GPS performance (and some other questions) - HTC One X+

I'm looking to change my current smartphone for the HTC One X+, and I'm asking myself some questions:
Is the GPS performance any good?
I use it to keep track of my run and use it as a training tool, is it good and performant for GPS and tracking?
How is the sound when recording video?
I know it won't be as good as real equipement, but if you record a video in a loud environement, will it be any good?
How is the internal speaker?
Is it good enough to play a little bit of music on the go or it sounds like a cheap speaker?
Thanks to anyone!

Related

Video Settings

On my old HD2 the video wasn't bad but when i was in a club and took some vids the bass distortion was always there,i tried playing around with the settings but still couldn't get rid of the distortion, with the GS2 having more settings can someone recommend what settings i should set if if im looking to shoot some vids in a club playing dance music,basically i don't want heavy bass distortion i want it to be smooth and clear.
thanks
Basically, dont use your phone to record in such situations as the mic simply is not designed for such applications.
I really dont think any amount of tweaking the settings will help.
The mic is simply too small to cope with the levels it will be subjected to.
But ive seen recordings taken by other people who's phone wouldn't be half as good as the GS2 and there is no bass distortion so im thinking there has to be a way, i don't particularly want to, and cant really afford a camcorder,if you've spent this much money on a phone that is capable of 1080 recording surely eradicating bass distortion should be able to be achieved, or can anyone even recommend an app that could be capable of this.
cheers
had the same problems with recording my son's rock bank music. We tried out many things and ended up putting a little cotton with a clear film on top of the mic . After this the bass came softer and didn't swallow the rest of the music. However, my son had the better idea, we recorded the sound with an external recorder and sync the sound later onto the video. that worked perfect except it is a little work but when you have to cut your video you can easily edit the sound during the cut.
hope this helped
RbbCHan said:
had the same problems with recording my son's rock bank music. We tried out many things and ended up putting a little cotton with a clear film on top of the mic . After this the bass came softer and didn't swallow the rest of the music. However, my son had the better idea, we recorded the sound with an external recorder and sync the sound later onto the video. that worked perfect except it is a little work but when you have to cut your video you can easily edit the sound during the cut.
hope this helped
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah covering the mic to attenuate the levels is a pretty good idea.
There are a lot of variables involved as well. Ie. distance from the sound source, where you are in the building, overall freq spectrum coming from the source at the time of recording etc.....
Trial and error.....
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face.......
Is there some type of app or program which can reduce bass distortion?
I haven't actually used the video yet at any gigs or clubs but i will be doing so.

Whats your hands-free call quality like?

Hi guys and gals, please tell me, what is the hands-free call quality like on your S2. My one is rather rubbish and am not sure if it's faulty or they're all like that.
Sounds great using it up to my ear though.
My old phone, it was virtually impossible to tell I was using on hands-free, my S2 has very poor sound quality on hands-free, is not a big issue but is it normal?
Also the wired headset qualities not very good. On both my voice sounds like it's being played back after being recorded on a very poor quality bit rate. many thanks
Any thoughts much appreciated
Great quality for calls, very good for music, with my AKG K390 IEMs, my backup phones.
My main IEMs - Sennheiser IE8 - are wasted on the SGS2 for music, the AKGs are great all-rounders for me.
The stock went straight in the trash - they're crap. IMO...

[Q] Best earphones for the Wolfson chip?

