DxOMark is well-known in the smartphone world for its camera reviews and well, phone makers love to boast about their photography and video scores. Well, DxOMark is today expanding its reviews expertise with the addition of audio testing into the mix. It means DxOMark is now going to test out the speaker and microphones of latest smartphones in the market, offering us in-depth reviews and scores to judge their performance.
Dubbed DxOMark Audio, we can now expect a “comprehensive, neutral, and reliable test data(set) about smartphone audio recording and output quality” from renowned camera reviewers. The company has defined a set of protocols that mirror daily use-cases of the smartphone recording audio such as voice memos, recording a street play and more. It’s also going to see how smartphones handle background noise while recording audio.
- Timbre (frequency response, treble/midrange/bass, total balance, volume dependency)
- Dynamics (attack, bass precision, punch, volume dependency)
- Spatial (wideness, balance, distance, localization)
- Volume (maximum, minimum, user volume consistency)
- Artefacts (noise, pumping, clipping, user artefacts, other artefacts)
Initial Audio Test Results
DxOMark Audio is already at work, reviewing the audio quality of phones, and published reviews for a handful of smartphones, to start with. These include the new iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone XS Max, Sony Xperia 1 and more. However, you would be surprised to know that initial testing has found Huawei Mate 20X to be the top-ranking phone in terms of audio quality with a score of 75 points – thanks to the stereo mics onboard.
