New OnePlus 5 could be best phone ever for recording concerts

Standing in a crowd, phone raised high above heads bobbing in tune with the music, concert-goers will soon have the opportunity to have an improved audio recording, claims OnePlus.

According to the company, its users want the best smartphone experience, taking their feedback into account, which is why the OnePlus 5 will be available at the end of the month.

Co-founder Carl Pei recently wrote on the official OnePlus blog that much feedback was received from OnePlus 3 and 3T users, wishing it was possible to capture higher quality audio in noisy settings like concerts.

"We may not implement every single suggestion we get, but we do listen to every suggestion in an effort to find the best way to improve," said Pei.

"Our process of capturing and evaluating user feedback takes time and resources, but we believe it helps us create better products."

Pei said new hardware was brought in and engineers were assigned to "optimize the audio system of the OnePlus 5 to capture much clearer sound."

This resulted in an improved microphone in the OnePlus 5, which has a significantly higher performance level in loud environments, he said.

"Whether you're an audiophile or not, we think you'll appreciate the difference."

The new model is said to be cost more than the previous two.

A 2016 article from Gear Burn, '5 of the best live gig smartphones you should consider', had OnePlus not making the cut.

The smartphones that made the list were the Nokia Lumia 1020, the HTC One M7/M8/10, Marshall London, Microsoft Lumia 950/950XL, and the Sony Xperia Z5 range.

Although, this could change for OnePlus with the release of its most superior model so far.

Due to this growing trend of handheld device recordings, Steve Guttenberg says in a CNET article that while sound quality is highly subjective, no one intends to make a poor sounding recording.

"Same for remastered recordings: No engineer would intentionally make a recording sound worse, but they will make one that sounds different than the original since today's listeners are likely to use mobile devices as their primary music players," said Guttenberg.

The Audiophiliac explained a newly remastered album is usually louder, because it sounds "better" than a quieter version when played over smartphone or computer speakers, but he finds it unlistenable over his NAD Viso HP50 headphones.

"The sound quality of a recording is largely determined by the engineers who originally recorded and mixed it. The sound then might be further compromised or improved in mastering, as well as by the limitations of the release format," said Guttenberg.

"Generally speaking, for older music the original release formats are truest to the musicians' intent."He added recordings have to be great to start with, and that LPs and CDs are just release formats.

"The recording's sound quality is key, and a great one can sound great as a MP3, FLAC, CD or LP. A poor recording will still sound poor as a MP3, FLAC, CD or LP."

Related Cantech Letter Posts
Source: New OnePlus 5 could be best phone ever for recording concerts