Oppo Find X6 Pro Audio test

We subjected the Oppo Find X6 Pro to our rigorous SBMARK audio test suite to measure its performance both when recording sound using its built-in microphones, and when playing audio through its speakers.

In this review, we’ll analyze how it performed in a variety of tests and several common use cases.

Overview

Key audio specs include:

• Two speakers (top left, bottom right)
• No audio jack output

Reproduction

Registration

The audio performance of the Oppo Find X6 Pro was very similar to its predecessor, the Find X5 Pro, with natural sounding audio but a lack of clarity and brilliance in both playback and recording.

Our experts found the Find X6 Pro’s recordings to be clean and loud enough, but clarity dropped noticeably at high volumes for both recording and playback. With its built-in speakers, the Find X6 Pro delivered fairly consistent results across all use cases, making it equally suitable for listening to music, watching movies, and playing games. When recording, it worked best with the main camera. That said, it was also a decent option for selfie camera and memo recordings.

Trial summary

Learn 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 playback, the Oppo Find X6 Pro offered a decent tonal balance, with natural-sounding highs and mids (although they lacked clarity and brightness), as well as good bass that lacked only low-frequency extension and roundness. Tonal balance was felt to be aggressive at max volume when listening to music and even more so when gaming, while at low volume the lack of clarity and brilliance was accentuated. In terms of dynamics, the attack was decent but could have been sharper. The device also delivered good bass accuracy and punch was okay but left no real impact. Dynamic qualities were preserved at low volume, but further flawed at maximum volume due to distortion and compression. The built-in speakers created a fairly large sound stage and provided quite precise and accurate localization of individual sound sources. However, voices tended to be heard further away than the comparison devices, and the rendering of soundstage depth could have been better.

Our experts found the minimum volume setting to be a little too low, with some softer content not being adequately audible. The maximum volume was quite loud, but the volume step distribution was slightly inconsistent. We did notice some distortion and compression at max volume, and the right speaker clogged too easily when holding the phone in landscape orientation. But the effects on playback quality were only minor.

Hear about the playback performance of the smartphone tested in this comparison with some of its competitors:

Here’s how Oppo Find X6 Pro fares in playback use cases compared to its competitors:

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

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

While recording, our experts found the tone of the Oppo to be good overall. The tonal balance was fairly consistent across all use cases, and sounded natural, despite a lack of bottom-end clarity and an inconsistent upper midrange. This however allowed the background rendition to be quite unobtrusive and pleasant to listen to. Dynamic performance was good, with a decent signal-to-noise ratio in all use cases and a generally accurate envelope.

When recording video with the main camera in landscape orientation, our testers found audio amplitude and localizability of individual sound elements to be satisfactory, but not quite on par with the best in class. However, the results for both sub-attributes were excellent when recording selfie video in portrait orientation. Distance rendering was generally correct, but voices were often heard too far away. Volume performance was very good, thanks to relatively loud recordings and high resilience to high sound pressure levels, making the Find X6 Pro a good option for recording loud events, such as concerts.

Unwanted audio artifacts were very well under control, with only some compression and slight distortion at high SPLs. The Oppo Find X6 Pro proved to be quite efficient in windy conditions. His recordings preserved intelligibility as long as wind speeds were not too overwhelming. The audio zoom feature was also very efficient, but only for vocal content, as it had trouble isolating musical instruments when zoomed in.

Here’s how the Oppo Find X6 Pro fares in recording 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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[“Samsung Galaxy S23”]=> string(73) “resources/Oppo/OppoFindX6ProV2.1/SamsungGalaxyS23_MicrophoneArtifacts.m4a” }