yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
It is driving me crazy that we can get this thing to output at 24bit/192k Hz or even just 24bit/96k (I would be perfectly fine with 96k as I can honestly barely tell the difference between 96 and 192).

I was listening to some 24bit vinyl stuff on my phone and I could help but wondered why it sounded "dull" for lack of a better term. Back into PC and all of a sudden all of the high end clarity is back (relieved to know I am not going deaf).

But this leads be to the question, our phones must be downsampling to 48K. Even Neutron says it can only sample 48hz so what the deal? I know the DAC in this phone is supposed to support something absurd like 32bit/356k Hz but it seems like it is only outputting 48K.

Is it just me, or are my ears lying to me lol???
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] mlknez:
You are correct. The phone downsamples and converts everything to 48khz pcm. Nobody who buys this phone seems to care about it and LG is not in any hurry to correct it.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] douger1957:
I rather suspect that the large majority of V20 owners don't have any true hi-res music files

.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] kms108:
If it's true hi res at DSD (DIFF), WAV 24/96 at least, or flac 24/96 or the very least flac 24/48, and with a good quality headset, IEM or CANS, you should hear the differences, forget the B&O one's, they don't make much differences, then you know the quality. Never compare the V20 with any standalone DAP, maybe low quality one's.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
I use a pair of AKG k240s when I am out and about. I use my Q701s often, but I was really eager to try the k501s with the v20, and I am really sad this phone isn't utilizing the DAC properly.

(I'm an AKG guy btw haha)
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] kms108:
My V20 seems to be using it, with the hifi dac toggled on and off , I can clearly hear the differences, when compared to my G5 hifi DAC, it sound slightly better, but only a marginal better, I think it all comes down to the quality of the components use, either way my sony ZX 2 sound way better, but my xperia X performance does not compare to the LG.

Ilike sony, you can see my IEM collection below in the sig, going to pickup a pair of MDR EX1000.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
To me it just sounds like when I toggle the hi-fi mode it is just pushing more voltage. Just a glorified "gain" control lol. It gets louder but no clearer and still sounds a bit hollow. when I compare to my sound blaster z direct stereo mode the v20 is crap. And it's saddening because we all know it has the hardware to be so much more. Some one get an LG rep in these forums lol.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] kms108:
I think it sound more that louder, it has a slight differences in tone.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] dvtq:
I have to admit that this is true when compare between my Xonar and the phone. I am very disappointed and the only reason I keep it cuz v10 is so slow now. Better Audio for audiophile?? my ass, just louder, all sounded like mp3, so why must we use flac. Not to mention the camera is super dull for late 2016.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] BROKEN1981:
I see you love to spread misinformation.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] BROKEN1981:
Go into LG world, HiFi and grab true high res music and play it in stock LG music app. You will see how well it works.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] mlknez:
Any player will play those files... however, every player is decimating the files down to 48khz prior to sending them to the DAC because the phone is reporting that 48khz pcm is the only available ability of the DAC.

---------- Post added at 09:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 PM ----------

Your player is playing the files, but before it sends the info to the DAC, it is decimating them to the best reported rate, which is 48khz pcm.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
I'm not sure what your on about, I have 24bit/192k files already, why do I need LGs? I also have tracks I have recorded at 24bit/96k and personally mixed and mastered my self. I know how down sample audio sounds.

The problem isn't the files its the fact that the DAC isn't outputting anything higher than 48k. I'm not sure if you have any other DACs you can test with but that fact that there is a major difference between my sound blaster z and the v20 is proof enough that the DAC isn't functioning as it should.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shwnr11:
Hearing is not a one sound fits all.

The DAC Hi-Fi on the V20 does an excellent job compaired to many other phones out there.

