Recording Capabilties
The Samsung Galaxy S10 boasts two microphones, giving users the option of stereo recordings. There is one microphone on the top of the phone and another at the bottom.
It is able to record at 48kHz at 320kbps and supports 32-bit depth audio.
Report
Model: Samsung Galaxy S10 Snapdragon Edition
App used to record: ASR Voice Recorder (Used to record frequency sweep from ATH-M40x)
- Has gain switch
- Allows user to choose microphone
- Lossless recordings with FLAC
- Sample rate up to 48kHz
ASR Settings:
- FLAC
- 48kHz
- Stereo
- Gain set to 0
- Noise Cancellation Off
Settings for generating the sine sweep in Audacity:
- Linear
ASR Settings - 100Hz-18000Hz
- 0.8 Amplitude
- 15 seconds
Results
According to Audacity’s spectral analysis, the S10’s frequency response seems to be moderately flat, apart from some dips near the 8000Hz and 12000Hz frequencies. It was able to record over 20kHz, but the generated tone only reached up to 18kHz. There may have been faint overtones generated within the recording environment. With these results, I wanted to do another test, this time
This time, the directionality is obviously more spread out. Here are the results of this setup:
Moving the headphones further away resulted in a more accurate frequency response, but a much bumpier frequency response. There is a trough from the frequencies 100-300Hz, and there are few frequencies above 18kHz.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy S10 is capable of reproducing sound well, although with a bit of inaccuracy. It has shown its ability in being able to hear frequencies over the range humans can hear, but those frequencies sometimes are not present. Overall, the microphone does its job well in general cases. It may not be the best for recording your fire mixtapes, but it is useful for general purpose recording like casual singing or interviews.
Bienn,
I never thought headphones would be as good a tool for spectral analysis, but your results show otherwise! It’s interesting to see the troughs starting at a 7kHz for the close up. The curve at the lower frequencies for both graphs remain the same. I’m guessing that the mic may be more sensitive to higher frequencies? Of course the phone model and app also play a part in this. I would think that the phone could be used for some professional work, given the FFT graphs. Then again, I am not sure. That’s just a thought.