LG V20 with ESS 9218 quad dac

I had assumed that UAPP could detect the sampling rate of the Android device's onboard DAC, but this is not the case. So it requires a deeper analysis to determine if the phone's onboard DAC is doing any resampling.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/704065/usb...-audio-support-for-android/1110#post_13163379

 

I recently bought a refurbished V20 and am using UAPP on it. Recent versions of UAPP fully support the Quad DAC. It's easy to confirm that audio is or isn't being resampled by using USB debug mode and running

Code:

adb shell dumpsys media.audio_flinger

and checking the status of the audio thread marked as active. If you disable the Quad DAC you can see all audio passes through the system mixer at 48000 Hz. With Quad DAC enabled, UAPP's output (and LG Music app's) is indeed direct and unmodified by system mixer.

I can't criticise the audio performance. It's the first integrated portable player I've owned which, for 16-bit 44100 Hz, is better than using my ancient iriver H140 line out to an amp. On top of that it plays every other audio format I use and does so apparently flawlessly. It seems to be as good as my Asus Xonar D1 and DX PC audio cards. It is so good to get away from carrying phone+USB DAC, or phone+DAP+amp. I also no longer need a compact digital camera because the V20's is very good. It's also the best portable audio recorder I ever heard. Once I even made a phone call on it.

The regular Qualcomm onboard audio is actually perfectly decent, given the usual limitations of low power output and a system mixer.

BTW, various imei checks showed me that my "refurb" was manufactured in August 2017, had never been factory reset, never been registered, and had zero minutes on it. Its status is "Official" and after first set up it received and installed all firmware updates over the air so is up to date running Nougat with this month's security patches. I bought it from HongKong Cingo store on aliexpress. I'm unaffiliated and have nothing to gain and can't say you'd be equally satisfied. In the US it's probably easier to buy locally but this phone didn't make it to UK officially so I visited my favourite import duty avoidance specialist shopping app and bought a Verizon model (works great on LTE, is network unlocked by default, and has IR blaster).

 

More on the LG V20 as I've had it for a couple of weeks now.

Aside from certain of my anatomical appendages, it is the most fabulous object in the world.

Sometimes people call me or message me on my V20. I hate them for this. They are interrupting a deep and rewarding bonding process. They don't even seem to care or understand. Bloody Philistines.

I recently discovered that the IR Blaster is not just equipped with preconfigured codes for about a gazillion devices but it is also able to be configured by the user with custom devices and buttons and then learn the IR codes from the original remote. So, as expected, it already knew all about my Yamaha HT receiver but I was also able to introduce it to my little desktop digital amp https://www.aliexpress.com/item/I-A...32417096558.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.jzg6LS and now they are friends and understand each other perfectly. The pleasing thing is that the V20's Quick Remote app is more reliable and responsive than the original physical remotes.

The audio quality via the headphone jack is beyond criticism so far as I can tell. I know that the first post of this thread mentions "sabre glare" in reference to the DAC/amp combo but I really think this is a mental construct, not a physical or measurable phenomenon. If you use bright or vivid headphones it sounds bright or vivid. If you use mellow headphones it sounds mellow. If you use use neutral headphones it sounds neutral. If you use the V20's Quad DAC as a line out device to an amp you can hear that the particular amp sounds like it always does. And so on. And it kicks out some power, such that it is a genuinely viable and high quality line out, or that you can plug in those IEMs or 'phones that disappoint without an amp and they sound big and well fed like they got one, because they did. What a great trick for a phone!

I've been using Android phones with wifi and 3G/4G for portable audio for quite a long time now, starting with a Galaxy Note, then a Note II and a few other odd devices along the way (various Archos and oddball Chinese things). The Note II was pretty decent with sensitive IEMs but for normal headphones or for a line out I needed a power sapping USB DAC, or to take my old iRiver and portable amp on trips away from home. Also audio from onboard/chipset DACs can occasionally glitch if the CPU gets gets maxed out or the system RAM is maxed and the device starts swapping (paging in Windows speak). This doesn't seem to happen with the Quad DAC on the V20, and, while it does draw more power than the Qualcomm chipset audio it is still massively less power hungry than any USB powered solution. Using the V20 purely as a device for playing streaming lossless audio via the Quad DAC I can't believe it would last less than 15 hours, and considerably more seems likely. Which makes me think that the people who design iBasso, Astell & Kern and similar are really taking the piss. On top of this, the V20 has both a replaceable battery and Quick Charge 3.0.

