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Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Review

Rate this smartphone audio

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 32 22.9%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 68 48.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 29 20.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 11 7.9%

  • Total voters
    140

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Sony Xperia 5 IV high-end smartphone audio performance. I purchased it recently for US $799 but I see normal price of $998.
Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio 5G high-end phone review mobile.jpg

I went through extensive search for a month to find a replacement for my aging Samsung S8+. I wanted a phone with analog out, OLED high-resolution display, wireless charging and 5G. Believe it or not, in US, this translates to only two phones, both from Sony. The Xperia 5 Mark IV and Xperia 1 Mark IV. I read all the reviews of these with people only complaining about overheating and complicated camera app. Turns out the overheating is only caused by recording 4K video for a while, something I never do.

Another critique was the cost of the 1 Mark IV. Thinking the 5 Mark IV is just lower res version, I purchased it, not realizing it actually has slightly smaller display. This, turns out to be a showstopper. You can't quite tell from above picture but these phones from Sony are quite narrow with an aspect ratio of 21:9. Normal HDTV is 16:9. What this means is that if you watch 99% of online content (other than movies), you wind up with significant black bars on each side. This is not much of an issue with OLED displays given their strong blacks. However, your video frame is now quite small. You can zoom in to use the full screen but now you lose top and bottom of the display. Forget about reading subtitles for example as they get half chopped off. Online video consumption is a huge part of my mobile phone use so this is really bad hit as far as usability for me.

The problem is not limited to video. I also consumer a lot of text in the form of accessing the forum, news, etc. The vertical resolution is good but horizontally, you have a lot less pixels. What this means is that hardly anything fits in one line. Article headings as a result wrap to next line, causing much less content to be visible at any one time.

As you all know, mobiles phones have grown in recent years. I thought then that I would get a replacement phone that is at least as big as my current one. This is not the case. the Sony is narrower than my Samsung S8+ and shows less content per above.

Something that is absent from many reviews is the RF/radio performance of these phones. I did not enable the radio in the Sony but did test its Wifi. I was so surprised that it had shorter range than my Samsung! 30 or so feet from my enterprise class Wifi (Ubiquiti Unifi), the Sony would completely lose connection whereas my Samsung would keep going, producing 40+ mibt/sec throughput. This location is one of our bathroom where, ahem, I do a lot of browsing. :)

Sony talks a lot about its cameras and as the leader in camera sensors, I expected better. I tested just one low light telephoto shot. The image was full of noise and very soft. Nothing remotely approaching a proper camera. So all the "Pro" features of the camera app is lost on me.

For above reasons, I will be returning the Xperia 5 MK IV. Sad because this phone checks a lot of boxes with SD card expansion, 120 Hz OLED display, good battery life, easy to fit in hand, etc. Before doing so, I thought I measure its audio performance in case above issues are not a problem for you.

Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Measurements
As usual, I am limited in what I can measure on phones as my audio analyzer can't control them. 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). I first started testing using Roon player for Android, playing the same 1 KHz 24-bit tone:
Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Measurements.png


I don't see any signs of poor bit depth/sample rate conversion which is good. SINAD of 98 dB is very good for the type of device. FFT spectrum shows distortion products below -105 dB which shows attention to implementation here. I tried to do the same test using the included media player which I am assuming is from Sony:
Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Sony Player Measurements.png


I don't understand why the distortion spectrum changed as resampling does not do that. Alas, despite improvement in distortion, overall SINAD actually drops by a few dBs indicating noise floor is higher.

What was very disappointing was the max output voltage of 0.5 volts. This directly translates to low output power especially with 300 ohm load. I cannot run my sweeps but did measure the max power:
Best Mobile Phone Audio Review 300 ohm power review.png



Best Mobile Phone Audio Review 300 ohm power review.png


As you see, these are dismal results, worsened at 33 ohm with high, 5 ohm output impedance. What this means that you are out of luck with any full size headphone. Sensitive IEMs and headphones should be OK.

I manage to run the jitter test as well:
Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Jitter Measurements.png


Noise floor is high but otherwise, this is pristine output. Not something we see out of typical headphone dongle.

Multitone output was puzzling:
Sony Xperia 5 IV Audio Sony Player Multitone Measurements.png


That sliding scale of sidebands in such a linear (really log) manner is not by accident. Some kind of processing going on, eliminating any dream you had of native high-resolution playback. FYI the same measurement using Roon player had a flat noise floor around -80 dB.

That's all I have for you.

Conclusions
The Sony Xperia 5 MK IV (and its more expensive sister, Xperia 1 MK IV) are the only flagship phones left with headphone output. The performance of said output is good from distortion point of view but not from power level. Or ability to play bit-exact content. Strange as you would think that Sony has the wherewithal to create a truly performant solution here.

While not related to audio, I find the super wide aspect ratio a poor choice that is only optimized for watching movies. And even there, you can get similar sized image out of a larger phone.

