windows, Android is open source so somewhere in the source code one should be able to see what the audio stack does.
Also I find it kind of mean to put a smartphone in the same ranking scale as dedicated external phone DACs. Maybe make a new scale :)?
 
Were LG phones last ones to feature 2Vrms with 3,5mm jack? I noticed there were some Vivo phones with CS43131 but without jack, you had to use passive USB-C to 3,5mm jack adapter at least (also I didn't find them measured anywhere). At times GSMarena measured audio output, I remember they often praised Motorolas for having "louder" output.

funny&sad trivia: I let my LG V30 jack get repaired, still waiting for a reply from service guy if he manages to obtain spare part :)
 
Nice! Interesting one @amirm, part of the review felt like it's for the phone as well :)
 
pavuol said:
Were LG phones last ones to feature 2Vrms with 3,5mm jack? I noticed there were some Vivo phones with CS43131 but without jack, you had to use passive USB-C to 3,5mm jack adapter at least (also I didn't find them measured anywhere). At times GSMarena measured audio output, I remember they often praised Motorolas for having "louder" output.

funny&sad trivia: I let my LG V30 jack get repaired, still waiting for a reply from service guy if he manages to obtain spare part :)
Click to expand...
ROG Phone 5.
 
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