• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Sound Quality from 3.5mm jack

Klipsch S4 isn't something I'd call audiophile quality. Ultimate Ears 18 Pro is where you start getting audiophile quality.

Still, we're not even debating anywhere close to that. On just my $140 Audeo PFE Phonaks, the quality difference is ample.

Without an impedance adapter, it sounds a little garbage. With an impedance adapter it sounds like a 128kbps MP3 from a poor encoder.
 
greenrolaids said:
thats why i researched for a few weeks before i bought my mp3 player.

The mp3 players that topped the list for audio quality were a few sony's and the sansa mp3 players.

Apple's products hit nearly the bottom for overall sound quality, But you need high end head phones to tell the difference.

There is a reason why 99% of the folks that subscribe to the site Head-Fi.org don't use apple or Beats by dre.. ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah I've been reading head-fi for years. As with any forum, there's elitists but it's still good for researching. Dedicated devices will always do their one function better but it's nice having a device that can do a ton of things very well. I'm gonna have to see how the Incredible sounds on higher end ear buds though.
 
here is some scientific testing of the HTC Droid Incredible's 3.5mm headphone jack. this is pink noise played out of the headphone jack and input into my laptops microphone jack. i calibrated the sound card on my laptop so these results should be accurate.

pink%20noise%20test%20from%20droid%20inc%20%232.jpg


pretty flat. the top end has a slight decline, but it's not a sharp drop by any means.

for anybody that has never done any measuring of audio with a pink noise track it will look jagged. you are supposed to take several measurements and average them together. this is just one quick measurment, so it will look jagged.
 
FlyPenFly said:
Droid jack apparently has all sorts of problems because of the way it's mounted.

The best DAC I've heard out of a portable device was the first generation iPod Shuffle which had an unusually excellent DAC that exceeded anything out there under $500.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to be able to match up to Apple's DACs in the iPhones or iPods.
Click to expand...


Go to head-fi.org and then come back when you realize that apples mp3 players pale in comparison to Sony, Cowen, Sansa.
 
jasonb: how should we interpret that graph?


Greenrolaids: Are you some sort jihadist extremist anti-Apple crusader? I like Apple products just fine and I also like other makers as well, take a
chill_pill.preview.jpg
 
FlyPenFly said:
jasonb: how should we interpret that graph?
Click to expand...

are you familiar with frequency response charts?

if not, this is the frequency response of the 3.5mm headphone jack. a flatter line is better/more accurate. to me it looks pretty good. it could be flatter, but should sound pretty accurate.

this pretty much disproves your claims of the highs being missing, and the low being cut/clipped off early. the top end has a slight, but very slow taper, and the low end is extended to where it should be. it starts to slowly drop at 20hz or so which is good.
 
Hmmm are there any other charts you have done before we can compare it to other devices using the same setup? What volume level was that taken at or does that not matter?

Does the flatter line indicate noise levels or something else?
 
FlyPenFly said:
Hmmm are there any other charts you have done before we can compare it to other devices using the same setup? What volume level was that taken at or does that not matter?

Does the flatter line indicate noise levels or something else?
Click to expand...

i don't have other devices to compare to. i could compare it to an Ipod Nano that i have but no longer use, but i don't feel like it. there's no point.

like i said, the flatter the better and it is relatively flat. not perfect, but nothing is missing or obviously off. actually, saying that flatter is better will be a matter of opinion. this is why EQ's were invented, people don't usually prefer a flat response.

anyway, everything will sound pretty accurate. you won't notice any oddities here. the headphones or speakers you're using will have more of an effect than the Inc's output, as will the audio file itself.

this measurement was taken with the Inc's volume at 13 out of 15. this is the level i use when i plug it into my car, and usually the highest i'll use when using headphones.

i don't know what you mean about "flatter line indicating noise". the test was done by loading a pink noise track onto the phone. the track was played back by the stock sense player. the phone was hooked with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable from the phones headphone jack to my laptops mic input jack.
 
I use a pair of Sleek Audio SA6 IEMs. Simply put, I will not be listening to music w/ the incredible. That being said, I never expected the incredible to have great SQ, and never had plans to use it as a music player.
 
atmn77 said:
I use a pair of Sleek Audio SA6 IEMs. Simply put, I will not be listening to music w/ the incredible. That being said, I never expected the incredible to have great SQ, and never had plans to use it as a music player.
Click to expand...

what's wrong with listening to music on your Inc? can you be more specific about what you don't like?
 
I use mine for work with Pandora all day. It could be for other reasons, but my BB Storm seemed to have more robust sound than the Incredible, but for what it's worth, I am just listening to music at work, so as long as it doesn't sound like a 56kbps MP3, I will be ok.
 
clokwork said:
I use mine for work with Pandora all day. It could be for other reasons, but my BB Storm seemed to have more robust sound than the Incredible, but for what it's worth, I am just listening to music at work, so as long as it doesn't sound like a 56kbps MP3, I will be ok.
Click to expand...

robust like more bass?

i imagine a lot more people would be happier if the Inc or any android phone had an adjustable EQ.

when i use mine with my car or home stereo it sounds fine because both stereo's are tuned to my liking so the Inc sounds great on both. with headphones, you'll need to do some research if you want to get a pair you'll like. since there is no way to adjust the sound you'll need to get a pair that have the frequency response you like. the headphones i chose sound great on my Inc, i guess i lucked out.
 
jasonb1985 said:
what's wrong with listening to music on your Inc? can you be more specific about what you don't like?
Click to expand...