What a shame....

Needless to say, I can't recommend the Sony Xperia 5 MK IV.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Rja4000

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Thanks for the review.

I initially was scoring "Fine".
But 0.5V is definitely not enough.

Can't the multitone strange effect be due to clock shift ? This kind of specially shaped test signal requires at least a decent clock sync between DAC and ADC, doesn't it ?
 
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amirm

amirm

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Can't the multitone strange effect be due to clock shift ? This kind of specially shaped test signal requires at least a decent clock sync between DAC and ADC, doesn't it ?
There is no ADC here. The operating system driver is responsible for feeding the DAC. There is something odd though with the clock rate of the dashboard being correct with Roon at 1 Khz but off with Google/Sony player at 0.997.
 

Bam!

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ROG Phone 5 has powerful audio output but no wireless charging. Samsung A52s is no top tier and has also no wireless charging but otherwise a great and inexpensive phone. (SD, Audio Jack, 120hz OLED, good cpu) Xperia is perfect for Fiio FD5.
 

kombajn

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"The Sony Xperia 5 MK IV (and its more expensive sister, Xperia 1 MK IV) are the only flagship phones left with headphone output."
NO they are not!
Asus Zenphone 9:
Asus ROG Phone 6
ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro

Those are flagships, there are olso normal phones for people that don't game on a phone. I personally bought Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G (and swap operating system for PixelExperience because I prefer clean android):
 

Cars-N-Cans

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Thanks for the review.

I initially was scoring "Fine".
But 0.5V is definitely not enough.

Can't the multitone strange effect be due to clock shift ? This kind of specially shaped test signal requires at least a decent clock sync between DAC and ADC, doesn't it ?
The output impedance is also somewhat disappointing at 5Ω. I measured my S9 a while back and if I recall it was around 2.4Ω (probably a pair of 2.2Ω resistors protecting the headphone amp). If you know what the dynamic impedance of the headphone/IEM is it can be corrected for with EQ, but still sort of annoying. I would think there may also be the possibility of it going into limiting with lower impedance IEMs even if they are sensitive enough, so even if it has enough voltage swing, the sound may be distorted at higher volumes. Definitely one reason to measure before buying anything you intend to use with a mobile device. Unfortunately, not very easy to do for typical end-users.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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ROG Phone 5 has powerful audio output but no wireless charging. Samsung A52s is no top tier and has also no wireless charging but otherwise a great and inexpensive phone. (SD, Audio Jack, 120hz OLED, good cpu) Xperia is perfect for Fiio FD5.
I have a set of those IEMs, and the Truthear x Crinacal Zero that I use with my Samsung Galaxy. The Truthear is right on the edge of what the phone can drive without distortion. Thankfully it has the LF driver which relaxes the driving requirements at low frequencies as it wouldn't handle 10Ω in the bass region.
 

Robbo99999

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I guess this another argument for getting a cheap USB-C dongle and using it with whatever phone you have!
 

voodooless

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So conclusion: just don’t bother with the headphone They were right all along ;)

But how is a $ 500 phone high-end? Obviously price is not a perfect indicator of performance and features, but for things it tracks rather well.
 
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amirm

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"The Sony Xperia 5 MK IV (and its more expensive sister, Xperia 1 MK IV) are the only flagship phones left with headphone output."
NO they are not!
Asus Zenphone 9:
Asus ROG Phone 6
ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro

Those are flagships, there are olso normal phones for people that don't game on a phone. I personally bought Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G (and swap operating system for PixelExperience because I prefer clean android):
I have gone through all of this. You can't find a phone available in US that has headphone jack, wireless charging and 5G. Leaving the other two out doesn't make them flagship. Asus also is not available in US (I think).
 

abdo123

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So conclusion: just don’t bother with the headphone They were right all along ;)

But how is a $ 500 phone high-end? Obviously price is not a perfect indicator of performance and features, but for things it tracks rather well.

it's being sold for 1000$ though?
 
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amirm

amirm

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But how is a $ 500 phone high-end? Obviously price is not a perfect indicator of performance and features, but for things it tracks rather well.
??? 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.
 

Bam!

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I guess this another argument for getting a cheap USB-C dongle and using it with whatever phone you have!
Yep. Like the new(ish) iBasso DC03PRO. Very cheap and imho very good. But I assume Amir knows that it is possible to combine a Galaxy 22Ultra with a dongle.
 
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amirm

amirm

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But I assume Amir knows that it is possible to combine a Galaxy 22Ultra with a dongle.
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.
 

Bam!

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??? 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.
Yes, $999. Xperia 10 IV is $400-$500.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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0.5 Volts is EU regulation, it's not a design decision.
Nanny state strikes again! Could still be up the proverbial creek without a paddle if the device controls the dongle volume as well, no? Not sure how they are configured as I don't use cellphones as sources often enough to justify buying one since I would probably just end up losing it somewhere.
 
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