CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Head Amps, DACs, Sources, Portable Equipment Discussion => Topic started by: Jagdriver on August 28, 2015, 07:56:45 PM
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Gavin Fish from LH Labs sent me here after I emailed him this afternoon.
I'm about to buy my first smartphone and am not an Appler (for many reasons).
My soon-to-own Android phone will primarily be used as a phone (imagine that) with MP3/FLAC playback capability. It should have a microUSB port, memory expansion of at least up to 64GB, and a removable battery. I've also lost all consumer trust in Sony. Since I'm a not a gamer nor will be using my phone to watch a lot of video, I'm not overly concerned about specs in that arena. The main thing is to be able to use it as a digital audio player, quite possibly with an DAC from LH Labs. (My AK120 has its firmware problems—with zero support/upgrades available.)
Your thoughts?
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Gavin Fish from LH Labs sent me here after I emailed him this afternoon.
I'm about to buy my first smartphone and am not an Appler (for many reasons).
My soon-to-own Android phone will primarily be used as a phone (imagine that) with MP3/FLAC playback capability. It should have a microUSB port, memory expansion of at least up to 64GB, and a removable battery. I've also lost all consumer trust in Sony. Since I'm a not a gamer nor will be using my phone to watch a lot of video, I'm not overly concerned about specs in that arena. The main thing is to be able to use it as a digital audio player, quite possibly with an DAC from LH Labs. (My AK120 has its firmware problems—with zero support/upgrades available.)
Your thoughts?
Hi Jagdriver,
My recommendation: If you're not interested in specs/video, the Samsung Galaxy SIII has a good form factor, great OTG compatability, expandable memory up to (at least) 128gb microSD cards, serviceable screen, excellent ROM support from XDA/Cyanogen, and a replaceable battery. It makes a great source for use with external DACs - I used one with an ODAC, Vamp Verza, and Geek Out 450 for quite a while.
Because they're old tech now, you can get them pretty cheap. Save even more money and buy one with a bad IMEI or banned SN if you never intend on using it as a phone.
The GSIII comes with two different processor types: Exynos and Snapdragon. The Exynos's Wolfson WM1811 sounds better than the Snapdragon and there are applications and kernels that can make it sound pretty decent just out of its headphone jack. But the Wolfson is only on the international version (or, alternatively, all versions of the Galaxy Note II). If you intend on using the phone as a media player sans external DAC, which will sound much worse from any phone, buy the Exynos version. Otherwise, any Galaxy SIII will do.
If you're interested in a decent phone to use as a phone as well, Zerodeefex has a great thread right here as well that you probably should read over: http://www.changstar.com/index.php?topic=2015.180
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What is your price range? That can help quite a bit.
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My OG Note finally kicked the bucket, and so I just bought myself a brand new Galaxy Note 2, SGH-i317. $175 on eBay. The last official software update as of this month is 4.4.2 KK, and using Nova launcher it can be made to look somewhat like Lollipop, minus things like the notification shade. Since it's your first smartphone, I'm going to assume that you're not interested in rooting/flashing custom roms, etc, so a bootloader locked phone shouldn't bother you. If you're looking for something that's dirt cheap, and you don't care about 1080p+ screens and having a Snapdragon 80x, it's not a bad option. I bought it because I wanted to spend as little money as possible, and I hate on-screen buttons which is what the vast majority of Android phones have.
If you are thinking about importing a phone or buying an international model, be sure to check the supported bands. In the old 3G days as long as it supported 850/1900 which pretty much all EU market phones do, you were gold. Not anymore. AT&T LTE uses Band 17(700Mhz), Band 5(850Mhz), Band 2(1900Mhz), and Band 4(1700/2100Mhz). International phones tend not to support all of these bands, at least for the time being, so you'll be stuck on HSPA+. The same is true for T-mobile, although if you're not in an area where they've expanded 1900 support, then you'll be knocked all the way back to EDGE, which is pretty much unusable. Most EU phones don't have support for T-mobile's much more common 1700 AWS 3G band.
