LG V30 / DAC

Discussion in 'Geek Cave: Computers, Tablets, HT, Phones, Games' started by Elnrik, Jul 31, 2017.

  1. dropadred

    dropadred New

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    Evaluation of the audio implementation of V30
     
  2. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    Well these landed in S.A. so I picked one up, upgrading from the V10, and I've noticed a similar issue/behavior as with the V10, only worse on the V30 and I'm curious if anyone else has this.

    The issue is at low volumes there is a hissing which is some sort of distortion/interference and follows the general structure of the music. I notice this with my Andromedas, and weirdly enough on my V10 it disappeared after about a year of ownership. On the V30 it is much more noticeable and barring using an IEMatch makes the phone a no-go for low volume use with Andros.

    The interesting thing is on the V30 I can hear it clear as day on the built-in speaker too. It is there with the DAC on or off, but much louder with the DAC on, especially if you trick it into hi gain. Mucking with a pigtail lead and plugging and unplugging will make the sound badly distorted on occasion. I'm not sure exactly how to repro that yet, though.

    To reproduce using the speaker, take a fairly quiet passage and drop the volume to as low as it will go (without muting of course). That seems to be a '5' without the Quad DAC. Put the speaker to your ear and if you have the issue you should hear the ghost hiss. Now with the Quad DAC on using Andros it's actually straight up irritating on lowish volume listening.

    I'll recheck my V10, but I remember being pleasantly surprised that this phenomenon seemed to just go away on it's own. I've mucked with every setting I can think of to no avail, so I;m interested if anyone else notices this behavior.

    When I get back from travelling I'll upload a short clip with the intro to 'The boy next door' by Stacey Kent that does a great job of showing this issue.

    Auxiliary information, I see this with UAPP and Onkyo HF Player, with and without the Quad DAC on but worse with it on as gain is higher.

    Lemme know if you hear it too. Thx.
     
  3. abraxas666

    abraxas666 Friend

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    I asked my coworker to let me use his andromedas to test this, and the hiss is there and now I cannot unhear it until I crank the volume way up.
    Wasnt really a problem for me before since I dont really listen to music at such low volumes or with good quality headphone\IEM, but dang I hope it does go away at some point.
     
  4. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    Thanks for the verification! My V30's headphone jack crapped out so it's in for repair under warranty. They'll hopefully have it back to me in a week or so.
     
  5. Maxx134

    Maxx134 Dunning–Kruger effect poster boy

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    I haven't tested mine on any IEM,
    But so far on portables and larger I have a black background without any hiss..
    Also I have tested it extensively against my Mojo and the LG30 surpasses it on every level except center image depth and overall output power.

    The LG30 also better than the GOV2 I had which was more dynamic than the Mojo but lost out due to having least soundstage depth and a more fatigue upper spectrum.

    So for me the LG30 is way superior to any portable dac, with exception to using IEMs which ad stated above some have issue.
     
  6. Maxx134

    Maxx134 Dunning–Kruger effect poster boy

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    According to others using iems and the andromedas, there should not be any noise or hiss..

    There are two likely culprits being the DAC is not turned on (check settings) even when plugged in.

    And the other possible issue is using Tidal,
    the LG30 upsamples as it does not natively play back 44/16, so it up-samples it to 48/16 and that can be a cause.
    Best sound is from your own files thru native player or using Neutron.

    Thru my headphones I experience clean sound thru Tidal and Neutron,
    But with native player I noticed poor sound until I turned on the DAC in settings.
     
  7. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    OK, well I finally got my V30 replaced after they tried to repair the damn thing for a month. I've made some discoveries regarding the hiss and also how Nougat in the V30 responds to a GO2A vs Nougat on the V10.

    TL;DR
    lower the hiss by dropping the balance controls to -6dB. GO2A+UAPP runs with a USB C-->A adapter with no extra power but needs a restart with the DAC connected to work. A shorty adapter makes it a compact setup for the plane or desk for a couple of hours of listening. I'm happy.

