LG’s Quad DAC: Everything you need to know

The Quad DAC adds a batch of advantages and puts LG flagship phones on par with many audiophile-specific devices. however, there is a draw of misunderstanding about this technical school. LG has historically not given out a short ton of information about Quad DACs and that ’ s a trouble we can help fix. here is everything you need to know about the LG Quad DAC . hifiduino
First, let’s talk briefly about what DACs and amps actually are. first, let ’ s spill the beans briefly about what DACs and amps actually are. A DAC is a digital-to-analog converter. It basically turns your music from 1s and 0s into an analogue signal. The sign runs to the headphones, which then amplify the sign into your ears. Every device with a earphone jack or speakers has a DAC. For example, these days, Qualcomm uses its Aqstic audio platform for its Snapdragon chips. You absolutely can not have a device that produces healthy without a DAC somewhere, because 1s and 0s don ’ t make noise .
basically, the DAC makes good happen on electronics. An ampere is besides a piece of technical school all devices with sound have. The ampere, inadequate for amplifier, is the piece of technical school creditworthy for, well, amplifying the signal from the DAC. Almost all things that produce sound have both a DAC and an amplifier. finally, let ’ s spill concisely about SNR, or signal-to-noise ratio proportion. To put it simply, SNR is a measurement that compares the level of an audio signal with the degree of backdrop make noise. In theory, the higher the number, the better your music sounds. SoundGuys has an excellent post about snatch depth and SNR here if you want to read the longer version .

What is the LG Quad DAC?

LG ’ s Quad DAC is actually made up of four sub-DACs that work in tandem and this is what makes LG ’ s Quad DAC unique. There are multiple ways a company can concoct a DAC with sub-DACs, but we believe ESS ( the godhead of the Quad DAC ) uses a parallel plan based on its marketing verbiage. To put it merely, the Quad DAC passes an audio signal through each one of its sub-DACs in order to improve noise operation. The Snapdragon Aqstic system we talked about earlier boasts an SNR of 115dB while the Quad DAC has been measured ampere high as 130dB. The supernumerary 15dB is because of the Quad DAC. We dug into the Quad DAC quite a morsel when it first launched. You can read the much longer, a lot more in-depth explanation about how it works by clicking here .
LG ‘s Quad DAC is amazingly complicated. Despite its identify, the Quad DAC actually works like any early amp-and-DAC jazz band. The amplifier generates a fortune more office than your standard earphone jack, frankincense giving LG devices the ability to baron higher electric resistance headphones like the 300-ohm Sennheiser HD600. meanwhile, the DAC part supports sound recording files with up to 32-bit sound recording at 384 kilohertz sample rate ( as of the LG V60 ). The numbers haven ’ metric ton changed much over the years . The Quad DAC does most of the work for you. It is enabled by default in the settings and stays that way unless you change it. There are some settings you can change, but for the most separate it just delivers a enjoyable audio experience from most sources. here are the settings you can actually change ( as of the LG V60 ).

• Hi-Fi Quad DAC toggle – The toggle is available in the quick settings. It turns the Quad DAC on and off. Long pressing the toggle instantly takes you to the Quad DAC settings menu.
• Volume – The volume slider in the DAC settings is different from normal. It’s a 75-stage slider with increments ranging 0 to 75 (technically, that’s 76 stages). You can fine tune your volume here.
• Normalize volume – This setting normalizes all media to be about the same volume. We actually recommend leaving this off and adjusting the volume yourself unless you really need it.
• Equalizer – LG includes a 10-band, system-wide equalizer ranging from 32 Hz to 16 kHz. Additionally, there are 14 presets, including a treble booster, a bass booster, and a vocal booster setting.
• LG 3D Sound Engine – LG attempts to improve the audio by adding a 3D aspect to it. There are options for Voice, Music, and Cinema along with an Auto function to switch between them automatically. The setting adds a bit of depth and reverb to the sound at the cost of realism.
• Hi-Fi Quad DAC – This setting enables and disables the Quad DAC. It performs exactly the same function as the quick settings toggle above.
• Sound preset – Sound preset is actually a second set of equalizer presets except these are controlled by the DAC. The presets are also system wide but you can’t create custom profiles.
• Digital filter – Delta-sigma DACs like LG’s chips generally need a digital filter in order to function, so this setting can’t be turned off. The digital filter changes the characteristics of the sound, but this isn’t a post-processing step (and it doesn’t affect the frequency response). There isn’t a huge difference between the three settings (Short, Sharp, and Slow). Sharp is the default setting and it should work for most people.
• Balance – Balance lets you adjust the volume between the left and right earcups. This is useful for fixing any imbalance on a pair of headphones or adjusting the volume for those partially deaf in one ear.