Hi guys,
Any ideas what would be the best music player (MP3) app and earphones to go with the S3?
I'm currently on the stock earphones, and it sounds kind of flat, even with live 7.1 switched on.
Any good recommendations?
Sony EX510
Sound magic e10
monster turbine gold (these are quite expensive but they sound amazing and have a lifetime warranty)
http://www.head-fi.org/f/103/portable-headphones-earphones-and-in-ear-monitors
The best will cost you more than the phone itself. It all depends on your budget, but that link above will guide you. Probably the best forum on earphones out there.
Best app?
If you're an audiophile and want the best sound quality then it has to be neutron player but that has a horrible ui.
Poweramp would be my second choice where the ui is more friendly and mainstream and the sound quality is still noticeably better than the maintstream music apps out there.
P.S every single person in that earphone forum will slam you if you even so much as hint that beats headphones sound good.
Monster Beats Solo HD + Play Music (v4.3.605.392829 (jellyBean)
very nice
I prefer earphones such as the AKG K324(P)
to fat headphones.
However the best earphones only bring so much if the Samsung-software has limitations.
You should get the Siyahkernel which ports the old Voodoo from S1 to the S3 and bring an awesome quality boost. Enabling Dynamic Range and setting Bassboost to "small speaker" further increments the experience.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
This thread here is a review of 200+ earphones grouped into different price brackets for easy viewing:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/478568/mul...00-monster-miles-davis-trumpet-added-06-19-12
Pick your price bracket and read through the reviews of the earphones that fall in that range. The people in that forum are way more experienced in this area than the majority of posters here who will end up recommending you the wrong thing.
It's like going on a car forum and then asking them whats the best rom to use on your phone. The majority of posters would be of no actual help to you and you're better off asking people who are more knowledgeable on the topic.
Switch off 7.1. Majority of music for consumers is stereo so just 2.0. 7.1 would modify it further from the way it was meant to be heard. Also if you haven't done so already make sure your mp3's have a bit rate of 320kbps or are in a lossless format.
1. Ultimate Ears Triple fi 10 Earphones
2. PowerAmp[1] Pro[2]
3. Your music in .flac
My combination exactly.
We have dif ears and taste in music... no one can tell you what's best except your ears... Source (S3) is already good sounding, what you need is a good medium (no lower than 256kbps mp3/aac or even loseless FLAC) and a good player app (Poweramp)... Headphones? its for you to decide... Music to my ears might be noise for you (example: most of people likes bass, a lot of lows... not for me, i hate artificial bass thats why i hate the Hiphop Genres and alike... im more of classical/jazz guy, so i have to choose what headphone that suits to my prefered genres) .. Hope this help
jaytana said:
We have dif ears and taste in music... no one can tell you what's best except your ears... Source (S3) is already good sounding, what you need is a good medium (no lower than 256kbps mp3/aac or even loseless FLAC) and a good player app (Poweramp)... Headphones? its for you to decide... Music to my ears might be noise for you (example: most of people likes bass, a lot of lows... not for me, i hate artificial bass thats why i hate the Hiphop Genres and alike... im more of classical/jazz guy, so i have to choose what headphone that suits to my prefered genres) .. Hope this help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And that is the problem a big majority are not asking for sound quality but more BOOM BOOM distortion .
jje
exactly... thats why thread like this will continue in a way that there will be no ending...

