[ZTE Axon 7 Questions & Answers] matthewpreiss92:
My first post on here but here goes: (My review of the audio)

So I purchased the Axon 7 mainly for the audio quality as I wanted all the nice features and performance of the Galaxy S7 but with much better audio quality and for the most part I can say it delivers exactly what I expected.

Let me first say I'm a wanna be audiophile who has a significant bias towards highs and mids. Luckily that's what the Axon 7 seems to do best, highs and mids. I did many direct comparison's between the Axon 7 and my friends Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon version) and played many different identical songs at 320kbps. To anyone who has or plans on using the Axon 7 for music listening I highly recommend turning of Dolby Atmos for surround sound. Before I turned it off Free Bird (among many other songs) sounded like hott garbage as everything was distorted completely unlike what's on record (I guess maybe some people like that but I doubt very many? so I recommend you turn it off as the clarity increases drastically without off).

Free Bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd): Oh my god does the Axon 7 win here, The upper mids and highest highs are really great and from what I can tell accurate on the phone, the separation (soundstage) is obviously way better on this phone with the stereo speakers, but the clarity as well is better than any phone I've ever experienced and impressive is definitely a word I would use to describe it.

Tornado of Souls (Megadeth): Another very clear obvious win as this song is mostly about mids to highs with very little bass. A song where the separation of the speakers really shows. Anything with dueling guitars or instruments and the Axon 7 will outperform mono speakers from a competing phone in almost any circumstance.

Kill the King (Megadeth): This song is very bass heavy at the beginning and as much as I hate a mono speakers I have to say the Galaxy S7 speaker is more balanced even if terrible overall (at least it has some bass, the Axon 7 has very little upper bass and no sub bass). I wouldn't say the Galaxy S7 has sub bass either as to my knowledge it's pretty impossible from speakers this small, but at least it has a decent amount of upper bass, even if it does get all muddied in the mono sound it at least has it present to be heard instead of almost non existent. Any time Bass would kick in on the Axon 7 it seemed like the volume would drop heavily, and that makes sense to me as they seemed to have tuned the speakers to be geared towards mainly mids and highs.

So to summarize:

Best in class Highs (I'm assuming, they're spectacular)

Good Mids

Great Separation

Little to non existent bass

Volume in comparison to the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 had 60% of the volume of the Axon 7, it beating both my LG G3 and the S7 handily, and satisfying me.

This phone won't sound as good as say a Soundlink Mini (or comparable top tier portable bluetooth speaker) but it will make you think twice before purchasing one if you don't already own one, that's how good the sound is.

And of course if you're buying this phone for the audio and you like bass, stay very far away.

Headphone amplification and quality seems to be pretty great actually. I've been running my Sennheiser HD 600's (300ohm) off both my 600 Ohm Soundblaster card and my Axon 7 and I can't really seem to tell much difference, the volume level being plenty what I need. In comparison to my LG G3 it seems to amplify the headphone significantly louder, where as the G3 struggled. Be aware though I have not spent tons of time critically testing the headphone amplification and quality so these opinions are more at first glance. But overall I'm very satisfied with the audio of the phone and it should be an upgrade from whatever phone you currently have.

Lastly on a side note my mic seems to suck. My friend always has trouble hearing me unless I point the mic straight at me, and if I talk on the other side of the phone she can't hear me at all, I'm wondering if my mic is defective or if the whole you can hear someone 26 feet away etc... was just all advertising bs. Overall though great phone was thinking about sending it back because I'm having a few issues like kik constantly losing my login but it does so many things so well it's really hard for me to let go of it. :good: