Reviews and tests | Lab report: Latest mid-end music phones tested for sound quality

MAKE DEFAULT | ABOUT SITE

Русский |

English

Reviews and tests

Reviews and tests / Lab report: Latest mid-end music phones tested for sound quality

SMAPE

Reviews and tests

Sony Ericsson

Lab report: Latest mid-end music phones tested for sound quality

According to the latest statistical data, the conventional portable players are growing increasingly less popular, inevitably giving up to the music phones. Moreover, even models which don’t have music listed as one of the key selling points are still commonly given at least a memory expansion slot and some sort of mp3 player software. Handsets designed with the music aspect in mind now offer capabilities equal or even greater than those of the players.

Despite the obvious disadvantages, the Walkman products by Sony Ericsson still lead in sales in the music phone segment of the telecom market (the lack of a 3.5 mm audio out and a DSP being the sorest points). A serious challenge is looming ahead, though: the XpressMusic product family started by Nokia is rapidly growing, offering a variety of quality music gadgets which lack the usual weaknesses found in SE products. As a matter of fact, during the recent weeks XpressMusic handsets have been actively ousting the Walkmans from many regional markets, so SE’s leadership is something likely to change in the closest future. The ROKR series of Motorola phones also look very promising, yet they haven’t succeeded in winning a worldwide recognition yet. Samsung are also taking some steps towards the formation of a dedicated line of specialized music products, but the company’s latest efforts resulting in nothing greater than the appearance of several Beat budget-class phones.

To escape from any accusations of being biased, we only quote the objective results obtained through several test sessions with RMAA. This software is used for assessing the quality of digital and analog audio circuits. The testing is done by playing and recording a series of signals passed through the circuit employing a variety of frequency analysis algorithm. For those who aren’t too deep into the audio technology, the program assigns a certain grade ranging from Very Poor to Excellent.

Smape's test platform is based off X-Fi audio hardware

The test platform uses a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music sound card which is just good enough to exclude any possibility of test results getting corrupted because of an improper quality of the test hardware. The following handsets took part in the race: Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, Motorola ROKR EM30, Samsung M3510 Beat, Sony Ericsson Walkman W302.

The final test score is like this::

Model	Nokia 5310		Motorola ROKR EM30		Samsung M3510		Sony Ericsson W302
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	+0.39, -0.24	Good	+0.65, -0.21	Good	+2.34, -2.62	Poor	+1.58, -0.86	Average
Noise level, dB (A)	-74.0	Average	-83.2	Good	-89.4	Good	-38.3	Very Poor
Dynamic range, dB (A)	74.1	Average	83.2	Good	89.3	Good	80.2	Good
THD, %	0.034	Good	0.145	Average	0.043	Good	0.036	Good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-64.3	Poor	-52.2	Poor	-50.9	Poor	-19.7	Very Poor
IMD + Noise, %	0.061	Good	0.274	Average	0.774	Poor	9.573	Very Poor
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-33.6	Very Poor	-81.6	Very Good	-68.8	Good	-52.6	Poor
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.061	Good	0.276	Average	79.149	Very Poor	1.#QO	Excellent
Smape's final score:	25 points		27 points		23 points		22 points

Now let's have a detailed examination of each tested model...

Nokia 5310

Guiding price: 140 euros
Release date: already available
3.5 mm audio out / DSP: + / +

обзор: smape.com/en/reviews/nokia/Nokia_5310-rev.html

The phone manufactured by the official leader of the telecom market didn’t win the race, yet ranks only second to the Motorola product. Due to the overall balance and sound implementation of the audio features, the 5310 model has already came to be a bestseller. As for the sound quality in particular, we really liked the very natural sound. The highs are slightly cut downs. This model displayed one of the best gain-frequency characteristics in our test. The A2DP is implemented is in a very average way mostly no different from Samsung and Motorola. Still Nokia 5310 makes one the best possible choices for a music phone, backed up by a low price and perfect ergonomics.

Frequency Response

From 20 Hz to 20 kHz, dB
-4.45, +0.39

From 40 Hz to 15 kHz, dB
-0.24, +0.39

Noise level

Left

Right

RMS power, dB
-72.9

-73.4

RMS power (A-weighted), dB
-73.6

-74.3

Peak level, dB FS
-59.0

-59.3

DC offset, %
-0.1

-0.1

Dynamic range, dB

Left

Right

Dynamic range, dB
+73.0

+73.6

Dynamic range (A-weighted), dB
+73.8

+74.5

DC offset, %
-0.12

-0.12

THD + noise(-3 dB)

Left

Right

THD, %
+0.0338

+0.0340

THD + noise , %
+0.0590

+0.0565

THD + Noise (A-weighted), %
+0.0619

+0.0599

IMD

Left

Right

IMD + Noise, %
+0.0624

+0.0600

IMD + Noise (A-weighted), %
+0.0559

+0.0530

Stereo crosstalk

Left

Right

Crosstalk at 100 Hz, dB
-32

-33

Crosstalk at 1000 Hz, dB
-33

-33

Crosstalk at 10000 Hz, dB
-32

-32

IMD (swept tones)

Left

Right

IMD + Noise at 5000 Hz
0.0612

0.0592

IMD + Noise at 10000 Hz
0.0594

0.0577

IMD + Noise at 15000 Hz
0.0636

0.0620

Motorola ROKR EM30

Guiding price: 160 euros
Release date: late September
3.5 mm audio out / DSP: + / +

обзор: smape.com/en/reviews/motorola/Motorola_ROKR_EM30-rev.html

Of late, Motorola have been through a time of trouble, but it didn’t stand in their way of tailoring really good products. Among the handful of the fresh announces, the EM30 model is probably the most eye-catching, combining a powerful fashion impact and a high sound quality, all of this coming at an affordable price At times, it lacks some sound volume, losing in this aspect to Nokia and even Samsung. This is something outside the scope of the synthetic tests but the human ear easily catches the difference. The high quality of sound is provided by the hi-end hardware and a selection of advanced audio codecs. The Spatial Audio technology (first known use in the E2 model) polishes the resulting signal to a state of perfection. If you are satisfied with the not too impressive sound volume, you get an almost ideal mid-end music phone comparable in sound quality to same-class players.