Asus Zenfone 10 Audio test

We put the Asus Zenfone 10 through our rigorous SBMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance in both recording sound using the built-in microphones, and playing audio through its speakers.
In this review, we’ll break down how it performed in a variety of tests and several common use cases.

Overview

Key audio specifications include:

• Two speakers (top center, bottom right)
• 3.5mm audio output
• Dirac HD Sound technology

Playback

Registration

The Asus Zenfone 10 delivered a balanced performance in SBMARK Audio tests, performing quite well in both playback and recording. The main disadvantages of the device in terms of audio quality are the lack of treble during playback, resulting in a slightly muffled and dark sound, as well as a high sensitivity to wind noise during recording, despite a dedicated wind noise reduction function. wind.

Playback performance through the built-in speakers was consistent across all use cases, whether listening to music, watching movies, or playing games. As a recording device, the Zenfone 10 delivered the best results with voice memos, but performance was also great with the main camera app.

Test summary

About SBMARK audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, SBMARK engineers perform a series of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled laboratory conditions.
(For more details on our playback protocol, click here; for more details on our recording protocol, click here.)
The following section compiles the key elements of our extensive testing and analysis performed in the SBMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations in the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.

In our tests, the Asus Zenfone 10 delivered decent performance in the tonal category. The tonal balance was good overall but left some room for improvement, in particular the insufficient highs. Treble was more present at maximum volume but also introduced some unwanted harshness. Dynamic performance was slightly inconsistent, with good effectiveness across all use cases, but the attack lacked detail and didn’t have the impact our testers would have liked. The envelope was immaculate on some tracks but could be inconsistent on others, with shorter-than-expected sustain of some bass notes.

In terms of spatial attributes, the Asus offers quite good depth rendering. Distance rendering was also decent, but voices could sound a bit distant at times. Both the breadth of the sound stage and the localizability of the individual sound sources were quite average. While the volume step distribution was very consistent, the volume at maximum was only average. The minimum volume was adjusted correctly but slightly too low for listening to low-volume passages in highly dynamic content, such as classical music. The Zenfone 10 performed well in terms of unwanted audio artifacts, with only some slight distortion at maximum volume. Our testers also noted that the right speaker could be occluded when holding the device in portrait orientation. However, the effects on sound quality were rather minor.

Listen to the playback performance of the smartphone tested in this comparison with some of its competitors:

Here’s how the Asus Zenfone 10 fares in playback use cases compared to its competitors:

Here are some sound pressure levels (SPLs) measured when playing our sample recordings of hip-hop and classical music at maximum volume:

The following graph shows the gradual changes in volume going from minimum to maximum. We expect these changes to be consistent across the range, so that all volume increases match user expectations:

When recording, the Asus offered good overall tonal balance. The highs were satisfactory with the main and selfie cameras. The midrange was good on the main camera, with natural-sounding vocals, but sounded slightly hollow when recording with the selfie cam. The timbre remained good when recording at high sound pressure levels, for example at concerts. Our testers also noticed that both bass and treble were boosted with the HDR Audio feature turned on. Tonal balance seemed slightly richer and background rendering in urban environments was noticeably improved. Dynamic recording performance was good, with an accurate and precise envelope in all use cases and an excellent signal-to-noise ratio.

The sound stage was large when recording with the main camera but noticeably limited with the selfie camera in portrait orientation. Locating sound sources was also better with the main camera. Also, voices may be heard from a distance when recording with the selfie camera. The Audio HDR feature improved both locability and distance performance with the main camera, while only distance when capturing selfie videos was improved. The recordings were very loud and free from unwanted artifacts. Aside from some slight clipping on loud vocals, the recorded sound was overall very clean. At high sound pressure levels our experts noticed multiband compression that became more intrusive with HDR Audio enabled. The rendering of the background was very good, thanks to a pleasant tonal balance and the almost absence of artefacts.

Here’s how the Asus Zenfone 10 fares in logging use cases compared to its competitors:

Here are the sound levels recorded in the audio and video files, measured in LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale); for reference, we expect volume levels to be above -24 LUFS for recorded content:

In this audio comparison you can hear how this smartphone handles wind noise compared to its competitors:

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