In the past two years, mobile phone manufacturers have made us understand a lot of new chips.
The display chip of the game phone, the power management chip of Xiaomi, the NPU chip of OPPO, and the ISP image chip of Vivo.
Before vivo X Note also focused on promoting the SPU security chip in the Snapdragon 8 mobile platform.
But the machine brother found that there was a chip that was very hot before, but recently there has been no movement, in fact, it has returned to the chip has been ignored by everyone.
Speaking of which, mobile phone manufacturers use HiFi chips on mobile phones, almost already have ... Ten years.
HiFi phones
In November 2012, the first vivo mobile phone equipped with a standalone HiFi chip was released at Beijing Water Cube.
It's called vivo X1.
The machine brother went over the promotional page that Vivo made for X1, and the HiFi element was almost everywhere.
Vivo's idea at that time was simple - to restore the sound quality of the HiFi player on the phone.
How does a HiFi player work...
Quite simply, in the process of signal transmission, the music is converted from the source file back to the music, and the music is restored as much as possible to the state that the producer wants to present.
Speaking human language is to let you hear the version that the singer hears, and to minimize the loss of sound quality - fidelity.
But there is a very complex signal transmission conversion process.
The audio source file needs to obtain an analog signal after decoding by the player and D/A conversion of the decoder;
The speaker is then driven by amplification, and the speaker converts the electrical signal into a sound signal.
It's like salmon.
The slaughterhouse processes the fresh salmon, freezes it in a freezer, transports it to your hands, thaws it, and then feeds it in your mouth.
You definitely want to eat fish closer to the texture of fresh fish, but the intermediate transportation and freezing process will affect its quality.
The freezer freezing, transporting, and thawing process in the middle is the same as decoding, converting, and driving your audio files.
And the key to these processes is the chip.
Chips are very important, so to restore the HiFi experience, you must first choose a good chip.
Therefore, Vivo picked a standalone HiFi DAC chip from the American company Citric Logic CirrusLogic - CS8422+CS4398.
The CS4398 enables 24bit/216kHz audio sampling and high-fidelity sound quality with 120dB high dynamic range.
This set of CS8422 + CS4398 is a configuration used by many professional-level Blu-ray opportunities, and vivo is a dimensionality reduction blow on mobile phones.
In order to get closer to the experience of restoring HiFi sound quality, vivo also found Baia Power to customize the MMX71iE wired headphones.
Users can also opt for headphones such as the AKG K420 and the Sennheiser CX215.
Vivo also made a special sound debugging interface, with SRS and BBE optional, and can be further adjusted after entering the interface.
Professional-grade chips, professional-level headphones, professional-level interfaces, the combination of the three is vivo's concept of HiFi mobile phones at that time.
To put it simply, in the HiFi mobile world, vivo X1 was born with a golden spoon.
Probably starting from the vivo X1, vivo's mobile phone has a HiFi label.
The next one is the vivo X3, which uses the ES9018 chip of ESS Company of the United States.
Compared with the CS4398 of vivo X1, there has been a certain upgrade.
The ES9018 supports 32bit/192kHz sampling, 135dB high dynamic range of high-fidelity sound quality, which is higher than the CE4398's 24bit, 120dB.
However, the X3 doesn't seem to be out of the loop.
The brother is more impressed, and the early HiFi performance is very strong is vivo X5.
But well, this phone is different from the X1 X3.
It is called karaoke, called "K Song Artifact".
Compared with the previous two models, the chips it uses are much more complicated.
First, the same CS4398 DAC chip as vivo X1.
Next, add a MAX97220 ear amplifier chip.
Finally, add one more Yamaha YSS205X pro-grade karaoke digital surround sound processing chip.
Headphones, external amplifier, sound effects three-pronged, support analog KTV mixing effect of real-time ear return, real-time noise cancellation, but also made a special song system.
Next, it is estimated that it will be the vivo XPlay series.
Brother remembers... Vivo XPlay5 ultimate edition, stacked with five HiFi chips.
They are the 2*ES9028 DAC from ESS corporation in the United States and the 3*OPA1612 from Texas Instruments.
This is a solid five professional chips, so far no one has surpassed, even Vivo itself has not been able to pile more material.
By the time of the vivo Xplay6, the HiFi chip returned to four, or ESS + Texas Instruments' solution, ES9038+3*OPA1622.
But alas, Xplay6 brings a new DSD hard decoding gameplay, once again breaking the ceiling of the phone's HiFi.
Seeing that Vivo's HiFi mobile phones have become popular, other manufacturers have actually joined the HiFi chip.
For example, the Meizu MX4 Pro released in 2014.
Like Vivo, Meizu is also a company that started as a player, which is a return to the old business.
Meizu also used the ES9018K2M DAC chip and the OPA1612 professional-grade op amp chip.
The difference is that Meizu has also engaged in a fully symmetric architecture passive filtering technology to further reduce noise interference.
Meizu also customized a matching entry-level earbud.
I have to say that Zhuhai small factory, do audio is still professional.
In addition to Meizu, there is also the 2015 Xiaomi Note.
The phone also uses the ES9018K2M DAC chip, plus two OPA1612 op amp chips, plus two ADA4896 chip solutions.
Xiaomi has made a complete page to introduce the standalone HiFi system on the Xiaomi Note.
Obviously with a heart drop.
In domestic mobile phones, there are also ZTE Axon, Lenovo Lemon, and Huawei Mate.
Yes, the Huawei Mate also does HiFi.
Huawei Mate 9, equipped with HiSilicon's self-developed audio chip Hi6403, provides 32bit/192kHz sampling specifications and also supports DSD hard solution.
There is also a big card that everyone may not know about HiFi that has been played for a long time - Apple.
I don't know if the fans have an impression, the previous Vivo's HiFi chip part mentioned an American manufacturer, Cirrus Logic, Si Rui Logic.
Apple, too, is a big customer of their family.
From the iPhone 4 to the iPhone X, Apple has never stopped using the HiFi chip of Si Rui Logic.
The real HiFi players are all around me.
However, it is true that no one has always thought that the iPhone has a good sound quality.
Since there are so many models in use, why has the HiFi chip not been popular in recent years?
The brother felt that Apple was responsible for this.
The HiFi chip pinch on the phone is mainly for ear amplifier enhancement.
This involves something that Apple has killed – the 3.5mm headphone port.
I asked about the most impressive HiFi phones of my colleagues who play HiFi, all of which have 3.5mm headphone ports, without exception.
After the key link disappears, the presence of the HiFi chip is much weaker.
Immediately after, AirPods caught fire.
This thing is not to mention HiFi, the sound quality is quite average.
AirPods led the way in the popularity of Bluetooth headsets, stealing most of the market for wired headsets.
Before canceling the headphone jack, you can also use Type-C to make up for it.
This time there is no wired headset, all use Bluetooth headsets, and the living space of hiFi chips is naturally smaller.
Even vivo, although it still supports HiFi chips, will not be as publicized as before.
Of course, there is no denying that there will still be a group of people pursuing HiFi, and they can still choose these mobile phones with independent HiFi chips.
But for the vast majority of users who turn to Bluetooth headsets, HiFi chips... It's really dispensable.
It is the mobile phone manufacturers that pick up the HiFi chip, and it is the mobile phone manufacturer that makes the HiFi chip gradually disappear.
It won't be long before you say goodbye to HiFi.