[Sony Xperia X Performance Guides, News, & Discussi] KWOKSFUNG:
Sony has always been the company that we believe to be superior in audio, right?

Yea, sometimes being able to do well doesn't mean they really want to do well...........

I still rememeber the days when the Xperia Z1 comes out in android 4.2/4.3 era, headphone audio quality sucks big time..... Extremely heavy background noise that I swear that sony engineer didn’t even test out. Overall audio quality is definitely worse than my old Xperia S.

Luckily, there comes xda audio mods and software update. Starting from 4.4 and especially lollipop era the sound of the Z1 has become incredibly better, especially with the help of sound mod, thanks to famous soundmodder like [MENTION=4699816]jimRnor[/MENTION], [MENTION=6126659]PDesire[/MENTION] and [MENTION=5733862]BlackSoulxxx[/MENTION]. Even the with the help of everyone, I’m feeling that the sound quality of Z1 is pretty much maxed out, I hear limitation of its clarity that all mods can’t really pass. (One of the honorable mention has to be Project Desire 5 from pretty long time ago, many people said it don’t work for them but it is one of the best audio mod I ever had on Z1, I really wowed that such clearity can be achieved on the crappy hardware)

So I recently decided to move on to the much newer X performance. And guess what, I can’t really say X performance beat my old Z1. (ofcoz we talk about headphone audio here, speaker of Z1 is complete crap and it’s waste of time to mention it)

Testing equipment:

Earphone:

Sony XBA A3 with RHAPSODIO Pandora SPC cable

Xperia Z1:

Rom: DstrikerZ1 Kai ROM SP004

Audio Mod: DreamOnMusicX Kisaragi V30ES

Kernel: XerXes Artemisia

Xperia X Performance:

Stock Nougat, locked bootloader

Test Song 1:

Once said –Shiga 16bit flac (説一句 – 連詩雅)

[IMG="Left: Xperia X Performance Right: Xperia Z1"]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81266466/comparison.jpg[/IMG]

With custom kernel provided I have the habit of boosting my Z1 to Headphones Digital Gain to +5. I tried to keep the settings when I start comparing with the X Performance. And Z1 has obviously got a upper hand in pushing the 32Ω A3 this way through delivering higher clarity and high tone and deeper bass.

To make the comparison a little fairer I had to turn down all gain in Z1 to zero.

Now sounding of both device become very similar, where Z1 actually still sound a bit sharper in high tone while delivering softer bass compared the X Performance. The bass of the XP is heavy and a bit too sharp which makes me feel a bit tiring, I cannot say which bass is better but I’d personally prefer the Z1 bass style. Though when I listen very carefully I found the vocal in the XP seems to be more clear.

Test Song

Cantabile Years- Eason Chan 24bit 48k flac (歲月如歌 - 陳奕迅)

So what’s better than to compare with an all-time classic Cantopop in 24bit 48k? “In 96k!!!!!!!”

…….. OK forgive me I don’t know why I can’t rip 96k out of it, the source I received for this SA CD is in ISO and I had a bit of trouble dealing with it. And yea, Z1 DOES NOT support hi-res officially, but with all modification on Hi-res will somehow work on it, so let’s test out anyway.

This time the X Performance give a noticeable thinker and deeper sound compared to the Z1. While both device actually carries the high-resolution detailed pretty well, the thickness on the X Performance makes it more natural.

Test Song 3: Have A Good Love - Alex Fong, Stephy Tang AAC (from iTunes store) (好好戀愛-方力申, 鄧麗欣)

Maybe comparing hi-res with a device that doesn’t support hi-res isn’t so fair. Time to compare some low quality lossy crap files that is more common :)

One of the thing Sony always brag about is the DSEE-HX being able to make lossy audio sound more lossless (or even hi-res). The modified Z1 is supposed to have DSEE ported from somewhere, but the toggle button doesn’t work so I have no clue if It’s actually functional. The X Perf should have definitely functional DSEE but even so I need to listen very carefully to hear the difference between on and off. In fact I never find DSEE very big thing myself as even with those expensive Walkman it doesn’t kick some heavy difference. Lossy sound a bit better through smoothening but it wont make 16bit flac sound like 24bit afterall. (Pioneer XDP 100R have a less gimmick upscale + super sampling function and it really have big effect, so screw dsee)

Ok back to the the test song. In this song I really had hard time comparing the two. It sounds really so similar that I can’t really say which one is better!! Only difference I can tell is in the XP the vocal is more smooth compared to the Z1. And I don’t think that’s due to DSEE coz in both condition XP doesn’t make noticeable difference. And I can’t say which one I like more for this song, u may say the not-so-smooth sound of Z1 is becoz it kicks more “clarity” or the XP has made the sound “more lossless”, or “blur” depends on u

Conclusion: Sony didn’t make a very high effort in enhancing audio quality so far. If u are expecting really excellent audio out of your phone Sony is probably not your choice unless they decide to add dedicated chips like S-Master in sometime, and I guess they won’t. I don’t mean XP is bad, it is still more than acceptable as a smart phone.

If you wonder how is sony audio compared to LG v20, I can tell u v20 is definitely better in my experience. Haven’t tried HTC10 yet can’t say anything.

That's all I can say for now, feel free to comment what u think about sony mobile audio quality :)