Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) Audio check

Samsung’s newest flagship, simply launched on the finish of February, has a number of upgrades over its predecessor, like a built-in S pen and greater sensors to enhance evening pictures. It sports activities a 6.8″ show with an adaptive 120Hz refresh price. Samsung says the brand new chipset, the Exynos 2200 (4 nm) in Europe, is its quickest ever. On the audio entrance, the gadget has two audio system producing “encompass sound with Dolby Atmos know-how.” Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus are included. As for recording, S22 Extremely has Zoom-in MIC (Audio zoom), which Samsung describes as “an audio recording perform that focuses on the course of curiosity utilizing a mix of three built-in MICs whereas video recording.”

We put the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) by way of our rigorous DXOMARK Audio check suite to measure its efficiency each at recording sound utilizing its built-in microphones, and at taking part in audio again by way of its audio system. On this assessment, we’ll break down the way it fared in quite a lot of exams and several other widespread use instances.

Key audio specs embrace:

• Two audio system: High entrance, backside facet firing.
• Dolby Atmos tuning
• Enhanced Bluetooth connection
• No jack

About DXOMARK Audio exams: For scoring and evaluation in our smartphone audio opinions, DXOMARK engineers carry out quite a lot of goal exams and undertake greater than 20 hours of perceptual analysis below managed lab situations. This text highlights a very powerful outcomes of our testing. Word that we consider each Playback and Recording utilizing solely the gadget’s built-in {hardware} and default apps.
(For extra particulars about our Playback protocol, click on right here; for extra particulars about our Recording protocol, click on right here.)

Take a look at abstract

Playback

Recording

With a world rating of 71, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) lands simply exterior the highest 10 among the many Extremely-Premium smartphones in our database, matching the rating of the Apple iPhone 11 Professional Max, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely, and the Google Pixel 6 Professional. It is only one level behind its model sibling, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G, at 72.

For essentially the most half, the S22 Extremely (Exynos) positioned in common territory in playback and was on par with different Galaxy smartphones. There have been no obtrusive weaknesses — the smartphone is useful throughout use instances — nevertheless it solely rises above common within the quantity and artifacts attributes.

As a recording gadget, the S22 Extremely (Exynos) was a a lot stronger performer, particularly in excessive sound strain stage eventualities, the place it did a superb job at capturing the dynamic vary of the music with good tonal steadiness, pleasing midrange, clear treble, and so much (possibly a little bit an excessive amount of at instances) bass. It additionally carried out ably in additional regular conditions, capturing pleasing and correct sound with good timbre, dynamics, and spatial attributes.

Sub-scores defined

The DXOMARK Audio general rating of 71 for the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) is derived from its Playback and Recording scores and their respective sub-scores. On this part, we’ll take a more in-depth have a look at these audio high quality sub-scores and clarify what they imply for the consumer.

Playback

Timbre exams measure how nicely a cellphone reproduces sound throughout the audible tonal vary and takes under consideration bass, midrange, treble, tonal steadiness, and quantity dependency.

The rating for timbre barely betters the rating of the Galaxy S21 Extremely 5G (Exynos), which obtained a 62, nevertheless it’s nonetheless nicely exterior the highest tier on this attribute.

The general tonal steadiness demonstrates clear and pretty exact high-end extension and midrange, producing a very good copy of voices. However the S22 Extremely suffers from a powerful lack of low-end extension. At most quantity, the gadget tends to sound aggressive.

DXOMARK’s dynamics exams measure how nicely a tool reproduces the power stage of a sound supply, and the way exactly it reproduces bass frequencies.

The dynamics rating is in common territory. The assault is barely missing in sharpness. Bass precision is thrown off by a shortfall of low-end; therefore, the bass envelope shouldn’t be precisely preserved. Punch is comparatively weak, making the sound a bit flat and missing a very good dynamic vary.

The sub-attributes for perceptual spatial exams embrace localizability, steadiness, distance, and wideness.

The S22 Extremely’s spatial rating places it in higher firm, nearer to the highest 10 in our Extremely-Premium class on this attribute. The sound stage is considerably blurry, however localizability remains to be passable — you’ll be able to find the sources of devices accurately. 