Queen & Freddie Mercury 1975: "I'm in Love with My Car."
Fat Bloke 2018: "I'm in Love with My Phone. I don't need a car. Or people. Just my phone."

p.s. I tried phone sex but it's way too wide. Nokia ftw.

 

Even more on the V20:

With UAPP it plays local DSD (*.dsf) files without resampling or any conversion

Holy shit!

The practical value is limited as you aren't going to get many DSD albums onto even the biggest microSD card, and the bandwidth required for streaming is too much. It stutters on LAN, and 4G/LTE is simply a non-starter, but with minimserver/minimstreamer and the power of ffmpeg it turns out that DSD converted to PCM at 176400 Hz and 24-bit, dithered and generally bashed and bludgeoned into shape, works just fine for home streaming on wireless LAN. Just the fact that some crazy Korean audio{phile,god} decided that a DSD capable phone was a thing that needed bringing into existence is somewhat impressive. I'm going for the full tranny identity change thing just so I can have his funny looking babies. Male or female they will all be named Kim. Like their daddy.

 

More on the LG V20:

It's ridiculously brilliant.

It's so good that it's hard to appreciate how good it is unless in a truly quiet environment, even using IEMs. In a regular domestic/work/urban setting it is merely obviously better than any other phone. In a truly quiet environment it allows the music to shine. I don't know how many years I have been sticking headphones, earbuds and IEMs on/in my big, beautiful, hairy ears but it's a lot. And I've really liked and enjoyed several of the devices (iRiver! I luv yoo! Sam Sung! It's not me, it's you!) Yes, stereo loudspeakers are better but when you can't run loudspeakers at a realistic volume then this phone is just about perfect. iBasso, Astell&Kern, Shanling, Sony SuperInsanePrice Walkman.... "Go where you belong from now on – into the dustbin of history!" as a certain evil Bolshevik once said.

On a less opinionated and more factual and informational note:

Neutron Music Player works very well with the V20's hardware. If you check Settings>Audio Hardware>Follow Source Frequency then you do indeed get your audio files played without sample rate conversion. For example, here is the output of 'adb shell dumpsys media.audio_flinger' with BubbleUPnP passing 88.2KHz 24-bit audio stream to Neutron

Code:

Output thread 0xee4b4000 type 1 (DIRECT):
  Thread name: AudioOut_A5D
  I/O handle: 2653
  TID: 29353
  Standby: no
  Sample rate: 88200 Hz
  HAL frame count: 3552
  HAL format: 0x6 (pcm24)
  HAL buffer size: 21312 bytes
  Channel count: 2
  Channel mask: 0x00000003 (front-left, front-right)
  Processing format: 0x6 (pcm24)
  Processing frame size: 6 bytes
  Pending config events: none
  Output device: 0x8 (WIRED_HEADPHONE)
  Input device: 0 (NONE)
  Audio source: 0 (default)
  Normal frame count: 3552
  Last write occurred (msecs): 28
  Total writes: 166
  Delayed writes: 0
  Blocked in write: yes
  Suspend count: 0
  Sink buffer : 0xee7d2000
  Mixer buffer: 0xefe54000
  Effect buffer: 0xefa86800
  Fast track availMask=0xfe
  Standby delay ns=1000000000
  AudioStreamOut: 0xf18a7a68 flags 0x2001 (DIRECT|0x2000)
  Stream volumes in dB: 0:-18, 1:-28, 2:-28, 3:-28, 4:-28, 5:-28, 6:0, 7:-28, 8:-21, 9:-96, 10:0, 11:-28, 12:0, 13:0
  Normal mixer raw underrun counters: partial=0 empty=0
  1 Tracks of which 1 are active
    Name Active Client Type      Fmt Chn mask Session fCount S F SRate  L dB  R dB    Server Main buf  Aux Buf Flags UndFrmCnt
    none    yes  26613    3 00000006 00000003   70993  13440 A 3 88200     0     0  00090D20 0xee7d2000 0x0 0x000         0
  0 Effect Chains

So the hardware is great and there are options for the software too. Neutron and UAPP have in common the ability to exploit the capabilities of the hardware, but they offer different options and approaches in doing so. This is especially good for devices with onboard "Hi Res" capability. With USB DACs you really need to choose one app or the other and uninstall the other, as to work properly they each require exclusive access to the USB audio device, but with onboard stuff you can actually switch between apps with no issues. It's very good not to be tied to just one app.

