For the past few years, DxOMark has earned themselves a strong reputation in terms of their objective testing of smartphone camera. Now, the company is looking to replicate their success in the field of smartphone speakers and microphones as well.
According to the company, the latest DxOMark Audio test protocol aims “to provide comprehensive, neutral, and reliable test data about smartphone audio recording and output quality to consumers and other interested parties”. Currently, the company is testing testing solely on the playback performance only of a smartphone’s internal speakers, not its performance when coupled to headphones or external speakers.
The scoring scheme for it’s audio testing is split into two different audio quality attributes comprising of playback and recording. Each of this attributes are further split into sub-attributes which will then be graded with a score depending it’s performance. For instance, in testing a device’s playback quality, the following sub-attributes are considered: Timbre, Dynamics, Spatial, Volume, and Artifact.
So how are these attributes being tested? According to DxOMark, it is done using both objective and perceptual tests. Objective testing will make use of equipment such as spectrograms and sound-level meters. On the other hand, perceptual testing is said to be “carried out by “sound experts have acquired after years of working in the fields of audio engineering and audio industrial design in a wide array of industries”.
In their first round of testing, DxOMark has tested seven devices from five different smartphone brands, which include the likes of Apple iPhones 11 Pro Max, iPhone XS Max, Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Galaxy S10+, Huawei Mate 20 X, Honor 20 Pro, and Sony Xperia 1.
Out of the seven devices, the Huawei Mate 20 X emerged with the highest score of 75, putting it at the top of the chart. The Apple iPhone XS Max took the second spot with a score of 74 points, while it’s iPhone 11 Pro Max successor took the third spot. The forth to seventh spots were occupied by the Samsung Galaxy S10+, Sony Xperia 1, Galaxy Note 10+ and Honor 20 Pro respectively.
This is just the pioneer batch of smartphones being tested by DxOMark. In the near future, more devices will surely to be tested and the audio quality ranking will be updated as well. We’re excited to see which smartphone could possibly topple the Mate 20 X off the top of the chart.
Source: DxOMark