Of course if you're on Sprint on Verizon, none of this applies to you. You buy what they sell you.
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Galaxy Note 4 is your safest bet.
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Galaxy Note 4 is your safest bet.
That's what I use. Great phone all around. I definitely won't be upgrading to the Note 5, that's for fucking sure.
Also,+1 for Dave's comments. I sold Luis both of my old AT&T Note 2's (that I had bootloader unlocked and custom kerneled/ROMed). That phone is a workhorse.
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That's what I use. Great phone all around. I definitely won't be upgrading to the Note 5, that's for fucking sure.
Also,+1 for Dave's comments. I sold Luis both of my old AT&T Note 2's (that I had bootloader unlocked and custom kerneled/ROMed). That phone is a workhorse.
It's definitely a good very cheap option if you want a big screen, don't care that it's not 1080p or need the latest and greatest camera, and you want hardware buttons, expandable storage, and a big battery. It actually has more capacity than the GN5 does, and will stomp it in terms of screen on time. I definitely preferred the textured back cover of my old Note to the gloss on this one, but at least it's easily replaceable if it gets scratched up, unlike the Note 5. Even if they stick with sealed batteries in the future, I hope Samsung at least goes back to removable back covers, similar to the OnePlus 2.
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If you've never owned a smartphone, I'd strongly suggest going for a device without dedicated capacitive buttons. All of the research I've been privy to shows that the navigation paradigm stocl android is using today is significantly easier for new users than Samsung's dedicated capacitive buttons.
Depending on price, I'd recommend the G4. If you really must have a Samsung device and want something hefty, go for a note 4. That being said, having used a nexus 6 extensively for the past year and had a note 4 on and off, I'm still embarrassed by the perceived UI latency of Samsung devices.
If you're willing to sacrifice the removable battery, I find the new Moto G 2015 to be a great device for a great price. I will try the Moto X Play out soon as well.
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If you've never owned a smartphone, I'd strongly suggest going for a device without dedicated capacitive buttons. All of the research I've been privy to shows that the navigation paradigm stocl android is using today is significantly easier for new users than Samsung's dedicated capacitive buttons.
Depending on price, I'd recommend the G4. If you really must have a Samsung device and want something hefty, go for a note 4. That being said, having used a nexus 6 extensively for the past year and had a note 4 on and off, I'm still embarrassed by the perceived UI latency of Samsung devices.
If you're willing to sacrifice the removable battery, I find the new Moto G 2015 to be a great device for a great price. I will try the Moto X Play out soon as well.
The biggest issue I can see with hardware buttons, particularly on older pre GS5/GN4 Samsungs, is the menu key. It's technically been deprecated for years now, and yet a lot of applications are still coded to use it, either by duplicating their on screen menu button, or with some other pop up menu. On other applications it does absolutely nothing.
Once they made the switch to the dedicated recent apps button though, their buttons behave pretty much like everyone else's. One of the things I like about Android is that the choice of button type is up to you, and I'm glad that there are plenty of manufacturers still supporting both formats, regardless of what Google may or may not want. SD card support on the other hand seems to be largely going the way of the Dodo.
Personally I hope more Chinese companies start offering North American specific models with support for AT&T LTE bands. I'm curious about the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro for example, but I'm not going to go back to a 3G only phone. I've never liked HTC's current One design, and considering their financial situation, it seems like I'm not alone there. Same thing with Sony. The Xperia design is just a boring flat slab that they keep relaunching every 6 months and nobody seems to care.
The new X Play/X Pure is cool, and you can actually make it look interesting via Moto Maker. With the very reasonable price, LESS than the ZTE phone, I think it'll likely do very well for them. The Axon I expect will probably bomb. $450 is too step for what it offers, and the design is pretty cheesy, like an obviously fake knockoff designer handbag.
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I tried the Mi Note back in June in China, feels very good in hand, build quality is also great. Mi Note Pro would be essentially the same except for the upgraded screen and SOC/RAM. They don't sell very well in China though, part of the reason being the price.
