That all said, the memo app records in mono, and if you’re a fanatical selfie videographer, note that selfie videos suffer from a lack of treble, which impairs numerous audio attributes (tonal balance, attack, speech clarity, distance, natural background rendering).Īll in all, considering the phone’s spectacular spec sheet (and price), it is safe to assume that audio, despite its above-average performance, wasn’t Samsung’s top priority when designing its latest flagship phone.Jump to Peak, LUFS, Stereo Field, Loudness Range, Dynamic Range, Bass Space, Presets, Settings. Volume is good, artifacts are well controlled, dynamics are generally respected, and timbre performance is good, whether in playback or recording. If the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra doesn’t outshine its strongest competitors in the audio area, it still delivers a very consistent, above-average performance. However, when recording a selfie video, the lack of high-end is once again problematic, resulting in an unnatural background. The S20 Ultra does a good job of preserving the original tonal balance of the recorded background in life videos.
In this section, we’ll take a closer look at these audio quality sub-scores and explain what they mean for the user. The DXOMARK Audio overall score of 69 for the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is derived from its Playback and Recording scores and their respective sub-scores. In all other use cases, the overall timbre performance is fairly good dynamics are decently captured (average SNR ratio, well-preserved plosives in life videos and memos) loudness is good in most use cases (except for indoor scenarios) and few artifacts are noticeable. Furthermore, in high SPL (Sound Pressure Level) scenarios, an aggressive low-end compression impacts punch and generates audible temporal artifacts. Recording a life video with the Samsung Galaxy S20 UltraĪs for microphone performance, the main issue is the lack of high-end extension in selfie videos, which impairs the distance rendering, localizability, and attack of recorded audio, as well as blurring the envelope and making voices sound nasal and backgrounds less natural. (For more details about our Playback protocol, click here for more details about our Recording protocol, click here.) Test summary Note that we evaluate both Playback and Recording using only the device’s built-in hardware and default apps. This article highlights the most important results of our testing. No headphone jack, USB-C adapter not includedĪbout DXOMARK Audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, DXOMARK engineers perform a variety of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled lab conditions.(However, wired listeners, beware: the Galaxy S20 Ultra offers no headphone jack, and no USB-C adapter either.)
#Tonal balance control sucks Bluetooth
Predictably, this magnum opus also benefits from AKG’s expertise in the audio field, along with Dolby Atmos certification, Bluetooth 5.0 (which allows users to stream audio to two wireless devices at the same time), and stereo speakers. The Latin word “ultra” translates as “going beyond limits”- and when it comes to Samsung’s latest smartphone, it’s a well-deserved suffix: the Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G boasts a groundbreaking 108-megapixel main rear camera, a whopping 6.9-inch 120 Hz AMOLED display, a huge 5000 mAh battery, and an Exynos 990 chipset (Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 in the USA) with 12 GB of RAM.