I don't have time to go too in depth. In short, my very brief use w/ the incredible has yielded a sort of empty and unbalanced sound signature. In general, tracks don't sound very "full". The lows sound a little weak, and some mids sometimes sound a little "overpronounced" as if they've been boosted heavily by an equalizer. This can yield very harsh SQ. I can't stand music at mid to high volumes.

That being said, it's really not that bad. And if you're not very critical about SQ, you probably won't be all that disappointed. Higher quality headphones will generally bring out imperfections in both the quality of your mp3s and the DAC, more so than if you use <$50 headphones.
 
jasonb1985 said:
robust like more bass?

i imagine a lot more people would be happier if the Inc or any android phone had an adjustable EQ.

when i use mine with my car or home stereo it sounds fine because both stereo's are tuned to my liking so the Inc sounds great on both. with headphones, you'll need to do some research if you want to get a pair you'll like. since there is no way to adjust the sound you'll need to get a pair that have the frequency response you like. the headphones i chose sound great on my Inc, i guess i lucked out.
Click to expand...

The lows were what I noticed first, but it seems to be generally weaker across the entire spectrum. I noticed this, but like most, I shook this off basically because it's my mobile device and I didn't expect superb sound ouput. If it did have great sound, that would have been icing on the cake to me though...
 
jasonb1985 said:
i don't have other devices to compare to. i could compare it to an Ipod Nano that i have but no longer use, but i don't feel like it. there's no point.

like i said, the flatter the better and it is relatively flat. not perfect, but nothing is missing or obviously off. actually, saying that flatter is better will be a matter of opinion. this is why EQ's were invented, people don't usually prefer a flat response.

anyway, everything will sound pretty accurate. you won't notice any oddities here. the headphones or speakers you're using will have more of an effect than the Inc's output, as will the audio file itself.

this measurement was taken with the Inc's volume at 13 out of 15. this is the level i use when i plug it into my car, and usually the highest i'll use when using headphones.

i don't know what you mean about "flatter line indicating noise". the test was done by loading a pink noise track onto the phone. the track was played back by the stock sense player. the phone was hooked with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable from the phones headphone jack to my laptops mic input jack.
Click to expand...


I think he meant the flat line at 73.3 that is also on your chart.
 
My Klipsch S4s sound pretty great on my Incredible. I've found the S4s have very strong lows and highs and sort of weak mids, so that may be why they're good to pair with the Incredible's output. I have somewhat sensitive hearing and imperfections in sound bother me, however I don't have a lot of excess money to spend and the S4s serve me well. They sound like $200+ phones when listening to rap or electronic music. Rock / folk kind of stuff suffers a bit but still doesn't sound horrible. I really recommend them.
 
Reiker said:
My Klipsch S4s sound pretty great on my Incredible. I've found the S4s have very strong lows and highs and sort of weak mids, so that may be why they're good to pair with the Incredible's output. I have somewhat sensitive hearing and imperfections in sound bother me, however I don't have a lot of excess money to spend and the S4s serve me well. They sound like $200+ phones when listening to rap or electronic music. Rock / folk kind of stuff suffers a bit but still doesn't sound horrible. I really recommend them.
Click to expand...


+1 they are hella sick. Got mine for $80 sound like $200-$300.

They take many hours to break in until they sound great.

Haven't been able to test yet tho, left them at home.
 
FlyPenFly said:
I've just been spoiled by the fantastic output from even an iPod Shuffle and the iPhone. I think it will be fine for listening to podcasts and light music duty while I commute but just another checkmark of disappointment in the hardware.
Click to expand...

Maybe as far as phones go, but in terms of DAP's the whole iPod line is seriously weak. Stacked up against Creative's players they're just lifeless.

For the record, until I test out some other players I'm not sure I'll comment on the Incredible's capabilities. My music sounds different on my laptop if it comes out of Audacious vs MPD vs Exaile.
 
Last time I looked into DAPs was in 2007 so I guess since then the market has caught up and exceeded but at the time I recall the Wolfsen DACs on the ipods were very good for the price.
 
Even at the time, iPods paled in comparison to Creative Zens. I never got why everyone thought iPods had such amazing sound; when I traded my Nano 1st gen in for a Sansa player it was a huge step up in audio quality.
 
FlyPenFly said:
I use some higher end balance armature earphones and also some regular traditional earphones.

Anyone else notice the sounds quality ... isn't exactly that great?

I hope its just me but the frequency range seem incomplete. The highs are missing and the low end is clipped out pretty early. The midrange is decent though.
Click to expand...


Compared to the Droid, the Inc has better depth, clarity and a little more volume. My N900 kicks both their butts, since it has a built in audio amp for the 3.5mm jack :)

If the phones you are using have above 16ohm impedance, you could have a lack of volume and resulting loss of gain (hence less sound quality), since the volume is not loud enough to push high impedance buds.

The Vmoda metals work great and are 16ohms. Also of all places, Walmart sells some Altec Lansing buds made out of wood, for $25. They have the best sound I have heard in buds for under $100. I kid not :eek: They work well with the Incredible :)

I prefer those to my UE's and Vmoda's. Better depth and clarity than those buds. It could be my imagination, but sounds good to me :)

added:

I am not kidding about the Wally world buds. They are amazing for the price.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom