The LG G5 audiophile smartphone/DAC

[Mivera]

Has anyone heard of the new LG G5 smartphone with audiophile grade DAC? It's the first device to use ESS's new line of Sabre DAC chips. It also use the new ESS 9602 headphone amp. Pretty cool stuff! I guess It can double as a stand alone USB DAC as well! The future is here. I wonder how it sounds?


http://www.esstech.com/index.php/en/news/newsroom/ess-technology-comes-out-play-lg-g5

 

[Opus111]

Doesn't give any indication if they fixed up the treble lispiness evident on the ES9018K2M (I have that one in my mobile phone) in the new improved 9028. Have any links to how the 9028 is better?

 

[Mivera]

Doesn't give any indication if they fixed up the treble lispiness evident on the ES9018K2M (I have that one in my mobile phone) in the new improved 9028. Have any links to how the 9028 is better?

The 9028 is much better. It's far better than even the famous 9018 used in over 50% of the high end DAC's on the market today. They haven't publicly released a whole pile of public info on it yet though.

There's a bit of info on it here:

http://audioxpress.com/article/New-ESS-ES9028-SABRE-Mobile-DAC-ES9603-Headphone-Amplifier.html

 

[Opus111]

I didn't see any mention of improved SQ over the ES9018. What impressed me about ESS's development of the 9018 was how they listened and discovered issues with their algorithms. Martin Mallinson spoke about those at some length in his RMAF presentation. I see better numbers for the 9028 but no mention of fixing up 9018's SQ issue with the top end. Perhaps they don't want to admit to that issue?

 

[Mivera]

I didn't see any mention of improved SQ over the ES9018. What impressed me about ESS's development of the 9018 was how they listened and discovered issues with their algorithms. Martin Mallinson spoke about those at some length in his RMAF presentation. I see better numbers for the 9028 but no mention of fixing up 9018's SQ issue with the top end. Perhaps they don't want to admit to that issue?

Well they didn't spend 8 years developing a successor to the 9018 just to make it preform worse. Wait until some feedback comes back on products that use it. Dustin the lead Sabre engineer told me it's drastically better last time I seen him.

 

[NorthSky]

Opus, what are you using in your main rig...a 3-head JVC tape deck?

 

[Opus111]

Well they didn't spend 8 years developing a successor to the 9018 just to make it preform worse.

If they're not listening its fairly easy to make it sound worse purely by accident. Compare and contrast with Burr Brown where the PCM63 is generally regarded as the pinnacle, PCM1704 is considered a step backwards sound-wise.

Dustin the lead Sabre engineer told me it's drastically better last time I seen him.

And how likely is he to spend 8 years on a design and admit to it sounding hugely worse?

 

[Opus111]

Opus, what are you using in your main rig...a 3-head JVC tape deck?

No, no tapes in my place. For sources I have a couple of homebrewed multibit NOS DACs. One has active anti-imaging filtering, the other passive.

 

[Opus111]

Happy to answer those questions Bob but it would be out of place on Mike's thread. Why not start another thread?

 

[NorthSky]

Sorry Opus, you are absolutely right. ...And same for the tape deck; forgive my off topic humor.

♪ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/lg-g5-hi-fi-plus-modular-hi-res-dac/
♦ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/lg-g5-news/
♠ http://www.techradar.com/us/news/ph...bile-phones/lg-g5-what-we-want-to-see-1299722

 

[mark40766]

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http://latestgadgetsreview.tumblr.com

 

[Blumlein 88]

You could take the poll using sound recorded from a Nexus 6p if interested in smartphone sound. You get to see how it differs from original files using music.

http://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-hear-a-smartphone-dac-well-can-you-punk.447/