UPDATE: Please don't take the following post too seriously. Whilst the Voodoo Galaxy S has clearly better sound quality than the Galaxy Nexus, the Galaxy Nexus is still very much listenable although not bringing out the best of your FLAC files and high end IEMs.
There have been several people out there asking about the sound quality of the Galaxy Nexus. We know the original Galaxy S and Nexus S set a very high standard with the Wolfson WM8994 DAC. How does the TI TWL6040 fair in comparison? First a little background on myself, I'm what you call a typical audiophile. I listen to high end earphones (or IEMs) and I only listen to FLAC, not MP3. For those who never heard of FLAC, think of it as the HD for music.
I used the same FLAC files to play in the stock Galaxy S and Galaxy Nexus player to do a comparison.
This will not be a long post. Simply because the Galaxy Nexus' sound quality is very poor in comparison to a Voodoo'ed Galaxy S. In technical terms, the treble and bass are very roll-offed. This means that the audio chip does not reproduce the highest and lowest frequencies of the music sufficiently. Also, the soundstage is compressed and for some reason the tonality is off. I have no idea why it can sound that bad but it does.
Needless to say, I'm very disappointed with this. As an audiophile, this is unacceptable. I hope Google pays attention to music quality more in the future. 16GB is also not enough for FLAC listeners like me since one album can easily take up 300MB.
Don't take me wrong, I love my Galaxy Nexus. I don't usually post here but I feel the need to this time. Even with my disappointment with the sound, I'll still keep the Galaxy Nexus as my main phone. It's amazing.
For the majority of people, this post is irrelevant. If you're used to listening to MP3, online streaming like Pandora or Spotify; and you used stock earbuds, Beats or Skullkandies, you probably won't notice the difference or even get bothered about it. As I said, this post is to all Android audiophiles out there. I don't know if the disappointing sound quality will effect your decision on the Galaxy Nexus or not. For me at least, I can always go back to my desktop rig at home
Best regards
Gary
There have been several people out there asking about the sound quality of the Galaxy Nexus. We know the original Galaxy S and Nexus S set a very high standard with the Wolfson WM8994 DAC. How does the TI TWL6040 fair in comparison? First a little background on myself, I'm what you call a typical audiophile. I listen to high end earphones (or IEMs) and I only listen to FLAC, not MP3. For those who never heard of FLAC, think of it as the HD for music.
I used the same FLAC files to play in the stock Galaxy S and Galaxy Nexus player to do a comparison.
This will not be a long post. Simply because the Galaxy Nexus' sound quality is very poor in comparison to a Voodoo'ed Galaxy S. In technical terms, the treble and bass are very roll-offed. This means that the audio chip does not reproduce the highest and lowest frequencies of the music sufficiently. Also, the soundstage is compressed and for some reason the tonality is off. I have no idea why it can sound that bad but it does.
Needless to say, I'm very disappointed with this. As an audiophile, this is unacceptable. I hope Google pays attention to music quality more in the future. 16GB is also not enough for FLAC listeners like me since one album can easily take up 300MB.
Don't take me wrong, I love my Galaxy Nexus. I don't usually post here but I feel the need to this time. Even with my disappointment with the sound, I'll still keep the Galaxy Nexus as my main phone. It's amazing.
For the majority of people, this post is irrelevant. If you're used to listening to MP3, online streaming like Pandora or Spotify; and you used stock earbuds, Beats or Skullkandies, you probably won't notice the difference or even get bothered about it. As I said, this post is to all Android audiophiles out there. I don't know if the disappointing sound quality will effect your decision on the Galaxy Nexus or not. For me at least, I can always go back to my desktop rig at home
Best regards
Gary
And great review.
)