Moto X Pure is very promising, glad they ditched the AMOLED that they can only source the outdated version.
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I've never liked HTC's current One design, and considering their financial situation, it seems like I'm not alone there. Same thing with Sony. The Xperia design is just a boring flat slab that they keep relaunching every 6 months and nobody seems to care.
Sony seems to have given up on the US market entirely - which is a shame because out of all the brand-specific skins of Android I found theirs the least objectionable...and actually at times nice. Touchwiz is like smartphone herpes: one in five people in the US have it and it does nothing but cause a displeasurable user experience.
I really love the M8/9's design but my smartphone is literally the only camera I use. I had an M8 for a while and it couldn't take a decent picture to save its life.
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Sony seems to have given up on the US market entirely - which is a shame because out of all the brand-specific skins of Android I found theirs the least objectionable...and actually at times nice. Touchwiz is like smartphone herpes: one in five people in the US have it and it does nothing but cause a displeasurable user experience.
I really love the M8/9's design but my smartphone is literally the only camera I use. I had an M8 for a while and it couldn't take a decent picture to save its life.
I think a colossal blunder on Sony's part was the terrible screen on the Xperia Z/Z1, which completely washed out if you weren't looking straight at it, like a shitty TN panel on a cheap laptop. They improved it on later models and now their displays are pretty much up to par, but its possible that the damage was already done and it was too late at that point. I don't know how well the Xperias do in Europe, but they can't be doing too well considering Sony's mobile division is a perpetual money loser. I also don't think it helps that their phones all look exactly the same - boring, and barely change in terms of hardware beyond the usual CPU upgrades.
It's just baffling. You'd think Sony would know a thing or two about display tech, and camera tech for that matter. They've got the best digital imaging sensors in the world. And yet:
"So it's surprising — shocking, even — to see Sony using a two-year-old imaging sensor in its latest phone, not least because Sony itself produces the advanced sensors used by the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6. Samsung's latest uses an IMX240 sensor with OIS, the same one included in 2014's Note 4, while Sony also manufactures the iPhone's 8-megapixel iSight camera.
Both are better than the aging, OIS-less 20-megapixel unit used in the Z4, and we can only speculate as to why Sony isn't using its best camera hardware in its own premium handsets. Surely a company with a long history in photography knows that the camera is one of the most important parts of a modern smartphone."
It's like they don't even care, they're just pumping out phones every 6 months because they're bored, and it's something to do. AFAICT there is absolutely zero interest in the upcoming Z5, and it's not hard to see why.
HTC has a different problem - they've got no money, and they're desperate to try and find a way to differentiate themselves. The Sense skin was actually somewhat worthwhile back in the Eclair and Froyo days, but since Ice Cream Sandwich, there's really been no reason anymore for it to exist. It's just changes for changes sake, many of which end up being worse than the original Google designs. It's arguably less bad than TouchWiz, but I really don't like using it at all. Pretty much the only other thing they could think of to do is try to make a good low light cellphone camera, which is pretty much an impossible task, and they just ended up with a bad camera full stop. The only other thing they have is the dual front facing speakers, and now that Motorola has copied that, there's really no reason left to buy an HTC phone at all, especially when Motos also come with a MUCH more pleasant, much purer Android experience that is likely to be upgraded far faster than HTC can do because of all of the extra Sense work that has to go along with it. That is assuming HTC ever delivers an update, which they often don't if a particular model isn't a big seller.
(http://static.xperiablog.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Xperia-Z2-display-versus-Z_6.jpg)
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What about the Meizus (http://www.meizu.com/de/)? Granted, I've never owned or even heard one, but they are supposed to be putting a serious effort into audio output. IIRC, an earlier model even had an optical-out way before the days of Android USB DACs. They have a strong audio tradition as well with their legendary M6 DAP.
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I'll try to get my hands on some Meizu devices. It's a pain in the ass getting phones that support all the LTE bands on one of my three carriers: T-mobile, Verizon or Google Fi (sprint/TMUS hybrid). The thing I'll say is that I haven't found a device yet that has convinced me that the niche market for standalone players is dead. Maybe if someone stuffs one of the decent USB DAC/amps into a phone with a microSD slot and decent battery, I'll change my tune.
I will go on record and say that Sony devices are quite good in hand. I very much like the Z3 and Z3C from a functional and aesthetic perspective. I know Marv is quite taken with the Z3 as well. I get that power users can lob all kinds of complaints about this or that, but in-hand, the devices are really fucking solid.
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Before all of you chimed in, I got antsy and bought a used HTC M9 on eBay. This is in part due to a number of reviews I read elsewhere regarding a number of vendors. I had been considering a Samsung after checking one out at Best Buy, but then a number of factors dissuaded me, including its full MSRP.
I also bought a LH Labs Geek Out V2, so we'll see how this combination fares.
The bulk of my music collection are low-res MP3s; only recently have I been specifically seeking out those at 320, or FLAC format. My intention is re-encode my own CD collection in FLAC. I am not yet willing to pay for tracks in 96/24, as the music I'd really want to hear in that resolution doesn't appear to be readily available (e.g., Soft Machine).
As for headsets, I have a pair of Sennheiser HD280 Pros and a set of Shure SE315s. Given my $cottish blood and lifestyle, I find both to be adequate but may upgrade at some point (the price tag on the SE846s freaked me out). I like the Sennheisers because they fold up for easy travel, are comfortable, offer decent bass response and didn't require a bank loan.
As for Meizu, their product offerings look interesting but their website didn't offer any way to purchase in the U.S., where I'll be using my smartphone on the Verizon network.
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Good thing about the M9 is if you end up finding / learning about something better (moto x and nexus 5-whatever both release in the coming months), M9 should still have decent resell value. M10 probably won't drop until January...
(the price tag on the SE846s freaked me out)
It should. At that price I recommend you look into custom IEMs. The SE846 does have outlandish bass, which I think some people like, but they also stick out past the plane of your pinnae. I found the bass and fit to be unworkable, especially in the face of the numerous capable CIEMs in the $400-600 price range. The fact that going price is STILL 4 figures is astonishing.
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Meizu is alright from my point of view, nothing exciting, definitely not worth the trouble to use it in the US. Just buy a Moto G instead.
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Before all of you chimed in, I got antsy and bought a used HTC M9 on eBay. This is in part due to a number of reviews I read elsewhere regarding a number of vendors. I had been considering a Samsung after checking one out at Best Buy, but then a number of factors dissuaded me, including its full MSRP.
Congrats on your M9! I have an M8 and I enjoy listening to it with my UE18s directly. I need to get around to picking up a UHA-6S MKII eventually but the M8+UE18 combo is good enough for me to be happy on long-haul flights for work. I like AIMP as my music player, as it supports all the lossless formats, cuesheets, and gapless playback. It's one of the few phones with microSD support, too. It's easy to connect the HTC to a DAC. I was able to figure out how to get my M8 to output to a Hugo in just a few minutes. I also love how it supports universal media storage, and I can easily hook it up to any PC. I wish I could manage the file structure without an external computer, though.
The thing I really like about the M8 is the power saver feature. It's easier to use than the Nexus 6, and I've been able to listen to music an entire US to EU flight and still have over 70% of my battery remaining without charging the phone on old planes without USB or AC jacks.
The speakers on the M8 are much better than the Nexus 6. I use both phones everyday, and I'll always reach for the M8 when watching stuff on YouTube or Twitch even though the screen is smaller. It's also pretty sturdy. I've dropped it multiple times without a case without any visible screen cracks. The Nexus 6 wasn't anywhere near as durable.
Battery is awesome. If I leave it on power saver, even with GPS+Waze, I can get home with about 70-80% after a full day. The battery only really drains after a lot of wifi/4G use. I've had the phone for a year and a half now and I can squeeze 2-3 days out of it if I'm not using it aggressively. Camera sucks though--iPhone 6 has it completely beat.