Best Audioquality Smartphone - Page 2

Just to add to the discussion, I have an HTC G2 phone. This is my personal listening experience only (YMMV), but the audio output on it was not quite as good as the Cowon D2 player I used to have, using Sony MDR-V6s and ER Micro Pro 4s. Recently got a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, and the audio over my headphones/earbuds is a little better than the G2.

Just to note that the international version of the Samsung Galaxy SIII uses the 24 bit Wolfson DAC...

+1

Same here and yes I have and use occasionally Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 but my go to machine are my Mac's and I don't get the hate for closed system so to speak since there are tools to get things done in all three using command line but its nice having something work without having to geek tweak it to death.
Lossless is lossless they transfer easily from one format to the other and the end result will be the quality earbuds you use more so than the DAC since the best DAC in the world will still sound mediocre through cheap earbuds.

Here's a recent comparo of lots of phones including iPhone 5/4S/4 and Galaxy S III
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/02/iphone-vs-rivals-audio-tests/

Most performed well, with the iphone 4S winning out overall, particularly with higher impedance headphones. Biggest surprise was that the iphone 4S even beat the newer iphone 5. Another advantage of the 4S over the 5 is that the old dock connector includes a line out connection for bypassing the internal headphone amp of the iphone when connecting to an outboard amp. Only way to get true line out on the iphone 5 is to use a lightning to dock connector adapter and then a dock connector to line out cable. It works, but it's bulkier than it has to be. The Fiio E02i Rocky inline amp is a decent compromise that works with the internal amp to give it some extra headroom, and it's very portable. It's no substitute for a real portable amplifier like the E7, E17, E11, E12, though.

With lower impedance headphones, there is a large group of apple and android phones that all perform very well. If you want to use in-ears, spend your money on nice headphones and just get whatever phone you like.

My setup is an iphone 4S -> Klipsch S4i Rugged when I'm walking around, and an iphone 4S -> E02i -> Sennheiser HD 380 pro when I'm on a plane or amtrak. Most of my music is ALAC ripped from CD or higher res sources downsampled to 48/16 and saved as ALAC. I wouldn't mind nicer in-ears and a better amp down the road, but my current setup is giving me pretty good bang for the buck.

One of the things that Endgadget pointed out in their review is that the headphone output is challenged on the Samsung phones. I've now upgraded to the Samsung Note 2, and there is an easy workaround for that for anyone willing to root the phone. There's a headphone config file that can be adjusted to turn up the headphone amplifier gain. I simply swapped out the "Normal Volume Mod" file on my phone and it gave a nice little boost of 5db of gain: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1931970&nocache=1

my first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy S1 (Captivate), and I tried to transition it to my main portable player, coming from a first-gen iPod touch and a Creative Zen Vision:M DAP. It sounded decent but it seemed to have some sort of volume limiter on it or something -- no matter which IEMS I plugged into the thing it just didn't seem to get very loud compared to my iPod touch and creative player. Also, I used it up until it got Froyo, and I can say during that time at least, that Android's native music player was garbage -- poor navigation, downrezzed cover art, etc. The cool thing about Android is that you can replace the stock apps, which lead to me download Poweramp which was really great. Like I said, that was using Froyo, so the built-in Android music app may have improved since then. Loved that I could expand the storage via microSD, but due to poor usability/performance, I switched to an iPhone. I've had three different iPhones -- 16GB 3GS, 64GB 4S, and now a 64GB iPhone 5. If you can deal with iTunes then I think the usability/UI is best with Apple phones. If you're looking to customize everything or are a power user, it might not be for you, but I have found my iPhone to be great as a media player.

Most of the music on it is ripped in ALAC (e.g. most stuff I haven't purchased via iTunes), and with a pair of IEMs it sounds great -- the type of phones you're using will be the largest determinant in the sound you hear. I use a few different IEMs on a regular basis (Klipsch Image S4, Martinlogan Mikros 70, Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10), and they all sound great. It sounds pretty good with my Sennheiser HD598s but it's a bit noisy and the volume needs to be turned up high.

Poweramp is still a great choice. Neutron is also popular (I don't like the UI).

However, Android has changed dramatically since version 2.2. Having owned the iPad 2 (I've since got rid of it), I would say that with Jelly Bean, Android has caught up with, or even surpassed (if configurability is important), the overall iOS experience.

I'm sure Android is much better than when I quit using my Galaxy S two years ago. I wouldn't mind trying out another Android phone, but at this point I'm really comfortable in the Apple ecosystem and use an Apple TV to stream music to my speakers -- so basically, I don't foresee myself switching any time soon. I would definitely get a phone with vanilla Android if I were to get another. Hated the touchwiz crap.