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Google Pixel 6 Pro Audio test

This device has been retested in the latest version of our protocol. This summary has been fully updated. For detailed information, check the What’s New article
OTHER AVAILABLE TESTS FOR THIS DEVICE

We put the Google Pixel 6 Pro through our rigorous DXOMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance both at recording sound using its built-in microphones, and at playing audio back through its speakers.

In this review, we will break down how it fared in a variety of tests and several common use cases.

Overview


Key audio specifications include:

  • Two speakers (one bottom right, side-firing, and one top, front-firing)
  • Three microphones
  • Audio zoom
  • USB Type-C input for headphones (no 3.5mm jack)

Scoring

Sub-scores and attributes included in the calculations of the global score.


Google Pixel 6 Pro
138
audio
139
playback
132

158

133

149

144

162

134

162

94

157

135
recording
136

147

130

146

98

157

103

170

144

145

140

166

Playback

Pros

  • Deeper low-end extension and stronger low midrange than Pixel 6, which also helps the sensation of punch
  • Tonal Balance remains fairly identical at soft volumes
  • Natural position of hands doesn’t block any speaker

Cons

  • The center is shifted towards the right when listening to music.
  • Dynamics are impaired by heavy compression at maximum volume.
  • Stereo doesn’t follow the phone’s rotation when listening to music (only when watching movies).
  • Numerous artifacts detected

Recording

Pros

  • Good tonal balance across all use cases
  • Relatively free from artifacts, even when recording in loud environments
  • Loudness in recordings is very good, all the while remaining clean.

Cons

  • Limited wideness and poorer localizability in life videos
  • Inferior spatial results in selfie videos

The Google Pixel 6 Pro bests its predecessors and delivers a very good performance when compared to all the phones in our Audio rankings.

Google’s 2021 flagship fares reasonably well across all use cases. In the recording area, the Google Pixel 6 Pro gets notably better and turns in above-average results, with a harmonious tonal balance, accurate dynamic attributes, and skills in high-SPL scenarios, making it a good choice for recording concerts, filming selfie videos, and sending memos.

Test summary

About DXOMARK Audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, DXOMARK engineers perform a variety of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled lab conditions.
(For more details about our Playback protocol, click here; for more details about our Recording protocol, click here.)

The following section gathers key elements of our exhaustive tests and analyses performed in DXOMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations under the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.

Playback

139

Google Pixel 6 Pro

163

Black Shark 5 Pro
How Audio Playback score is composed

DXOMARK engineers test playback through the smartphone speakers, whose performance is evaluated in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.

In playback, the Google Pixel 6 Pro is rather well suited for gaming thanks to very good spatial attributes (localizability, wideness and distance rendering), natural midrange, correct volume results, and speakers that are fairly hard to occlude by the user’s hands. As for drawbacks, the phone turns in poor spatial results when playing music or watching a movie, and suffers from an aggressive compression, especially problematic at loud volumes. It also delivers a midrange-focused frequency response lacking both high- and low-end, which nonetheless remains more pleasant than the standard Google Pixel 6’s.

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

Google Pixel 6 Pro
Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (Exynos)
Recordings of the smartphones playing some of our music tracks at 60 LAeq in an anechoic environment by 2 microphones in A-B configuration, at 30 cm

Here is how the Google Pixel 6 Pro performs in playback use cases compared to its competitors:

Playback use-cases scores


Timbre

132

Google Pixel 6 Pro

158

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Timbre score represents how well a phone reproduces sound across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, tonal balance, and volume dependency. It is the most important attribute for playback.

The Google Pixel 6 Pro does an average job of accurately reproducing tones, including fairly smooth midrange along with clear and precise high-end. Sibilances can be heard, but sound less aggressive compared to the standard Pixel 6.

Overall, the tonal balance is a bit thin and midrange-focused, and slightly muffled when playing bass-heavy content. While low-end extension isn’t as deep and low midrange isn’t as present as one would hope, they are still better than with the 6. Additionally, low-frequency information manages to remain audible thanks to deliberately added harmonics. If you wish to know more about this technique, you can check out our article about the evolution of smartphone audio.

At low volumes, the Pixel 6 Pro’s tonal balance remains fairly consistent, whereas it significantly varies at maximum volume due to excessive compression. In this case, the low-end information, otherwise perceptible, tends to completely disappear.

Music playback frequency response
A 1/12 octave frequency response graph, which measures the volume of each frequency emitted by the smartphone when playing a pure-sine wave in an anechoic environment.


Dynamics

133

Google Pixel 6 Pro

149

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a bass note is reproduced or the impact sound from drums.

All dynamic attributes highly depend on volume. At soft and nominal volumes, attack is only slightly dulled, bass is precise, and punch is relatively impactful. However, at loud volumes, attack and bass envelope get crushed by an aggressive compression, which entirely stifles all punchy efforts, except when watching movies.

These numerous temporal artifacts are particularly noticeable on rich, loud music. Lighter music genres (less compressed and less dense, harmonically speaking) are less affected by this ill-adapted compression.


Spatial

144

Google Pixel 6 Pro

162

Black Shark 5 Pro

The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness.

The Google Pixel 6 Pro turns in a below-average spatial sub-score because of its rather narrow and severely unbalanced stereo scene, considerably shifted towards the right side of the device (in landscape mode), except when playing games! Note that this imbalance is editable in the settings menu at a great cost: the left side becomes harmonically very rich, while the right side sounds almost hollow. Needless to say, the result also sounds highly asymmetrical, but in a different way. Additionally, audio orientation only follows the phone’s rotation when watching a movie, not when playing music.

Distance rendering is realistic (especially in movies, where voices are particularly upfront, therefore very intelligible), and localizability of the sound sources within the field is fairly precise. In terms of use cases, games fare best, and by far, thanks to very good localizability, balance, and wideness.


Volume

134

Google Pixel 6 Pro

162

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Volume score represents the overall loudness of a smartphone and how smoothly volume increases and decreases based on user input.

Volume attributes are all on target: volume steps are consistently distributed, the softest level leaves audio intelligible, and loudness at maximum volume is very satisfying.
Here are a few sound pressure levels (SPL) measured when playing our sample recordings of hip-hop and classical music at maximum volume:
Hip-Hop Classical
Google Pixel 6 Pro 73 dBA 69 dBA
Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max 72.4 dBA 69.5 dBA
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (Exynos) 74.1 dBA 70.2 dBA
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 steps correspond to users’ expectations:
Music volume consistency
This line graph shows the relative loudness of playback relative to the user selected volume step, measured at different volume steps with a correlated pink noise in an anechoic box recorded in axis at 0.20 meter.


Artifacts

94

Google Pixel 6 Pro

157

Asus ROG Phone 5

The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the sound is affected by various types of distortion. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortion can occur because of sound processing in the device and because of the quality of the speakers.

As explained in the dynamics paragraph, compression is truly problematic. Besides often inducing pumping, it emphasizes harshness coming from the midrange frequencies. Further, the speakers sometimes produce unwanted clicks when resuming playing music after being paused. Distortion is only noticeable at loud volumes, but across all frequency ranges.
Playback Total Harmonic Distortion (Maximum Volume)
This graph shows the Total Harmonic Distortion and Noise over the hearable frequency range.
It represents the distortion and noise of the device playing our test signal (0 dB Fs, Sweep Sine in an anechoic box at 40 cm) at the device's maximum volume.


Recording

135

Google Pixel 6 Pro

157

Black Shark 5 Pro
How Audio Recording score is composed

DXOMARK engineers test recording by evaluating the recorded files on reference audio equipment. Those recordings are done in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.

In recording tests, the Pixel 6’s pro version held its own in loud environments: at high SPL, very good dynamics, a rather harmonious tonal balance, immersive spatial attributes in life videos (videos filmed in landscape mode with the rear cameras), and very few artifacts make it a decent choice for filming concerts. Selfie videos and memos are also quite satisfactory. However, the microphones are unable to properly handle shouting voices or wind.

Here is how the Google Pixel 6 pro performs in recording use cases compared to its competitors:

Recording use-cases scores


Timbre

136

Google Pixel 6 Pro

147

Honor Magic3 Pro+

The Timbre score represents how well a phone captures sounds across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, and tonal balance. It is the most important attribute for recording.

As a recording device, the Google Pixel 6 Pro offers a very good timbre capture. Despite a slight lack of high- and low-end extension, the tonal balance remains homogenous, treble is clear, midrange is consistent — which allows voices to sound natural —, and bass is present.
Life video frequency response
A 1/12 octave frequency response graph, which measures the volume of each frequency captured by the smartphone when recording a pure-sine wave in an anechoic environment.

When recording in loud environments, however, if the tonal balance remains relatively clean, high mids can become slightly too prominent.

Dynamics

130

Google Pixel 6 Pro

146

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a voice's plosives (the p's, t's and k's, for example) are reproduced. The score also considers the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), for example how loud the main voice is compared to the background noise.

Google’s latest flagship also ensures a proper capture of dynamics: regardless of the app used, the signal-to-noise ratio is correct, and the envelope is precise. When recording in loud environments, plosives and transients are sharp; our simulated electronics concert scenario fares even best among all use cases, followed by memos and selfie videos.


Spatial

98

Google Pixel 6 Pro

157

Asus ROG Phone 5

The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness on the recorded audio files.

In the recording spatial category, life videos fare best thanks to good localizability and realistic distance capture thanks to the midrange consistency. Selfie videos, as with many other devices, exhibit a much narrower scene. Voices are well centered and remain precisely localizable.
Recording directivity
Directivity graph of the smartphone when recording test signals using the camera app, with the main camera. It represents the acoustic energy (in dB) over the angle of incidence of the sound source. (Normalized to the angle 0°, in front of the device.)


Volume

103

Google Pixel 6 Pro

170

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Volume score represents how loud audio is normalized on the recorded files and the how the device handles loud environments, such as electronic concerts, when recording.

Nominal loudness is a little softer than with the Google Pixel 6, but still satisfying overall.
Here are the sound levels recorded in the audio and video files, measured in LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale); as a reference, we expect loudness levels to be above -24 LUFS for recorded content:
Meeting Life Video Selfie Video Memo
Google Pixel 6 Pro -27.5 LUFS -19.6 LUFS -17.6 LUFS -20 LUFS
Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max -25.5 LUFS -22.7 LUFS -20.1 LUFS -18.2 LUFS
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (Exynos) -28.8 LUFS -21.7 LUFS -21.2 LUFS -23.9 LUFS


Artifacts

144

Google Pixel 6 Pro

145

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the recorded sounds are affected by various types of distortions. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortions can occur because of sound processing in the device and the quality of the microphones, as well as user handling, such as how the phone is held.

Very few artifacts are perceivable in recorded audio. That said, and despite Google’s claims, microphones are highly sensitive to wind. Additionally, on shouting voices, slight clipping can be heard, and in high SPL scenarios, compression is particularly active on loud bass — but nothing too problematic.

Compared to the competition, the Pixel 6 Pro is highly sensitive to wind noise. In this audio comparison, you can listen to the way this smartphone handles wind noise relative to its competitors:

Recordings of a voice sample with light background noise, facing a turbulent wind of 5 m/s


Background

140

Google Pixel 6 Pro

166

Black Shark 5 Pro

Background evaluates how natural the various sounds around a voice blend into the video recording file. For example, when recording a speech at an event, the background should not interfere with the main voice, yet it should provide some context of the surroundings.

Despite a slight lack of bass and a rather nasally tonal balance, the background in life videos is fairly clean and natural, as it is in selfie videos.

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