Audio quality tested on 2012 Xperias

Hi Xperia users!
I've been doing some basic research into which of the 2012 Xperias have the best audio quality, as tested on sites such as
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_sola-review-766p5.php
The tests that this site does focuses on: Frequency response, Noise level , Dynamic range, THD and IMD Noise and stereo crosstalk.
I've tried pasting results here but it becomes a mess. If you have one of these phones already, you can click on your phone from here: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony-phones-7.php
and click on skip to review of music player to find out how your phone performs. From what I can see, Sony's 2012 phones on the whole, don't compare well. The audio output through the speaker is generally excellent, but through the earphones there is a significant drop in quality across the board. If you look through the results, you can compare a phone with almost anything you like, but I focussed on the Xperia S, Arc and all the Apple iPhones and the latest iPod classic. A key element in performance seems to be not performing well in just one area, but across all of them, which the reviewers from the site claim is what makes Apple products the best in the business.
Any comments? Any notes?
I'm in the market for a newer Xperia, but unfortunately, I'm not sure there is a good iPod replacement in this list. The more mid-range Go beats the S and Sola high end phones. I would love to hear Sony's reasoning for this. Also, one of my 2011 phones, while not expensive, beats all of the 2012 phones according to these tests which I don't understand. Any guidance or perspective? I really appreciate the results of tests like these which overcome human bias and subjectivity with terribly overused words such as 'crisp' and 'clear sound' etc. but on the other hand, I realise that numbers in a test don't indicate audio pleasure...so personal and practical use is relevant. :victory:
Are these results reliable do you think? Anything else to consider?
XS: the DAC (think 'soundcard') is great, the headphones themselves are ****ty. Get something better and you'll have really nice sound.
i am also interested in this. i am planning to but Xperia S in saturday but have my worries about the sound quality. its using the same sound chip with sensation xe and the sensation. i can tell that from the frequency graph of them all. they all have same vibrating between 1K 10K.. but when i look at the dynamic range (the ability of pruducing the most differet notes at the same time) and the noise level (basicly the loudness without losing the clearity) are worse than sensation brothers. we can adjust them easily with software (because the difference is something like %1).
but the most important part is the distortions. i mean you can listen your music with %1-2 less volume but no one would want to listen any distorted sound. sony seems like doing better on the IMD+ values but the most important is Total Harmonic distortion and it is very high on the xperia S. however, by looking at the positive values of the sensation XE i believe this problem can be sorted out with software too..
in real life? with a lossless music or comparison sound file we can feel the difference by listening to both an ipod and sony xperia s with the same earphones. and luckily we can change our sound chip software by flashing new mods. and we also can use cyanogenmod which enchances the sound capabilities of many devices.
so there is no way of measuring what we can do with a fully sound tweaked sony device (maybe we can ask gsmarena to run their regular test on a tweaked sony device) but there is room for development in sound department too for sure
That's a really interesting point about tweaking devices. I'm not totally sure I can rely on it though - my last Xperia phone had great audio tweaks but on my latest Xperia phone, all of the audio mods that I've tried detracted from quality, not added so I uses stock audio options.
Good to see someone else in the market for a new phone on the same line of thought as me. I was almost definitely going to get the Xperia Sola but the audio tests on that site indicate it is WEAK with audio! Other phones like the GO which are not marketed as multimedia devices have much, much better results. I cannot buy the Sola if the audio is that bad.
I was going to ask can there be any compromise on the performance indicated; there were around 5 criteria tested, would you buy a phone that ranked poorly on one of them, two of them?
K900 said:
XS: the DAC (think 'soundcard') is great, the headphones themselves are ****ty. Get something better and you'll have really nice sound.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have the Xperia S?
This is the first thing that i felt when i moved from Lg Optimus Black to Sony Xperia S: a drop in sound quality. I use a Koss Porta Pro in everyday listening.
I think the Xperia S has excellent sound quality. To give you some context, I used to own a Creative Zen Vision:M MP3 player, which sounded better than all the iPods and iPhones I compared it with (up to iPhone 4). I wasn't expecting my Xperia S to replace the Zen, but to my surprise it actually sounded better to my ears. The general frequency response is a bit flatter and it's a lot clearer.
I also compared it with a Cowon Z2 (which many people believe to be the best-sounding MP3 player out there) and there was very little difference. Believe me, the Xperia S is a very good music player indeed. The review on the site you posted said it: "A solid overall performance, which should please anyone but the most demanding audiophiles."
As the review states, the only limitation is a bit of distortion at higher volumes, but we're talking deafening volumes here. There's also a way around it, if you're really serious: a portable headphone amp (I use a cheap but very good Fiio E6), enables you to take the clean lower-volume signal from your phone and amplify it cleanly through your headphones. However, I can assure you it sounds fine without an amplifier.
That is very interesting ^^
I was hoping there might be people who take the holistic view too; looking at the stats but also just listening to what your ears tell you. I'm truly open to these ideas. I was particularly looking at the Sola, but of all the 2012 phones it's stats are the worst. Is that really something to worry about? That info. on the S really changes things...:fingers-crossed:
