[Samsung Galaxy S10 Questions & Answers] zackhunter:
Sorry it's a Cirrus Logic CS47L93 IC (DAC, ADC, ... combination chip), not from AKM. Still of a very good speficiation. I have mistaken it with another hi-fi device which I am currently examining.

I did a 30 minute A/B comparison with S10e Exynos headphone out and a JDS Labs O2+ODAC (DAC+headphone amp) with Sennheiser HD 700 headphones.

Both devices sound exactly the same. No wonders here. They should!

But the S10e Exynos lacks a little bit of resolution which might be interpreted by some people as lack of transparency. Which also tends to mud the bass region a bit. Kick drums disappears into the background a little. Kick drums have not the clear and tight punch as they should. Plus the highs somewhere above 8000 Hz tend to hiss sometimes, not often, which are barely hearable, only with my HD 700. This might be the interferences which i spoke of, might be other components and radio waves that have influence to the components.

I can not confirm that the S10e Exynos sounds different or warmer than other devices, asclaimed by anandtech. If so, we would have a technical design fault.

The S10e with CS47L93 and its implementation does'nt spit out a high end sound which can only be subjectivly heard with good til high end phones. If you use budget phones up to 200€ or dollar you should not or barely hear any differences in an A/B comparison. I beef on a very very very high level where most people can not or will not hear any differences.

So the overall quality of the headphone jack is good but not high end. I would not use it as a main player for music. Only with an external DAC over USB-C. But on the road or in bed i have a good music player squashed in a smartphone. You can play, phone, chat, gawk vids and hear music with it. This is awesome isn't it. :)

P.S. settings i used for A/B comparison:

S10e audio settings:

- Dolby Atmos = off

- Dolby Atmos on games = off

- Equalizer = normal (which maybe means 'off')

- UHQ Upscaler = Bit-Upscaling

- Adapt Sound = standard (which means 'off')

If this standard settings sound thin, then use other or better headpones. This is neutral sound and flat sound as it should be to evaluate headphone sound. Only headphones can give you what you want. Not the DAC or other technics. Playing around with an equalizer can give you a bit but might not satisfy you.

Audio Player = Samsung build in Music Player

Audio Tracks = Kobra and the Lotus - Prevail II album. An rock/metal album with very good and modern production

Audio Files = 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, lossless FLAC

Playing around with the EQ and Adapt Sound gives good and enjoying result with other headphones for me. The rest does not. I advice to set up your own 'adapt sound' profile. Do it in the the most quiet place. It is a hearing test and boost the frequencies (it's an EQ) you can barely hear anymore. If you need more bass use the EQ additionally and boost 63 Herz up to a max of 3 ticks, 125 Herz up to a max of 2 ticks, and optionaly 250 Herz up to only one tick. The other frequencies should be flat. Now you should have a broad stage with extreme highs and a bit of more bass and lower mids for drum punch. If it's not good use another or better headphone. The Samsung sound settings is not anybodies taste but they are there.

UHQ Upscaler is also an EQ which tends to muddy the overall sound.

Dolby Atmos destroys the whole sound stage and tends to sound compressed. I only found it usable for anything but music. E.g. to boost speech clarity in podcasts.