Steadiness is barely inaccurate; components that needs to be centered appear to be coming from totally different corners of the S22 Extremely. This shift wouldn’t be perceptible by each consumer, so it stays in acceptable territory right here. The wideness efficiency is respectable, and distance efficiency is nice.

Quantity exams measure each the general loudness a tool is ready to reproduce and the way easily quantity will increase and reduces primarily based on consumer enter.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) performs nicely within the quantity attribute, with an above-average rating. The utmost quantity is nice compared with different units.

The minimal quantity step shouldn’t be well-tuned — sure extremely dynamic contents (like classical music) aren’t intelligible.

Listed below are a couple of sound strain ranges (SPL) measured when taking part in our pattern recordings of hip-hop and classical music at most quantity:

	Hip-Hop	Classical
Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos)	74.1 dBA	70.2 dBA
Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely 5G (Exynos)	73.2 dBA	71 dBA
Apple iPhone 13 Professional Max	72.5 dBA	69.5 dBA

Artifacts exams measure how a lot supply audio is distorted when performed again by way of a tool’s audio system. Distortion can happen each due to sound processing within the gadget and due to the standard of the audio system.

The S22 Extremely had a powerful exhibiting within the artifacts attribute, with only a few artifacts discernible in any respect. On artificial alerts utilized in testing, there have been some granular noises and overshoots. At loud volumes, bass distortion emerges. Some static hissing was additionally famous on sure contents.

Recording

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) was glorious within the timbre class. Furthermore, it was distinctive in recording within the digital music live performance use case, the place excessive sound strain ranges (SPL) typically stymie different units. In such excessive SPL eventualities, the tonal steadiness produced by the Samsung gadget is great, with vibrant treble rendition, full and pure midrange, and highly effective (if a bit intrusive) bass.

In common environments, the efficiency remains to be fairly good in each life video and selfie video modes; tonal steadiness is nicely rendered apart from a slight lack of additional brightness and high-end extension, in addition to readability within the excessive midrange. In memo mode, tonal steadiness is impaired by an absence of treble and sounds extra muffled. On this use case, the general sound is fairly canny.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) had a powerful efficiency in recording dynamics. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was superb throughout use instances, and background is nicely attenuated. In life video mode and the memo app, envelope is correct, with sharp assault and exact plosives. In selfie video mode, nonetheless, envelope is impaired by an absence of sharpness and assault is extra rounded.

At excessive SPL, dynamics efficiency is powerful however a bit unrealistic; assault appears considerably rounded and bass is fairly imprecise, rendering a fairly blurry envelope.

The S22 Extremely delivers a strong spatial efficiency as a recording gadget. Sources are exactly reproduced within the audio scene, delivering correct localizability. Wideness is nice, creating a really reasonable stereo rendering, even in selfie video, the place regardless of being held in portrait mode, the gadget delivers good wideness. Distance efficiency is impaired by the unnatural midrange, which tends to push voices additional away, however nonetheless appears pretty reasonable.

The S22 Extremely delivered a mean efficiency within the quantity attribute. Recording loudness was good in all use instances. As in another recording attributes, the capability for recording in excessive SPL environments was glorious, exhibiting almost no distortion in any respect.

Listed below are our check outcomes, measured in LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale); as a reference, we count on loudness ranges to be above -24 LUFS for recorded content material:

	Assembly	Life Video	Selfie Video	Memo
Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos)	-28.8 LUFS	-21.7 LUFS	-21.2 LUFS	-23.9 LUFS
Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely 5G (Exynos)	-26.8 LUFS	-20.1 LUFS	-22.5 LUFS	-22.3 LUFS
Apple iPhone 13 Professional Max	-25.5 LUFS	-22.7 LUFS	-20.2 LUFS	-18.2 LUFS

The Samsung gadget earned a superb rating right here. Only a few artifacts had been noticed general. Slight distortion was noticed on shouting voices. The handset was additionally principally exempt from microphone occlusion artifacts.

You’ll be able to test for artifacts your self on this pattern recording:

The background efficiency was middling. Background was a bit unrealistic due to a barely unnatural tonal steadiness. Sound is midrange centered and canny. No artifacts had been noticed, nonetheless.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (Exynos) is a good common performer as an audio gadget, according to what we’ve seen from different Samsung Galaxy smartphones. And it was truly fairly good as a recording gadget, proving to be a helpful software for these needing to seize good high quality audio in quite a lot of settings.