At least with my V20 I can hear the over all better quality of playback when turning on Hi-Fi. The music is much more rich. And tones that I have never heard in music before can now be heard.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
That doesn't change the fact that many of us bought this device for specific reason. Once of the biggest reason for me personally was because the ES9218 has some really impressive specifications. If supports DSD and yet converts to PCM. I have a problem with that, it isn't functioning as it should. It supports 32 bit stereo at an outrageous 384Khz and yet decimates everything to to 48Khz. So that means for those of us who have invested in good pair of cans, we are upset.

I am glad you think is sounds good and I don't want to take away from your experience but it does not change the fact that 24bit 96/192khz files sound like crap coming out of this phone compared to a DAC outputting the signal correctly.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shwnr11:
What are you using to play your files.

You mentioned neuron, but what about the stock player?

Its very possible that its not the phone that's the issue. But the software / player your using could be the problem instead.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] justthefacts:
Just received my male to female adapter today and all i got to say is Wawwww. I am hooked...:cool:
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
I have used the stock player, poweramp, neurtron, JetAudio lol all of them down-sample the audio. The phone is definitely the issue. If you have another DAC that outputs at 192kHz you would be able to tell very easily that the v20 is down sampling to 48kHz
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shwnr11:
Your software could be down sampling. Not the hardware.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
[MENTION=942177]shadowxaero[/MENTION] -

[MENTION=5824001]beavis5706[/MENTION] mentioned in his testing of the V10 that:

"I have done some more tests given the information provided here and I have come up with some answers. An interruption when switching the DAC on/off signifies a player that can output true hi-res. I did some test recordings on Audacity through the input on my laptop with a music file that has known frequency response up to 88,200Hz. The players that can output true hi-res (the ones that interrupt with DAC on/off) play those frequencies all the way up with no cutoff. The players that cannot (no interruption with DAC on/off) are using Android's internal resampler and are getting resampled to 48kHz (24,000Hz frequency response).

The players I have found that can output true hi-res are ZPlayer, PlayerPro, Shuttle+ (thank you stupc), LG stock music player, Google Play Music and ES File Explorer media player.

Having said that my ears tell me that all players work with the DAC. However only the ones I have listed above can output true hi-res. The rest, while they do still sound good and do benefit from the DAC, are not outputting true hi-res and are instead being resampled to 48kHz." (from post #7 of http://xdaforums.com/lg-v10/general/music-apps-using-dac-t3252596)

My understanding is that this is likely true for the V20 as well, as really only the OS and the hardware changed and it's extremely likely that LG did as little changes as possible considering their rocky start with the LG V10, which has the exact same re-sampling issue.

So that's 6 music player apps that actually bypass the down-sampling on the V10 and probably the V20, but the only way we can know for sure on the V20 is if someone with a similar test bench to [MENTION=5824001]beavis5706[/MENTION] can replicate his work on the V10 testing music player apps on the V20.

So who has a good sound card, test tones over 24 KHz in a hires file, and Audacity or the like?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] beavis5706:
So I see the same issues exist with the ESS DAC on the v20 too. I kind of figured so.

Looks like shadowxaero was able to tell something was off the same way I did, by ear. I too witnessed the same "dullness" when playing hires 24/96 files using Neutron.

Hanskey sent me a PM on this topic and I replied. However since I see there is more than one of you wondering about this I will share that message for all. Here it is...

It's actually come to my attention recently that those music apps that are resampling to 48kHz are actually using the Snapdragron DAC and not the ESS one. So any app that you had to use the DAC fix for is only allowing the use of the ESS headphone amp and is using Snapdragron as the DAC.

I haven't tested all the apps in that working list. However I know that ZPlayer, Shuttle+, PlayerPro (without DSP installed), MX Player (used as music player, HW decoder only) and LG stock music player are all working perfectly with the ESS DAC with no resampling.

Personally I use PlayerPro (without DSP installed) or LG stock player. I tried some of the other working ones but didn't care for the interface they used. However you may like some of those other players.

