Hi folks,
I recently purchased the LG V10 phone, after some research revealed that it includes an ESS Sabre DAC chip and an amp from ESS as well. This phone is getting a good deal of attention over at HeadFi for the quality of its audio output. For some reason, LG themselves haven't advertised this side of the phone much at all.
But wow, love the sound of my Shure 846 through this phone! And the low impedance and high sensitivity of these IEMs makes them very picky about sources (the iFi nano iDSD for example did not have a sufficiently low noise floor for the 846s for example). A great improvement from the HTC M8 I previously owned, which also got high praise for its audio out.
I have not used it with higher impedance headphones myself, but folks on HeadFi also report good results with headphones with impedances up to 600 Ohm! The amp on the phone detects the impedance of attached headphones and adjusts its output accordingly (not sure on the technical details on how that works.
A number of folks on HeadFi who have compared it to their DAPs are comparing the audio quality of this phone to their DAPs, and seem to be concluding that it either equals the audio quality of a mid-tier DAP or that the difference between the phone and their DAP is small enough that they no longer feel like they need to use their DAP on the go.
The phone also has an SD slot, so possible to load up tons of music (an early promotion for the phone even included a 200GB SD card and a spare battery (w/charger) with the purchase).
Check it out! Could also be a great option as a source for Cheap & Cheerful folks. A great potential pairing with some active speakers that lack their own built in DAC!