p.s. I found another site that does these tests. Some of the results differ a little, I guess different testing equipment and earphones. There are 3 very different results for the iPod 6th gen. With that kind of variance, maybe the results for the 2012 Xperias is one snapshot - and not definitive?? For anyone interested,
here's the list of devices tested: (no Xperias unfortunately) http://www.markuskraus.com/RMAA/rmaa complete - html.html
Here is the 6th gen iPod Classic: http://www.markuskraus.com/RMAA/iPodClassicFiiOE1/data.htm
The iPhone 4S: http://www.markuskraus.com/RMAA/iphone4s/data.htm
Also, on this site: http://macintoshhowto.com/itunes/which-ipod-has-the-best-audio-quality.html they keep talking about the audio chip used in devices. They mention that certain iPhones and Galaxies use the Wolfson audio chip, which seems to very highly regarded.
Here is a great article on smartphone audio, audio chips and stats comparison: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/0...ne-x-isnt-amazing-at-all-even-by-the-numbers/
SharpnShiny said:
That is very interesting ^^
I was hoping there might be people who take the holistic view too; looking at the stats but also just listening to what your ears tell you. I'm truly open to these ideas. I was particularly looking at the Sola, but of all the 2012 phones it's stats are the worst. Is that really something to worry about? That info. on the S really changes things...:fingers-crossed:
p.s. I found another site that does these tests. Some of the results differ a little, I guess different testing equipment and earphones. There are 3 very different results for the iPod 6th gen. With that kind of variance, maybe the results for the 2012 Xperias is one snapshot - and not definitive?? For anyone interested,
here's the list of devices tested: (no Xperias unfortunately) http://www.markuskraus.com/RMAA/rmaa complete - html.html
Here is the 6th gen iPod Classic: http://www.markuskraus.com/RMAA/iPodClassicFiiOE1/data.htm
The iPhone 4S: http://www.markuskraus.com/RMAA/iphone4s/data.htm
Also, on this site: http://macintoshhowto.com/itunes/which-ipod-has-the-best-audio-quality.html they keep talking about the audio chip used in devices. They mention that certain iPhones and Galaxies use the Wolfson audio chip, which seems to very highly regarded.
Here is a great article on smartphone audio, audio chips and stats comparison: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/0...ne-x-isnt-amazing-at-all-even-by-the-numbers/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just get the Sola, then get the Wireless Bluetooth Pro Sony headphones which have the new Wofson decoder which is about the best mobile decoder around. I have done that and it is great. Best of both worlds.
mrsatan said:
Just get the Sola, then get the Wireless Bluetooth Pro Sony headphones which have the new Wofson decoder which is about the best mobile decoder around. I have done that and it is great. Best of both worlds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only seen the promo yesterday, she is a sexy beast! :highfive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVS36ggZz1o
hey,
just trust your ears, don't see bad or good depend on testing etc...
i have xperia s, arc, w995, aino, iPod nano 4
the best sound quality for me is
1.W995 (but lack of FLAC)
2. XS (can play FLAC)
3.Aino
4. Arc
5.iPod. ipod sounds great, but after i used itu 2 years, becomes crap sound (don't know why) maybe bad capacitor?
i used FLAC or WAV in my phone (85%)
Which phone do you have now? FLAC eeh? That must burn up the battery! Do you still have an iPod now too? Which one? The iPod I'm using now is the 6th generation Classic. I'll almost definitely have a new phone next week.
SharpnShiny said:
Which phone do you have now? FLAC eeh? That must burn up the battery! Do you still have an iPod now too? Which one? The iPod I'm using now is the 6th generation Classic. I'll almost definitely have a new phone next week.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how can one get better once one've had the best? lol.. imo, FLAC is the best audio compression right now the battery drain isnt that much.. but the quality of the audio, is that much .. remember when talking bout audio, it's "garbage in, garbage out.."
and yeah, just trust your ears, and dont forget that synergy made better sound than all that graphs and frequency.. and what i meant in synergy is the hardware (dac, dsp, etc), the software (in sxs: walkman and its sound enhancement ), and of course the output (earphone, headphone, speaker, etc)
i did a quick test in flac-listening in SXS (unknown dac , walkman) and SGS3 (the so called wolfson dac, stock audio player), with Yuin PK3 (imho, a decent earphone), and i found out that SXS did sound better. well, i've seen there are mods for sgs3's audio, but didnt try them, both phone are at default (in terms of audio )
m1st3r1 said:
how can one get better once one've had the best? lol.. imo, FLAC is the best audio compression right now the battery drain isnt that much.. but the quality of the audio, is that much .. remember when talking bout audio, it's "garbage in, garbage out.."
and yeah, just trust your ears, and dont forget that synergy made better sound than all that graphs and frequency.. and what i meant in synergy is the hardware (dac, dsp, etc), the software (in sxs: walkman and its sound enhancement ), and of course the output (earphone, headphone, speaker, etc)
i did a quick test in flac-listening in SXS (unknown dac , walkman) and SGS3 (the so called wolfson dac, stock audio player), with Yuin PK3 (imho, a decent earphone), and i found out that SXS did sound better. well, i've seen there are mods for sgs3's audio, but didnt try them, both phone are at default (in terms of audio )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its many Sony's software and optimizations that make it sound good. Wolfson is the best DAC when tested, while Sony uses a run of the mill snapdragon DAC. Just goes to show Sony knows sound.
FLAC actually doesn't drain more battery because it uses less calculations to decode.
K900 said:
FLAC actually doesn't drain more battery because it uses less calculations to decode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think we should not consider "compressed" music files like zip or rar files. because they are compressed in an unusable way and needed to be unzipped to become usable again and once they are uncompressed there is no loss in the actual data. so in order to be able to use (listen/watch/execute) a compressed data you need to make lots of procceses through CPU.
