iOS Audio Quality - a fact or a myth ?

[vyral_143]

Hi,

I m using iOS devices over 6 years now. I find their music quality very good. Devices I have used are iPod Touch 2nd Gen, 4th Gen and iPad 1st gen. I m not an audiophile. In all last 8-9 years of listening to Music I have used IEMs only. My all songs are in 320kbps MP3 format. I like audio quality with clarity, good amount of bass and good sound stage.

However I want to know weather iOS devices are one of very good devices in Audio quality or there are other devices/media player which beats them. I m very little aware about DAC used and effects of it in iOS devices.

This might be a very noob-ish question. But do let in your views.

 

[Switch]

Subscribed...

 

[Gannu]

Subscribed...

You need not necessarily post to subscribe to a thread. In XenForo, you can click on 'Watch Thread' to do that. Any posts on the thread will give you instant notifications.

 

[Onemufc]

Mate, I was also of the same opinion when one fine day a friend of mine got a Cowon. I was surprised by the output of that player. I would suggest you to try that once if you are looking for a dedicated music player.

However, I am not a big fan of Apple Ios but Ipod touch is one mean device if you travel a lot.

 

[sid1712]

iOS devices usually have pretty good audio quality in my opinion and have a quite clean output (unlike certain Tegra devices and Samsung phones). Qualcomm has decent sound but the best audio, from what i've heard, is from TI's now discontinued OMAP phones. YMMV

PS - I'm not including phones with Wolfson DAC's (S1, NS) as their audio was something special

PPS - Devices like Cowon players do have better SQ as mainly due to the fact that they use better audio DAC's and amp's and hence are significantly louder than any modern smartphone. Also, they usually have a shorter audio chain which positively impacts SQ (song -> DAC -> Preamp (-> AMP) -> Output).
This is from what i've seen, i may be wrong in a few areas.

 

[RoBoGhOsT]

I have used Apple devices and yes they have good audio quality with decent bass.

HTC phones with dedicated audio amplifiers are also great , i have used many HTC phones, last i had was the One X and found it one of the loudest and very bassy..

Tried many Sony phones like Xperia Z, ZR, L recently and they had nice sound quality with great bass and clean output but volume levels were not that great.

Coming to Mediatek based devices - they are quite capable but manufacturers have limited their output levels and some have put it much below the acceptable levels. Though the sound quality is not that great and there is more noise as compared to other brands, but they can produced good volume levels and decent bass if you tweak the settings by going into engineer mode.

 

[vyral_143]

Something out of the box which is clear, bassy and decently detailed.

I m again not much informed about sound levels. On my iPad 1st gen I keep sound bar near 55-60% level.

 

[Chaos]

Tried many Sony phones like Xperia Z, ZR, L recently and they had nice sound quality with great bass and clean output but volume levels were not that great.

Actually quite to the contrary - xperia z audio quality is piss poor. There's a lot of background noise and it is very very muddy sounding. I don't blame sony for it - I blame qualcomm for the crappy dac in their snapdragons.

My wife has an xperia s which sounds better than the z. She also has an ipod touch which has audio quality in a different league compared to these phones as long as you use easy to drive IEMs. It is significantly better.

 

[kkchhetri01]

@ OP, not really."iOS devices are one of very good devices in Audio quality" is incorrect, "iOS devices are the only good devices in Audio quality..

Only the original Galaxy came any where near an idevice's audio quality. HTC beats gimmick only boosts up the Bass, does nothing to the overall quality. Benchmarks may say otherwise however, it is only the ears that know the truth..

Quite frankly, I still use my ipod for my audiophile needs ..

 

[vyral_143]

Mate, I was also of the same opinion when one fine day a friend of mine got a Cowon. I was surprised by the output of that player. I would suggest you to try that once if you are looking for a dedicated music player.

However, I am not a big fan of Apple Ios but Ipod touch is one mean device if you travel a lot.

Any experience with Cowon iAudio E2 4GB ?

@ OP, not really."iOS devices are one of very good devices in Audio quality" is incorrect, "iOS devices are the only good devices in Audio quality..

Only the original Galaxy came any where near an idevice's audio quality. HTC beats gimmick only boosts up the Bass, does nothing to the overall quality. Benchmarks may say otherwise however, it is only the ears that know the truth..

Quite frankly, I still use my ipod for my audiophile needs ..

Right now I m under same impression. I m completely satisfied with Audio quality of my iPad 1st Gen.

Also another question/doubt pops in my mind. How well synthetic benchmarks on reviews in GSMArena fare ? Like Device A and B have almost similar values in Benchmark, will their audio quality be equally good ?

 

[Rahul++]

Well, I am not audiophile either. I use ~2-3kiesh IEMs and pair them with some of my gadgets. IMHO, The only Apple device that had amazing sound quality was iPod Classic. My roommate used to have it. It was freaking amazing.. I bought iPod Touch 2G. However, audio output was not as good as iPod Classic.

I am not sure if audiophiles here will agree on this or not.

 

[vyral_143]

Well, I am not audiophile either. I use ~2-3kiesh IEMs and pair them with some of my gadgets. IMHO, The only Apple device that had amazing sound quality was iPod Classic.

Same for me too, I use 2-3K-ish IEMs. Any specific gen for iPod Classic?

 

[Rahul++]

@ OP, not really."iOS devices are one of very good devices in Audio quality" is incorrect, "iOS devices are the only good devices in Audio quality..

Only the original Galaxy came any where near an idevice's audio quality. HTC beats gimmick only boosts up the Bass, does nothing to the overall quality. Benchmarks may say otherwise however, it is only the ears that know the truth..

Quite frankly, I still use my ipod for my audiophile needs ..

I compared iPhone 4s with Galaxy S (I9000 with Wolfsan WM8994 + Voodoo Sound optimization) in terms of audio output. I would say, the sound quality of (tweaked) Galaxy S was much better than iPhone 4s... I haven't tested it with iPhone 5 yet.

I would say, Samsung use amazing hardware. They just don't know how to optimize it. :-( Sigh!

 

[kkchhetri01]

I compared iPhone 4s with Galaxy S (I9000 with Wolfsan WM8994 + Voodoo Sound optimization) in terms of audio output. I would say, the sound quality of (tweaked) Galaxy S was much better than iPhone 4s... I haven't tested it with iPhone 5 yet.

I would say, Samsung use amazing hardware. They just don't know how to optimize it. :-( Sigh!

Output yes.. quality.. not really..





Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Rahul++]

Output yes.. quality.. not really..





Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2

Quality was heck amazing, can never compare it to iDevice. Voodoo Sound tunes that legendary amplifier to the very next level.

Voodoo doesn't only amplify sound. People use it for amplifying purpose only. But it has more to do than this.

I would anyday chose SGS with Voodoo over iPhone or iPad.


Again, not an audiophile view.

 

[kkchhetri01]

Quality was heck amazing, can never compare it to iDevice. Voodoo Sound tunes that legendary amplifier to the very next level.

Voodoo doesn't only amplify sound. People use it for amplifying purpose only. But it has more to do than this.

I would anyday chose SGS with Voodoo over iPhone or iPad.


Again, not an audiophile view.

Didn't really dwelve too deep but I did not find any difference in the quality per se, just the ability to increase output.

There are a lot of options yes in the menus and sub menus. but I really appreciate when things work out of the box.

I dont buy a 20k phone that I have to tinker to get better audio quality.


Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[onlystruggler]

For me till date SGS with Voodoo is the best phone for music. Paired with poweramp, this should satisfy most people needs.
After SGS ,note 2 +noozxoide+poweramp comes second.

Hi,
....
However I want to know weather iOS devices are one of very good devices in Audio quality or there are other devices/media player which beats them. I am very little aware about DAC used and effects of it in iOS devices..

Audio quality is very subjective. However if you haven't heard anything other than ipod/iphone, boy you are missing a lot. As far as the device should sound excellently out of the box, i would say no phone/dac/PMP can ever do that. Every device needs some tweaking to match your liking.[DOUBLEPOST=1376407449][/DOUBLEPOST]

..... but I really appreciate when things work out of the box.

I dont buy a 20k phone that I have to tinker to get better audio quality.

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2

Since you have galaxy S4 can you tell us which sounded better? S4 or 4S?

 

[kkchhetri01]

For me till date SGS with Voodoo is the best phone for music. Paired with poweramp, this should satisfy most people needs.
After SGS ,note 2 +noozxoide+poweramp comes second.



Audio quality is very subjective. However if you haven't heard anything other than ipod/iphone, boy you are missing a lot. As far as the device should sound excellently out of the box, i would say no phone/dac/PMP can ever do that. Every device needs some tweaking to match your liking.[DOUBLEPOST=1376407449][/DOUBLEPOST]

Since you have galaxy S4 can you tell us which sounded better? S4 or 4S?

I still use my iPod touch for my audiophile needs.

 

[Rahul++]

For me till date SGS with Voodoo is the best phone for music. Paired with poweramp, this should satisfy most people needs.
After SGS ,note 2 +noozxoide+poweramp comes second.



Audio quality is very subjective. However if you haven't heard anything other than ipod/iphone, boy you are missing a lot. As far as the device should sound excellently out of the box, i would say no phone/dac/PMP can ever do that. Every device needs some tweaking to match your liking.[DOUBLEPOST=1376407449][/DOUBLEPOST]

Since you have galaxy S4 can you tell us which sounded better? S4 or 4S?

I have SGS4. The DAC on this phone is amazing (better than SGS). It's just that Samsung has not tuned it yet (Samsung suck in that department).. Founder of Voodoo (Supercurio aka Francois Simond) is working on improvements. Mod should be released soon

 

[eternoMind]

I've enjoyed music over long periods on a Nokia 5230, Sansa Clip+, Motorola Atrix and the Galaxy Nexus.
The cleanest output of the lot was from the Clip+. The Atrix was pretty powerful (powered by the famed Wolfson DAC) and sounded best with a CM7 ROM. I am currently using the OMAP powered Galaxy Nexus and thought it's output was not up to the mark but a change in ROMs has brought about a sea change in the SQ.
Never knew SQ could differ so vastly from ROM to ROM!