How is the Galaxy Player 5.0 or 4.0 with sensitive IEM's

[zeitfliesst]

I currently own some very sensitive IEM's with sensitivties hovering around 120 dB SPL/mW. I recently had a terrible experience with a digizoid ZO2 due to the amount of hiss/conductive noise/volume gain. I'm wondering if the galaxy player will be able to handle sensitive IEM's without producing too much hiss or noise.

*Edit: Or actually, include 4.2 into the list. I had no idea this even came out.

[CrowdAds]

[Daniel644]

If this helps any, I have the 4.0 with voodoo sound set at 0db with the volume turned ALL the way up running into my Pioneer headunit in my car that has a volume scale from 0-62 and can go all the way to 56-58 without any audible distortortion and thats higher volume then CD's could go before distortion, 48 is my MAX volume I use when showing the radio to people and my normal volume level is between 37 and 42, and the only albums I ever hear any hiss on are the ones that had it in the original recording ie "Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions".

[zeitfliesst]

Sweet. I'm really confused by the seemingly "hidden" differences between the 4.0, 4.2, and 5.0. I've just noticed that the 4.2 has an inferior 2.0MP camera. I have no idea why Samsung would have done that (obviously to reduce costs, but still...). Plus I'm really new to this whole app thing. So basically, if I wanted to get voodoo sound to eliminate much of the hiss/noise I'd have to use Steve's custom kernel which is only applicable to the 4.0, is that right?

[Daniel644]

Now we have some choices, we have Steves Kernel, Klin's Kernel and the terrasilent kernel (which is what i'm using now) but they are all only for the 4.0. I imagine one day someone will patch the 4.2's kernel to give it access but there is no way to know when, but the added bonus of the release of the 4.2 is it caused a MASSIVE price drop to the 4.0

[zeitfliesst]

Well, the dilemma is that for someone like me located in Canada, it would be currently $8 cheaper to get the 4.2, not the 4.0. And I'm also hearing that 4.2 natively runs voodoo. Is that bogus?

[gupti]

Voodoo needs to be kernel-supported, and I doubt Samsung would add support for third-party software in their kernel.

As for noise, I use Klipsch s4 IEMs, and I do hear hiss, but very little. I can only hear it in a completely silent room with nothing playing on the device. More information about sound quality can be found in this thread. Some RMAA tests were done, and the 4.0-voodoo was fairly good with noise, with -90.2 dB.

[Blackdog]

I have the 5.0 (stock) and Klipsh S4 earbuds.
Some on the boards say that the 4.0 has a better (Wolfson) Digital to Audio converter chip. The 5.0 has a Yamaha DAC and is not supposed to be as good. This is the interweb; take it all with a grain of salt.

I have a Sansa Fuze version 1 and that was very clean. I perceive the Samsung 5.0 playback as a lesser quality. Slight, but definitely discernable. I don't perceive the hiss that some discuss. It's just that the Sansa Fuze reproduced detail and "stage-presence" very well. Totally subjective, I can't prove a thing.

I listen to a lot of music from Aerosmith to Zappa, Bach to Keith Jarret, Brad Mehdau, Bill Frisell, Bill Evans, Trombone Shorty, Liquid Soul,...being some recent stuff...
I like accurate renditions of the original recordings and want to avoid coloration in general. I don't generally activate any EQ stuff.

To me the 5.0 does OK. I wouldn't want to accept much less. I wish it were as good as the Sansa Fuze and I'd pay more for better audio quality- especially in a device marketed specifically as a media player.

I'd recommend taking your IEM's and a microSD card with some music you are familiar with (maybe in FLAC format) into BestBuy and review for yourself. That's what I did.

BTW: Aside from audio playback..these things just totally rock. You're going to be amazed when you discover Android and what all the apps can do on these devices. It's absolutely amazing what I've got going on my device. Mostly free apps running on a $230 device. Just amazing. If you are into audio, check out Tape Machine, a recording and sound editing app that has some elements similar to Audacity. runs about $5 I think but well worth it. Records in FLAC, AIFF, mp3, wav and
OGG. Produces very good recordings from the on-board mic (although mono, obviously). You've got NetFlix, YouTube, Amazon mp3, Craigslist, Pandora, Slacker, many different camera apps, various audio and video player options, financial stuff, calorie counters, file managers, police scanners, guitar tuners, Kindle, Overdrive reader for free library books, all your email, calendar integrated with your Google Calendar and work Exchange calendar, texting and phone calls if you want, GPS, Google Maps (which will work when off wifi!), FM radio, world radio apps, DropBox to sync everything no matter where you are, ES file Manager that will link with your wireless network at home or work, calculators (some emulate real Hewlett Packard calculator models), compass, pdf scanner/document converter, SketchBook Mobile (like Photoshop Lite), bar code scanners, the list just goes on.

Get ready for some fun my friend!

[zeitfliesst]

That's awesome to hear. Call me gullible, but I still decided to go with the 4.2 with the Wolfson DAC. But that's interesting that you don't hear any hiss with the stock music player. I hope that's true for me and my ES5 as well. Otherwise I guess I would just have to hold out until somebody makes voodoo usable with the 4.2. Also, I'm definitely eager to try out all the android apps for the first time, especially exiciting is the Google maps offline coming soon.