English
Camera
Display
BatteryWe put the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 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:
- Bottom side and top front
- No jack audio output
Scoring
Sub-scores and attributes included in the calculations of the global score.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
28th
19th
Playback
Cons
- Volume steps consistency needs fine-tuning
- Limited width of sound scene, given the device’s dimensions
Recording
Pros
- Good timbre performance overall
- Good and very natural audio zoom performance
- Very good wind noise performance in life video and selfie video
Cons
- Too sensitive to wind in memo app
- Treble sounds a bit metallic with the recorder app
- General lack of brightness in all apps used
With a DXOMARK Audio score of 139, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra performed very well in our tests, and was very little changed from the S23 Ultra’s audio performance. The built-in speakers delivered good overall sound quality with a nice timbre and a deep and powerful bass, making the Samsung a great option for listening to music, watching movies or gaming alike.
Recording results were best with the main camera, but the S24 Ultra also did a decent job with the selfie camera. Recordings with the memo app were limited by the default memo setting. Overall, the built-in microphones delivered good results. The audio zoom feature was capable of reducing background noise and focusing on the main subject. Wind noise reduction worked effectively as well.
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
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
163
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.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra goes all-in with bass power, and brings a warm and pleasant timbre to the table. In our tests, treble rendition could have benefited from more high-end extension, but it was overall natural and pleasant. The midrange was satisfying but sounded slightly resonant mainly in the low midrange/upper bass, which tended to sound muddy. While the bass low-end extension was quite good, it could have gone further. This said, the muddiness/boxiness from the upper bass will be the main issue for most users. As far as volume dependency goes, the S24 Ultra, like the S23 Ultra, sounded harsh at maximum volume, but it managed to maintain excellent bass rendition at soft volume.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra delivered a good dynamics performance, with sharp attack, very good bass precision and an accurate envelope. At maximum volume, distortion resulted in a more noticeable drop in attack sharpness. Bass sounded quite compressed and less accurate as well. Punch remained excellent, though.
The Samsung did very well for the spatial attribute as well. The stereo scene sounded quite wide, allowing for nice immersion in the movie, game, and music use cases. Given the S24 Ultra’s large dimensions, the sound scene could have been even wider, however. Our testers also found localizability to be pretty good, despite occasional difficulties in pinpointing some sound sources in the scene. Distance rendition and the sensation of depth in the rendered sound scene were very good.
The S24 Ultra delivered a good volume performance. We found the maximum volume setting to be quite loud, as well as with the Galaxy S23 series. The minimum volume was both intelligible and quiet enough, but volume consistency could have been better, though.
Unwanted audio artifacts were overall well under control on the S24 Ultra, even though our testers observed some distortion and compression at maximum volume. The built-in speakers still can be easily occluded when holding the phone, but the effects of occlusion were pretty negligible.
Listen to the tested smartphone’s playback performance in this comparison with some of its competitors:
Timbre
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
158
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.
Dynamics
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
149
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.
Spatial
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
162
Volume
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
162
The Volume score represents the overall loudness of a smartphone and how smoothly volume increases and decreases based on user input.
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 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra | 74.8 dBA | 71.8 dBA |
| Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max | 75.1 dBA | 72.3 dBA |
| Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ | 74.9 dBA | 71.5 dBA |
Artifacts
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
157
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.
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
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
160
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.
When recording audio, the S24 Ultra offered an overall good performance for the timbre attribute, which was quite close to what we had previously seen on the S23 series of devices. Treble rendition was good overall, despite being slightly dark. When recording memos, lower treble was slightly inconsistent, inducing a metallic and thin sound rendition, especially when recording in urban environments.
Midrange was overall fairly nicely rendered, despite low-midrange resonance and a lack of clarity in the upper-midrange. When recording video with the front camera, our measurements showed a stronger lack of low-midrange, but this wasn’t too much of a problem when recording in urban or home settings. Our testers found bass rendition to be very good, with pretty consistent overall rendition and good low-end extension. However, at high sound pressure levels, bass was slightly intrusive, negatively impacting the tonal balance.
The device offered a very good performance overall for dynamics. The signal-to-noise ratio was good, which helped with the intelligibility of voices. Envelope rendition was accurate and realistic, which also contributed to intelligibility, especially in scenarios with a louder background, such as urban environments.
The S24 Ultra also did well for the spatial attribute. When recording video with the main camera, the good wideness offered a large and immersive sound stage. Audio recordings made it easy to locate individual sound sources, and provided realistic distance rendition. When using the front camera to record selfies, wideness was decent but not quite as immersive as with the main camera. However, directivity was excellent. Sound sources located laterally or behind the camera were nicely reduced, improving intelligibility of the selfie subject. This was especially true in scenes with a loud background, such as urban areas or other outdoor settings.
Spatial performance was drastically limited when using the memo app because the device records memos in mono.
Volume performance in recording was good overall, with good loudness across all use cases.
Like the S23 Ultra, the S24 Ultra’s audio recordings were almost free of unwanted artifacts, even when recording at high sound pressure levels, for example concerts. Microphone occlusion was not an issue and even with the microphones fully covered, recording quality remained almost unchanged. Noises caused by the user’s fingers touching the device could be loud, impairing recording quality and causing gating on voices as well as volume drops.
Backgrounds were overall well-rendered, natural, and realistic. But in front-camera videos, the background sometimes lacked a bit of clarity and sounded slightly muffled.
Here is how the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra performs in recording use cases compared to its competitors:
Timbre
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
147
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.
Dynamics
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
146
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.
Spatial
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
159
The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness on the recorded audio files.
Volume
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
170
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.
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 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra | -26.5 LUFS | -21.8 LUFS | -22.4 LUFS | -21.6 LUFS |
| Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max | -24.9 LUFS | -22.1 LUFS | -20.5 LUFS | -19.2 LUFS |
| Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ | -25.4 LUFS | -20.2 LUFS | -18.9 LUFS | -21.4 LUFS |
Artifacts
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
145
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.
In this audio comparison, you can listen to the way this smartphone handles wind noise relative to its competitors:
Background
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
166
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.
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