Cell phones forum: Wolfson Audio Chips -List all phones

Just curious before I help you.

I emailed one of the Reviewers with Cnet asking the question and never got a response. If cell phones are replacing small digital cameras these days photo quality then why not phones replacing ipods, thus giving us audio quality....? Why are we not reviewing Audio quality as we do photo quality on every Cnet review. I use more time on music then photos, and I bet so do most people. And photo quality can be as subjective as audio sound, so that is no excuse for not reviewing Audio/sound.

Half the people in my office use their phone to receive Pandora or another music service, why are we not reviewing this use. Yes sound can be subjective, but let us know the Audio Chip Spec and allow us to review or have cnet review the audio quality like they did on an IPOD ?

You just lost street creed among the audiophile crowd, amigo. Believe me, they can be a fussy bunch, and unfortunately sometimes a bit myopic in their enthusiasm. Splitting hairs doesn't describe the topic with ample justice IME and O .

First of all, Pandora, etc. do not use high bit rates for their streaming services. So in this regard, you are already shooting yourself in the foot. Combine trying to evaluate a DAC on a smartphone probably doesn't make much sense when most folks are listening to low bit rate material outside, and with earbuds. Whether or not your new smartphone has the 'highest rated' <ahem> DAC, etc. under the hood truly doesn't matter as much as the source material, and how it's arriving. Here are a few of helpful equations when you see folks start worrying about finding phones that provide so called 'superior audio quality' [=Beats Audio? (LOL) j/k ]

Locally stored MP3 files > Streamed low bit rate content
FLAC/WAV/ALAC > MP3
Speakers > cheap ear buds (I guess this makes distinguishing between 'audio chips' in phones a little tough)
Typical listening spaces at home > Noisy public/outdoor listening spaces

FWIW, at this time the only handsets I know with Wolfson DACs are the International Samsung Galaxy S3 & Note 2. The rest of the newer phones I have not seen that particular specification.

All that said, I have no problems with the Cirrus Logic chips under the iPhone/iPod/iPad hood, nor with whatever HTC uses on many of their recent smartphones. Running an external DAC via USB is another way to go, along with upgrading your headphones. Getting rid of a lot of the lower bit rate music helps too .

...there's not any *significant* difference in the type of DAC used under the hood to 99.99999% of end users, especially given their source material & the fact that they are using ear buds. We pretty much covered this above in my previous post.

You might want to do two things to get a list beyond the aforementioned Sammys. Ask @ XDA, as well as places such as head fi, AVS & howardforums. And then there's sending an email to Wolfson themselves. Links:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1810385

http://www.howardforums.com/forums.php

http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/media_centre/item/wolfson_delivers_outstanding_audio_to_samsung_galaxy_note_10.1_and_samsung_/

http://www.avsforum.com/

http://www.head-fi.org/t/622155/sharp-sh-07d-smartphone-with-wolfson-dac-sound-quality

This site might help as well if you can pull yourself away from sticking with Wolfson (hint: recommended)-
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/02/iphone-vs-rivals-audio-tests/

That sort of post is considered spam and does not help promote a name or product.

If you like something, you don't spam about it.
Bob