Adjust those settings while listening to your favorite tunes to get everything the manner you want it. After that, you sit back and enjoy your music .

LG Quad DAC tips and tricks

You should be able to get a reasonably adequate experience with everything above. however, there are some early, smaller details you might want to know about to get the absolute best experience out of the Quad DAC .

A lot of music apps don’t sample properly

One of the most annoying issues with LG ’ s Quad DAC is how many apps shunt it wholly. This international relations and security network ’ thyroxine LG ’ south fault, it ’ s due to the Android OS as a whole. The short adaptation is most android music players use music APIs native to the OS to sample music rather of the Quad DAC. thus, most music ends up at 16-bit, 44 kilohertz no matter the actual piece depth and sample rate. There are alone a few ways to fix this. The common cognition fasten is to purchase the app UAPP ( USB Audio Player Pro ) for $ 8. The app plays about any charge at its native sample rate and bit astuteness, including MQA and DSD files. It besides plays courteous with UPnP devices, network devices, and you can even connect your TIDAL account and listen to MQA albums through UAPP. I personally use it to listen to Google Play Music deoxyadenosine monophosphate well. It ’ sulfur pretty amazing. There are other solutions, but UAPP is the easy, all-in-one, “ works all the time ” solution .
Read more: Tidal five Spotify : Which one is the better choice for you ? It ’ s a piece of an expensive music app, but it ’ second wholly worth it for audiophiles with music collections in ace high gear quality sound recording formats. Those of you with libraries in MP3 can disregard all of this since the sample rate international relations and security network ’ t higher than 16-bit, 44 kilohertz. You folks can use whatever music player you want. Another fair option for this consequence is Poweramp. You have to enable some things in the settings and it ’ s not quite vitamin a brawny as UAPP, but it does support the LG Quad DAC at higher sample rates and bit depth as well .

See which mode the LG Quad DAC is in

The Quad DAC exists in three possible modes. The first is off and you already know how off works. however, when the DAC is active, it ’ ll either be in low-impedance ( up to 50 ohm ) manner and high-impedance ( up to 600ohm ) mode. Earlier LG devices had a immediate in the settings to tell you which one you had active. Later LG devices stopped this practice for some bewilder reason, but you can restore the functionality with the Hi-Fi Status ( LG ) app. The app reads the country of the Quad DAC when you plug in headphones and you can well see if you ’ re in low electric resistance or high electric resistance modality. It costs $ 0.99, but it should work with every LG device with the Quad DAC. We tested it with the LG V60 and it worked fine. The app only updates its express when opened ( on the LG V60 at least ), so it ’ s a bit annoying to use. just close it out of holocene apps and re-open. That bug may get fixed in a future update and it ’ s honestly not that bad. You can besides configure it to give you toast messages or a persistent notification .
LG has been a leader in sound recording for years and the Quad DAC is a will to that. There are few devices that flush compete. many devices have limited DACs, but none of them have a Quad DAC system and fewer distillery have a third gear party adenosine monophosphate to power high end headphones. The one-two jazz band allows LG phones to world power the best of the best headphones and deliver excellent strait in the process. No early mod mobile phone can do that .