If you have any questions on how to test these players yourself please message me. It was very easy. All you need is a computer with Audacity installed and a male to male extension cable to connect phone to audio input on computer.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] imucarmen:
How come you don't use the DSP? I'm trying to decide which player to get and I was leaning towards pro player since it has the best EQ and the built in poweramp but I was wondering if I should also download the DSP with it. I'm very much a noob in this department so I'd like to know why you don't use the DSP. Thanks
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
I'm guessing here, but it's an educated one. I think no DSP, because DSP prevents working with the ES9218 DAC, but I'm sure [MENTION=5824001]beavis5706[/MENTION], will let us know more.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
Well I have a Sound Blaster Z, and I have Adobe Audition and I have some high res music. Any file in particular you have the you would like me to try so we can establish some sort of baseline?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
Any track that contains ultrasound above 24KHz will do the trick.

[MENTION=5824001]beavis5706[/MENTION] used "Daft Punk - Give Life Back to Music from the 24-bit/88.2kHz edition" for his testing, because it has up 88.2 KHz frequency tones.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] mlknez:
None of the players mentioned above truly work. None are sending bitperfect audio to the ES9218 DAC. Try sending a .dsf or .dff files to the DAC and see what happens.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
I'm sure that having direct measurements of the performance of music player apps on those files would be a very good thing, so maybe [MENTION=942177]shadowxaero[/MENTION] can add specific test tracks for .dsf and .dff files. I have no test-bed myself, my hires tracks don't encode ultrasound, and I have 0 flavors of DSD and thus I am completely useless.

However, despite your experience with good ol' Neutron it remains to be seen if there are bit-perfect PCM solutions that utilize the ES9218 and it sounds like shadowxaero will be performing tests to check music players for that, which would be a step in the right direction. In actual direct output testing several music player apps that fully utilized the ESS DAC on the V10 were found, based on capturing ultrasound outputs from those apps that was over 24 KHz. Those ultrasound frequencies could not possible be captured if the V10 was ALWAYS limited to 48KHz, so that's objective testing disproving that assertion, at least on the V10, which has effectively the same exact problem as the V20. We'll see if those V10 results hold up on the V20, [MENTION=2283959]mlknez[/MENTION], and if so then you're simply wrong that all audio is re-sampled to 48KHz on the V20. At the moment, PowerAmp, Neutron and UAPP as well as other complex DSP-filled players we're all used to using, appear to have the issue, not ALL player apps.

We are clearly seeing the challenges inherent to adding hardware Android does not anticipate and where the developer (LG) fails to account for how people want to use their device. Or maybe they are being savvy, because the vast majority of V20 users will not notice these deficiencies and they can get away with not buying up experienced people out of the retail DAP space to make this thing perfect although most DAPs have their own severe drawbacks, deficiencies and failures.

Edit: Keep forgetting to say thank you shadowxaero, but seriously thank you for being willing to test some apps for others who are interested in this functionality.

Edit x2: I have no tracks with ultrasound shadowxaero, sorry!! I'll see if I can find some free test tone hires tracks and point you in that direction!!
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
[MENTION=942177]shadowxaero[/MENTION] - Here's a solid link for free ultrasound hires test tracks!!

http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_highdefinitionaudio.php

Sweeps, Chirps, White Noise and Pink noise for all your testing needs!!! Heck, these would be good general fodder for RMAA, and whatnot as well.

---------- Post added at 07:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 PM ----------

Might be something useful here too, but maybe no ultrasound over 24 KHz, idk.: http://www.2l.no/hires/
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] beavis5706:
Idk why DSP messes with the DAC but it does. Any player that uses DSP will also use the Snapdragron DAC. Any player that works with ESS DAC but uses the optional DSP will go through the Snapdragron DAC and not the ESS one.

If I had to guess I would say DSP messes with bit perfect. I can't speak for the v20, I have v10. However LG stock player and PlayerPro without DSP will play DSF files without PCM conversion, ie bit perfect. Note that the v10 will only play DSF and not DFF.

So right there is another great way to test for a working player. Play a DSF file on it. If it converts to PCM then you have a non working player. If it plays DSF without PCM conversion then you have a working player.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
Good call!