however that is not the case in the compressed audio. when compressing a lossless (just recorded the way it was played in real life) audio the codec (or whatever it is that has the alghoritm to compress) listens and analysis the audio and decides which sound to combine. for example; imagine 3 different waves are present at the same time and the alghoritm creates a 4th wave which has the very similar sound of those 3 played at the same time and it records that 4th one only instead of the first 3. and there are some certain signals that give the impression of surrounding when applied to human ear. finally the alghoritm writes these signals on to the "simulated" waves.
so, basically when we listen an mp3 or any other compressed audio we have the impression of hearing everything but actually we hear a replicated sound which is very very much similar to the total amount of the original sounds for the human ear.
since both FLAC and the mp3 formats are both read only and there is no real time compressing and uncompressing every time the, load on the CPU (or the DAC) should be measured by the "waves" or "codes" that needed to be read. according to this we can say there is much more signal to read and convert to analog in FLAC files..
_delice_doluca_ said:
i think we should not consider "compressed" music files like zip or rar files. because they are compressed in an unusable way and needed to be unzipped to become usable again and once they are uncompressed there is no loss in the actual data. so in order to be able to use (listen/watch/execute) a compressed data you need to make lots of procceses through CPU.
however that is not the case in the compressed audio. when compressing a lossless (just recorded the way it was played in real life) audio the codec (or whatever it is that has the alghoritm to compress) listens and analysis the audio and decides which sound to combine. for example; imagine 3 different waves are present at the same time and the alghoritm creates a 4th wave which has the very similar sound of those 3 played at the same time and it records that 4th one only instead of the first 3. and there are some certain signals that give the impression of surrounding when applied to human ear. finally the alghoritm writes these signals on to the "simulated" waves.
so, basically when we listen an mp3 or any other compressed audio we have the impression of hearing everything but actually we hear a replicated sound which is very very much similar to the total amount of the original sounds for the human ear.
since both FLAC and the mp3 formats are both read only and there is no real time compressing and uncompressing every time the, load on the CPU (or the DAC) should be measured by the "waves" or "codes" that needed to be read. according to this we can say there is much more signal to read and convert to analog in FLAC files..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know how it works. Yet, due to specifics of the implementation, FLAC is faster to decode in the specific case of Android.
Ok.. after reading this thread, I decided to compare the audio quality of my SXS with my good old Samsung wave (having wolfson DAC), and my cousin's ipod nano. I am no audiophile here, but to my ear the SXS sounds the best with wave & ipod definitely sounding louder (but bit harsher). I used the default music players and philips shp 2700 to compare them. Tbh my eyes (wrt camera output) n ears (wrt sound quality) really don't go along with the gsmarena test results! Thats just my opinion.
BTW, has anyone tested the auido quality through bluetooth? since i ll be using it with my cars bluetooth i wonder if i ll get any problems with the audio quality or the bluetooth itself..
Dpk1 said:
Ok.. after reading this thread, I decided to compare the audio quality of my SXS with my good old Samsung wave (having wolfson DAC), and my cousin's ipod nano. I am no audiophile here, but to my ear the SXS sounds the best with wave & ipod definitely sounding louder (but bit harsher). I used the default music players and philips shp 2700 to compare them. Tbh my eyes (wrt camera output) n ears (wrt sound quality) really don't go along with the gsmarena test results! Thats just my opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for sharing your results! I was beginning to wonder which devices everyone has here, we could mention which you think works best for you and run with it.
I've been using and testing music on various Xperias and iPods over the last few years. My nanos beat my classic and yet my 2011 Xperia has clearer sound with less hissing, especially at higher volume.
As I've been exploring on another thread, to get the best out of your Xperia on Android, it seems we need better class SD cards (I'm now looking at only class 10) to overcome the longer 'distance' that the data has to travel (computer, cable, phone, SD vs iPod 'distance' of computer, cable, iPod) and such an SD would boost transfer speed of course. I want to get each piece right; quality of audio on phone, better SD and perhaps cable and better earphones.

[Q] GPS Performance (and other questions)

I'm looking to change my current smartphone for the Optimus G, and I'm asking myself some questions:
Is the GPS performance any good?
I use it to keep track of my run and use it as a training tool, is it good and performant for GPS and tracking?
How is the sound when recording video?
I know it won't be as good as real equipement, but if you record a video in a loud environement, will it be any good?
How is the internal speaker?
Is it good enough to play a little bit of music on the go or it sounds like a cheap speaker?
Thanks to anyone!
t1mman said:
I'm looking to change my current smartphone for the Optimus G, and I'm asking myself some questions:
Is the GPS performance any good?
I use it to keep track of my run and use it as a training tool, is it good and performant for GPS and tracking?
How is the sound when recording video?
I know it won't be as good as real equipement, but if you record a video in a loud environement, will it be any good?
How is the internal speaker?
Is it good enough to play a little bit of music on the go or it sounds like a cheap speaker?
Thanks to anyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These are all compared to the GS3 since that was the device I had up to this one, this phone is much snappier the GPS locks quicker and seems very accurate. The internal speaker seems higher quality as well not tinny and seems to have decent over all sound. As for the sound from video I have not tried that yet but my experience with others phones is not very good.

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