    The long version:

    First the hiss on the Andros
    I went back to my V10 and I can confirm the hiss did NOT disappear on the V10, and the V30 behaves the same. What does help make the hiss almost inaudible is to set the balance controls to their max -6dB attenuation for both channels. I had inadvertently done that in my V10 somehow and that is what made it seem like it had improved. My test is still Stacey Kent - The Best Is Yet To Come at a volume level of 1, the absolute minimum before muting where the hiss is most evident. What is interesting is that the hiss does not seem to increase in volume with the master volume control as you raise the volume, so the balance attenuation is doing something different. Not a fix, but a clear improvement nonetheless.

    In terms of DACs
    I bought a little USB C to USB A adapter. The GO2A will work directly out of the phone with no auxiliary power. The V30 will see it as a USB Audio device and use it for system audio automatically. However UAPP will NOT see it unless you restart the phone with the DAC attached. If you run UAPP first and then attach the DAC it will hang UAPP. If you restart the phone, run UAPP and attach the DAC it will not see the DAC and will sometimes hang. So that is kinda sucky. The behavior is similar with Onkyo HF Player, so this looks to be Android getting in the way.

    In terms of tweaking developer options, disabling USB Routing and any other option that seemed related did not make any difference whatsoever to this behavior. Moreover UAPP will flip the GO2A into some error mode (shows DSD input, low gain and blue filter lights with no input) when it hangs and you need to reboot to get anything to see it.

    Using a Dragontail extender causes the DAC not to be visible to UAPP even on restart with the everything connected. Using a MicroUSB Hub with a C to Micro adapter also does not work. I haven't checked whether it's visible to Android in that case because I would never use it that way. If I get bored I may check that but don't hold your breath.

    The V10 is MicroUSB and that works plug and play as long as you have external power through a little hub, in my case a 2 port uGreen OTG hub that takes external power. So I think this is not only a Nougat thing but a USB C thing as well affecting the V30.

    Overall the phone is quick to restart and I will typically only use the GO2A on it when I'm captive for a short time like on a plane or something anyway.

    Using my KEF M500 moderately efficient headphones I seem to get just over 2 minutes per 1% drain in battery, so I guess about 3 hours if you milked it. Andros maybe more, HD650 probably a lot less. Overall that's more than good for my uses.

    Hope this helps you road warriors.
     
  8. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    ****************** Important Update to V10, V20 and V30 noise floor *******************

    Big thanks to folks over at Head-Fi for this pointer, especially csglinux for pushing me in the right direction. There are some sharp, decent folks over there still.

    The issue is NOT in fact the noise floor, but Android resampling the frigging input, even if the input matches the native Android format. It creates a shhh-ing artifact that has been bugging me for years now.

    I was pointed to Neutron as a player that would address this, but you need to make sure that you have the right settings configured:

    Neutron-->Settings-->Audio Hardware

    1) Generic Driver = ON
    2) Generic Driver -> Hi-Res Codec = ON
    3) Generic Driver -> Hi-Res Speaker = ON
    4) DSP Effect (Device) = OFF
    5) Low Latency = OFF
    6) 32-bit Output (IEEE 754) = OFF

    Under this config in Neutron I get none of the irritating artifacting at all, and with Andros even on Aux mode I have to wonder if the very slightest hiss I hear is my imagination. UAPP is working on direct DAC integration and has a beta running, so hopefully they too will be able to address this.

    Neutron is very busy, cluttered and complicated but just for this most worth it. Nice to have a persistent problem solved!
     
  9. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    BTW Neutron seems to play nice with plugging and unplugging a GO2A, which hangs UAPP.

    <edit>On my V30</edit>
     
  10. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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  11. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I heard that Neutron does not work with Qobuz or Tidal for that matter?
    USB Audio Player Pro bypasses Android drivers working directly with LG Quad DAC but you can also stream from Qobuz and Tidal without Android resampling.
     

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