Yeah, my conclusion that the V10 and V20 have the exact same playback issues, may end up being unfounded, but it sure seems to be the case.

I'm not sure the issue is DSP's themselves, because to me it looks like players that aren't aware of the DAC they are targeting will output native PCM and DSD beyond that which the Snapdragon DAC can handle, which is then directed to the ES9218 by some LG code (maybe the little app they created to enable ESS DAC playback in the first place?), but DAC-aware music apps can't see any DAC but the Snapdragon through the Android API (as verified by the Neutron dev) and so are forced by their code to re-sample to a native rate appropriate for that target DAC. This is otherwise great programming by the music player guys, but here it's shooting them in the foot.

It may be that LG can solve for everything simply by exposing the ESS DAC to the native Android API, but they might have to write their own API layer to expose the ESS DAC to software apps, idk.

Like I said, it seems to me that the problem is really caused when the music player software interrogates the audio API layer and can't see the ESS DAC (Neutron dev has verified this is the problem for Neutron) and so those music apps resample to appropriate frequencies for the DAC that IS exposed, the Snapdragon DAC. LG's comments about how the DAC automatically scales (activating or deactivating 1 or more of the Quad DACs) based on sample rate frequency and bit depth lead me to the above conclusion as well.

Looking forward to [MENTION=942177]shadowxaero[/MENTION]'s tests on the V20!!
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Nitemare3219:
Sound cards are junk. Get a dedicated external DAC/amp.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
The card he mentioned is for recording hires output from the V20, not for playback, bro.

Need it to figure out which music player apps on the V20 actually support hires audio to the ES9218 without resampling to 48KHz.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
An external DAC just wouldn't serve my needs at much as my internal sound blaster does. Apart from the fact that I am always switching between my headphones my TRS based surround sound system and my digital optical pioneer system. And I use the digital in on my sounds card to capture the sound from my capture PC while I record. It just feets my needs.

But most importantly it has a red LED which compliments my system a lot.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
Nice!!
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Chazboski:
Has anyone tried the DAC Fix for LG V10 and see if that helps the situation?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] imucarmen:
Nice system. When you test the different media players could you also test Pulsar? I really like the look of that player and want to get the pro version but I'm not going to get it if it's downsampling like poweramp does.

Another question. If I download music off youtube and convert it to flac does that make any real difference? I'm assuming it doesn't or perhaps very little. Thanks.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
Sorry, no.

Transcoding an MP3 into any other format can never improve the sound quality.

In fact if you transcode to another lossy codec you will make it sound much worse as the quantized noise just continues to increase in DB.

You are effectively just increasing the size of the the MP3 when you transcode to FLAC.

Take a look at section 14 in this link for a good explanation of why to never transcode lossy files to another lossy format: https://marlene-d.blogspot.com/2013/11/mp3-and-other-hires-formats.html
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] imucarmen:
Thanks! I've hit my thanks limit for the day but if I remember i'll hit you up tomorrow :]

I didn't think it would make a difference. Thanks again for the info.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] hanskey:
Just glad to help!!
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
Just a rule of thumb, you can go lossless to lossless i.e FLAC > FLAC, Wav > FLAC, ALAC > FLAC and so on with no quality loss. You can go go Lossless to Lossy, FLAC to mp3 for example. But you never want to go lossy to lossy.

And when dealing with high quality audio you always want to deal with encodes never really transcodes lol.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] anon389389109:
You mean fix the downsampling? I tried it and it didn't work
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Get Ur Noob On:
Anyone tried Gonemad Music player?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] mterrence5:
Has anyone had the DAC frequently skip? I noticed it doing it frequently and then shut it off and it doesnt happen. possibly could be lag on my 200GB memory card but i didnt have that problem on the V10.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
Sry for the delay been busy but I test the Stock LG Music player and it does indeed sample down to 48kHz play back at the correct sample rate. The file I was using was 192kHz (I thought it was 96kHz for some reason)

http://i.imgur.com/UVHEEoQ.png

The top file was recorded from the phone however my PC can only record 96kHz and so that is what is was sample down to.

