ESS Brings Music to Life in New Vivo Flagship Smartphone

< Newsroom | Posted: Sunday March 13, 2016

New Xplay 5 Elite Smartphone Features Twin ES9028 SABRE HiFi DAC Design to Power Vivo HiFi 3.0

Milpitas, California – ESS Technology, the industry leader in HiFi audio and analog design, today announced the Company’s ES9028 SABRE HiFi Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), implemented in a revolutionary twin DAC format, has been selected for Vivo’s new flagship smartphone – the Xplay 5 Elite. Vivo selected twin ES9028 SABRE DACs to power its HiFi 3.0 capabilities because of the ES9028’s superior dynamic range and award winning performance.  Raising the bar for HiFi audio design in smartphones, the Xplay 5 Elite uses two separate ES9028 DACs  – one DAC driving the left audio output and one driving the right audio output. This first in smartphone architecture follows the multi-DAC, multi-channel capabilities previously only available in high-end audiophile, component systems.

“The Vivo Xplay 5 Elite was designed to provide a true high-end audiophile experience on a smartphone, therefore we looked to the industry leader in audio. ESS SABRE DACs are renowned for consistently delivering a dramatically better listening experience and the SABRE name is synonymous with HiFi audio,” said Mr. Feng Lei, CMO and Vice President Worldwide for Vivo. “It was natural for us to extend our successful relationship with ESS by selecting twin ES9028 SABRE HiFi DACs for the Xplay 5 Elite.”

“It’s an honor to partner with Vivo – working together to grow awareness and adoption of HiFi audio on smartphones. Vivo has been extremely successful in evangelizing high-quality audio and bringing to market innovative smartphones that deliver an uncompromised audiophile experience,” said Dan Christman, ESS’s Chief Marketing Officer. “The twin DAC implementation in the Xplay 5 Elite is an brilliant example of Vivo’s ability to advance the mobile HiFi Audio experience and we look forward to extending our collaboration even further.”

About the ES9028 SABRE DAC
The ES9028 SABRE DAC is a high-performance 32-bit digital to analog converter and uses ESS’s patented 32-bit HyperStream architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator. It is the first SABRE DAC to use ESS’s new internal dual-DAC architecture to further enhance performance.  It also delivers an unprecedented dynamic range (DNR) of up to 129dB and total harmonic distortion plus noise of -120dB (THD+N) – a technical performance level that will satisfy the most demanding audio enthusiasts while still delivering the superb sound experience SABRE products are known for.

About the Vivo Xplay 5 Elite
The Vivo Xplay 5 Elite is the first smartphone to implement a twin DAC architecture. It incorporates an unprecedented 6GB of RAM and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. The front of the phone is a dual-curved 5.43-inch Super AMOLED display with Quad HD resolution and it also features 128GB of internal storage. For image capture, it has a back facing 16MP Sony camera sensor with phase detection autofocus and a dual-tone LED flash. The Xplay 5 Elite also features a fingerprint sensor, 8MP front facing camera and a 3600mAH battery. The Vivo Xplay 5 Elite will be available on March 8th in China through Vivo’s ecommerce channels Tmall.com and JD.com.

About ESS Technology
For more than three decades ESS Technology has been on the cutting edge of audio technology. A privately held fabless semiconductor company, ESS Technology designs and markets high-performance analog and HiFi audio devices for mobile, consumer, automotive, and professional audiophile systems. The company was founded in 1984 and today ESS Technology is best known for its SABRE series of high-performance audio products. For more information visit http://www.esstech.com.