 

"Sabre Glare" is not an actual existing thing. The use of the term is an affectation. If you invite subjective "review" from persons who present such an affectation the result is unlikely to be:
1) surprising
2) informative
3) unaffected
4) interesting

That's just my unsurprising, obvious, honest, boring opinion. I'm not one of the rich kids with astonishing disposable wealth or special Spidey hearing so you can ignore me.

 

@julian67 How is your V20 getting on? I just discovered UAPP and would like to hear if you have any tips on how to get the best experience out of the V20. I'm still on Android 7 Nougat as my H990DS variant won't be getting the Oreo update till I think end 2018.

 

My V20 (Verizon VS995) is also still on Nougat, which is fine with me. It got its last security and updates in June and I assume it will get Oreo in the next 6 months. But if it ain't broke...

For UAPP on the V20 I don't think you need to do anything special. The app's best settings for the hardware are automatic with known devices like these. You might want to set Bit Perfect mode to "When possible" or "On" unless you like to use EQ or crossfeed etc. I leave mine on "When possible" as I don't need EQ, and I find crossfeed is useful only rarely. I played with the Morphit plug-in but like every similar tool I tried it is something of a joke. Novelty value only unless you have seriously insensitive hearing, like a medical problem not a tonal preference. If you have several of the headphones/IEMs these tools claim to match you can really appreciate that it's never even approximately realistic.

Anyway, I love my V20 for audio. I use it for hours daily with BubbleUPnP and/or UAPP, listening mostly to 16/44.1 audio, but also quite a lot of 24/88.2 audio derived from SACD, and a few albums of 24/96 and 24/48 from online stores. I can't really fault it. Sometimes I could curse my 4G phone company but the phone itself is great, and having a microSD slot means I always have a choice of lossless and hi-res music even if I lose connection.

 

Got the upgrade to Oreo yesterday. It took a long time to download but the actual upgrade process was very smooth and didn't take too long. No issues, no mishaps. Everything works very nicely. The UI is only slightly different in structure and style. It feels bit more snappy. There are some additional software features and improvements such as better split screen and video overlays etc. but the important thing is that the sound is still great and that UAPP continues to use the better audio hardware as the user prefers.

There is one really nice change for audio playback: When the Quad DAC/Amp is enabled the hardware volume buttons now adjust the level in increments of 1 instead of 5 so there is real fine grained control. There's no longer any need to access the Hi-Fi settings screen. When the Quad DAC is disabled and the levels are correspondingly lower the hardware buttons revert to big steps.

It's almost like someone at LG has been listening to the customers or even using the products

I love this device!

 

More on the V20 Oreo upgrade. Two days ago I got the latest OTA update, a small one that brings the upgraded device up to date with the latest security patches (this month's). It's a royal f**k up. My device developed a horrible random reboot problem. Sometimes it would reboot while trying to boot. It would reboot while asleep. Sometimes it didn't reboot but instead drained the battery to zero while inactive. I did a full factory reset, cache wipe and set up as new: same result. Anyway, using LGUP and Uppercut tools and a downloaded firmware .kdz file I have gone back to Nougat and only allowed it to update to the last Nougat version. It's again rock solid stable with good battery life and zero performance issues. YMMV.

There is definitely something wrong with some versions of Oreo: Samsung actually stopped their Oreo roll out for Note 7 and 8 devices due to widespread reboot problems. They did fix their version and resumed releasing it, but other vendors ran into to the same problems but seem unable or unwilling or just very, very slow to fix it, notably Google with their Pixel devices, OnePlus, Lenovo and LG.

Anyway if your LG V20/30/G# device is affected you can at least be confident that the hardware is not the problem and you can revert to a slightly older and very stable version of Android.

 

My V20 has not gone into reboots, however, the battery power has sucked big time since the update to 8.0 Oreo.

