Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Audio test

We put the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE through our rigorous SBMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance in both recording audio using the built-in microphones and playing audio through 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 (bottom right, top center)
• No jack audio output

Playback

Registration

With an overall score of 138, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE delivered a very decent performance for its device class in the SBMARK Audio test, offering a very natural sound experience when playing audio through the built-in speakers and recording. The downside is that the device lacks useful features that you can find on some competitors, such as audio zoom or wind noise reduction, and recordings made with the recorder app are only in mono.

In playback, the test results were consistently high in all use cases: listening to music, watching movies and playing games. In recording, the Samsung did better with the selfie camera. Recording results with the main camera were only slightly worse, but performance dropped for Office and Memo applications, mostly due to monaural recording.

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 brings together key elements of our comprehensive testing and analysis performed in SBMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations in the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.

During playback, the S23 FE’s tone was clear and natural, with the highs not seeming very bright but having a nice presence. The midrange was nice and free of resonance and the bass performance was pretty good too, with nice upper bass presence. Overall, tonal results were good across all use cases and test apps. The dynamic results were very good, thanks to a firm and snappy attack at nominal volume, a very satisfying bass precision and an excellent punch. The built-in speakers provided good stereo width and made it easy to locate individual elements in the soundstage. Depth rendering was quite satisfactory, providing good separation between different sound elements, but distance rendering was only average, some content was perceived too far away.

The perceived loudness at maximum volume was good, and the minimum volume level adjustment was also excellent, allowing you to hear quiet passages in dynamic content, such as classical music, without being too loud. Furthermore, the volume levels were distributed quite consistently across the scale. In terms of unwanted audio artifacts, you may hear some slight distortion at maximum volume, as well as a moderate amount of dynamic compression at nominal and maximum volume. There was no pumping, though.

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

Here’s how the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE 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:

The tone of the recording was good overall. When recording with the main camera, the highs were clear but slightly lacking in brightness. The midrange was natural and provided a nice warmth. Tonal balance was also good with the selfie camera, but the timbre was quite dark and resonant when recording voices with the Memo app. The signal-to-noise ratio was good with the main and selfie cameras, but the background could have been more subdued when using the memo app, especially in urban scenarios. The recordings offered a wide soundstage with the main camera, but the width was noticeably more limited with the front camera. By default, the Memo app only records in mono.

Localization of individual instruments or other sound elements was consistently accurate with both the main and selfie cameras, but much less so in recordings made with the Memo app. Distance performance was very good overall, but voices were heard a little too far away with the recorder app. Recording volume was quite loud with both cameras but slightly lower with the Memo app. On the plus side, our testers found the microphones to perform very well at high sound pressure levels such as those found when recording concerts or other noisy events. The recordings were mostly free of artifacts, except for some slight clipping on sudden, loud vocals. However, the device was quite prone to microphone occlusions, which can severely muffle timbre or cause loud finger noises in recordings. Our testers found the background rendering to be consistently great and natural, with no artifacts.

Here’s how the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE 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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[“Xiaomi 13T”]=> string(67) “resources/Samsung/GalaxyS23FEV2.2/Xiaomi13T_MicrophoneArtifacts.m4a”
[“Nubia Redmagic 8 Pro”]=> string(75) “resources/Samsung/GalaxyS23FEV2.2/NubiaRedmagic8Pro_MicrophoneArtifacts.m4a” }