The bottom is the actual file at 192Khz.

So that established that the phone can at least do 96kHz lol, now to test other music players.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Rose Commander:
Please test Foobar2000 to see if it can play at the proper sample rate. Careful, the settings have a DSP Manager and a resampler inside that can cause issues.
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] dimm0k:
Gonemad Music player seems to handle the files, but there's some distortion/static in between tracks...
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
Foobar is available on android???
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] vitality:
Yes
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Rose Commander:
Here is the Play Store link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foobar2000.foobar2000
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
Tested Foobar and a couple of other players and it doesn't look good v.v. I think we are stuck with the LG Music Player. But at least we know the LG Music play Hi-Fi audio without down-sampling. Still doesn't sound as good a my SoundBlaster Z lol the V20 even using the LG Music Player sounds narrow. Like it not covering the full sound stage. Maybe that is just a characteristic of out DAC?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] GermanGuy:
Have you tested Player pro?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Byte_76:
Does Player Pro have the capability to properly utilize the Saber DAC?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] shadowxaero:
The stock player can't, Neutron can but doesn't utilize the DAC

Player Pro down-samples to 44.1kHz
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] mhw100:
Asked in another thread so sorry for the duplicate but does the B&O tuning make a sound difference to the US devices?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] Joe0Bloggs:
This may be an unpopular opinion but I reckon you're all making a mountain out of a molehill. 48kHz sample rate corresponds to maximum reproduced frequencies of at least 22kHz. Now I know some of you here are really young with really good hearing but I'd still grab my best headphones, plug them into my computer outputting audio at 96kHz or higher, get a tone generator, and LISTEN to see if I could actually hear a damn thing at 22kHz. If I could, I'd suspect problems with my sound card or crappy windows resampling algorithms (present on windows 7 and 10) waaay before I celebrate actually being able to hear 22kHz.

It's a pity that shiny 96kHz or 192kHz or 5.644MHz (DSD128?) numbers don't light up on your phone, but it's an inaudible problem and if you hear anything significantly different between your phone and whatever other source you're using, I'd suspect confirmation bias or some hidden DSP going on in the other device or (again) crappy resampling on windows 7 and 10 PCs waaay before chalking it down to bad software on the V20. Even with the heavy confirmation bias in play the OP admits that even enabling HiFi mode on the stock player doesn't make much difference or make the v20 sound closer to whatever his computer is doing...

It's also astonishing to me the amount of inconvenience people will put up with in the name of "bit-perfect". If being chained to a select one or two player programs isn't enough, playback stutters between tracks, all DSP (which can possibly improve the audio quality way more than bitperfect can, if utilized properly) (um excuse me, that's assuming bitperfect improves sound audibly _at all_, which isn't really true...) are rendered inoperable, and the phone can't make any other sounds from any other apps because the mixer is defeated...
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] mlknez:
It is also unwise to go over the speed limit, but wouldn't you be upset if you bought that Lamborghini only to find out that it is speed limited to 70mph?
[LG V20 Questions & Answers] thisisjason:
The difference you hear between your SoundBlaster Z and the V20 likely has nothing at all to do with resolution, and has everything to do with the fact that the Soundblaster and V20 simply sound different, and you like the sound of the SoundBlaster more. This doesn't necessarily even mean the V20 is less technically capable, or even less accurate, it could be that Creative has tuned the SoundBlaster to be less neutral
[LG Optimus L90] user_9001:
Hello, I can't boot my device anymore. When I press the power button nothing happens. After I removed the battery for 5 minutes I can start it and it shows the battery loading screen with 0% for a few seconds and flickers. Also I've tried a new battery but it didn't work. I've used CyanogenMod on the device and everything worked well.

i'd appreciate a lot if someone could help me!

Regards