I finally figured out that it turns all the battery sucking performance features on. It also turns a buch of apps on for background data usage. Once I turned those off and the location services, things improved.

There was an incremental update, although it might have been just a security update. My Adroid version still says 8.0.0.

Cannot comment on SQ as of yet.

 

There won't be any difference in sound quality. The audio decoding is done in hardware so if you use UAPP and its bit perfect mode then the audio output will be identical regardless of operating system version.

 

@julian67
No issues with rebooting here on oreo and V20. Been stable for weeks. Only issue was the other day when it would not accept input by touching screen. Could not get past the lock screen or even power down. Pulled battery and re-booted, then all is fine.

 

My experience had been that Nougat was rock solid stable over many months, Oreo was great, Oreo+1st incremental update was a cluster of those things which are apparently performed in clusters in the more liberal parts of the western hemisphere. So I had used the Windows PC application LGUP to "downgrade" to the unexciting but actually useful stability of Nougat.

Last week I noticed that there was a new incremental update (Oreo+1+1). The upgrade process after the big Oreo upgrade now bypasses the 1st incremental update and moves you directly onto the latest. I tried it. It is an improvement. It's very good to get the UI enhancements in Oreo (the less important on a daily basis being a restructured system menu, the more important being very obvious improvements in speed of launching apps and switching between apps). I also like the much more fine grained hardware button volume control in Quad DAC mode.

Over a few days I did experience two system UI crashes (the device did not power cycle but the UI did restart) so it hasn't been perfect but also it hasn't happened again since I booted into recovery and cleared the cache so have given the device a full power cycle and all seems well since then.

Anyway, I'd suggest to any Verizon/VS995 V20 users frustrated by the Oreo update to have another look as it seems that the problems in the first incremental update are solved.

For clarity I'll just state I don't run this device rooted or with unlocked boot loader or similar. I am a good, obedient Google serf.

 

I take it all back. The f'ing thing just rebooted while asleep. Am now reverting to Nougat and sticking with it until/unless my banking/shopping apps get compromised or stop being supported.

 

So in terms of this upgrade, incremental does indeed equal excremental

Wouldn't worry about the banking etc. apps, the Nougat security updates will keep going for a while yet. And some of us are still using Lollipop

 

I'd call that well-behaved. My V30 sometimes reboots on incomiing calls...

 

My V20 started the random reboot thing as well. It was replaced under LG warranty due to the known boot loop issues.

 

The "boot loop" issue is a hardware or manufacturing fault with the main board, mostly seen in older devices such as the LG G4 and V10. The problem I ran into is a software problem (no fault on Nougat, no fault on original Oreo, terrible problems on 1st Oreo patch, slightly improved behaviour with 2nd Oreo patch). Since reverting to Nougat my device is 100% stable again. I buy a new smart phone about twice a decade so I guess I'll be sticking with Nougat for a few years

 

More on my LG V20:
I quit using it. The headphone socket got crackly. I replaced it. The replacement got crackly. The screen got screen burn on each side. It looks like shit. My banking app gets regular updates and now works really badly on Nougat or older (fine on Oreo or Pie). I tried upgrading the V20 to official Oreo again. Full reset, then upgrade. Same bullshit, unstable and unusable.

I visited the website of my 4G ISP. They had the Sony XZ1 at a silly good price (it's one of those *ancient* 2017 phones!) so I got one. If you don't enable any audio "enhancements" in the UI then it plays 44100/4800/88200/96000/192000 at correct sample rate and bit depth without any conversions. You don't need UAPP or Neutron. I'm using BubbleUPnP and have verified the output by enabling dev mode and USB debugging and checking the output of "dumpsys media.audio_flinger". Somebody at Sony has a brain and has also been permitted to use it. Probably he's new. Also those Sony people run pretty much stock Android and they update the damn firmware just about as quick as Google issues it. And the new firmwares work. It's almost like someone even tested them!

Anyway, I quite like my Sony except I had got used to a huge screen with a couple of Galaxy Notes and then the V20, but on the other hand the battery life on a phone with a screen only modestly big is twice that of a phone with pretensions to be a tablet. I didn't discard the V20; I'm waiting on delivery of a new headphone socket flex and it will then see out its days as a home based music player that can handle proper headphones and probably will never see another SIM card.