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Phone Sound - Making the Best of a Bad Situation


The History Kid

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Changing up some stuff at the office this week after getting a deal on some headphones...

I'm getting really tired of listening to air - and I think my coworkers will only tolerate so much Pandora.

 

That leaves me with my phone to do the duties of serving up music.  The R6 headphones are clearly more capable than my phone is selling them as.  Running them off of my amp on the stacks makes them sound pretty damn good (I'm actually a bit shocked - they might sound within read of the Status that I have).

 

Anyhow...the phone looses a lot of low end, and really lays on heavy with the highs - I am positive this is an EQ thing, and it might have to do with the lack of any DAC.

 

So my questions are as follows:

1. What is a good Android powered app that will handle EQ well without the gimmicks?

2. What is a good small in-line DAC that I could use on my phone?  Keeping in mind this is at work - and I will have to pull the power when I'm not there, so smaller is better.

    (I know of the Schiit Fulla 2 - but if I don't have to spend my full budget, I'd like to not.)

 

I'd like to keep the expenses under $100.

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I don't know much on phone audio - just the other specs.  So that being said, wouldn't I still benefit from a headphone amp, or something in between?  Surely, there's got to be some kind of EQing app that would normalize the sound a bit more too.

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The best thing you can do with a phone is give it a good source.  Your problem us most likely the source and not your phones dac.  Try a trial of a hi res source and I'll bet you'll be surprised.   Tidal on my phone sounds pretty darn good.

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13 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

The best thing you can do with a phone is give it a good source.  Your problem us most likely the source and not your phones dac.  Try a trial of a hi res source and I'll bet you'll be surprised.   Tidal on my phone sounds pretty darn good.

I'm using whatever the extreme quality is on Spotify.  I can't really imagine that on the phone with the parts crammed into one, and the cost of the headphones I have - there'd be a huge jump from that to Tidal.  I suppose I could try the free trial of it and see, but this seems to me this is more of a device issue - since again...I can run Spotify through the amp and the headphones come alive, likewise if I just run it without the headphones.

 

That to me sounds like an EQ thing, not a source thing.

 

9 minutes ago, Ceptorman said:

But some places back in time are nice and peaceful.


And slow themselves down so I have to buy a new one every 2 years so I'm caught up with 4 years ago. :P

And not nearly as customizable, and 3x the price.

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I did the Klipsch earphone trial program last year. They sent me 5 pair of headphones for a free trial. I did notice a couple of the phones didn't have quite the quality sound as the others, the more expensive phones did sound better. Have you tried any other phones than the R6? I think that program had the R6i. I do remember the X11 pair sounded very good. None of them sounded nearly as good hooked to a phone compared to my AVR.

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1 minute ago, Ceptorman said:

I did the Klipsch earphone trial program last year. They sent me 5 pair of headphones for a free trial. I did notice a couple of the phones didn't have quite the quality sound as the others, the more expensive phones did sound better. Have you tried any other phones than the R6? I think that program had the R6i. I do remember the X11 pair sounded very good. None of them sounded nearly as good hooked to a phone compared to my AVR.

I own a pair of the R6i earphones, and just got a pair of the R6 headphones - which are the ones I've noticed the sound difference between the amp and the phone here.

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I have the earphones just for my jogs.  I hate earphones as a rule.  They surely don't sound as good as the full headphones that the R6's are - not really a fair comparison there.

 

Just so you're aware - these are the ones I'm talking about in my OP:

http://www.klipsch.com/products/r6-on-ear-headphones

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18 minutes ago, The History Kid said:

I have the earphones just for my jogs.  I hate earphones as a rule.  They surely don't sound as good as the full headphones that the R6's are - not really a fair comparison there.

 

Just so you're aware - these are the ones I'm talking about in my OP:

http://www.klipsch.com/products/r6-on-ear-headphones

Oh....sorry I thought the R6 was an in ear type. 

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28 minutes ago, JL Sargent said:

I use my phone via bluetooth to a Fugoo XL and it sounds pretty darn good. Maybe look to a bluetooth solution and that would bypass your onboard phone DAC.

 

Work, unfortunately, does not permit Bluetooth devices of any kind. So that option is out.

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