Great, but the DAC has no correlation to what the device can drive. Unless it's some kind of a DAC/AMP combo, the DAC itself just converts digital to a pre analog signal and plays no part in amplification.
I quote myself:
Every phone with a wolfson DAC simply has a better amp
Because of the correlation, it was simply assumed causation I suppose
Don't get all uppity in your crusade to correct people. I wasn't disagreeing with you but just pointing out something. If there's a mistake you can just point it out without the snark.
Okay I'll just assume you never intended the snark at all. I was being too defensive.
As for the amp part, if you hadn't immediately assumed I was just talking about the DAC, I _explicitly_ said that it was correlation and assumed causation that phones featuring the wolfson DAC were better because they all also have a better amp.
Have you ever wondered why people don't get it even though you post the same thing about the Wolfson DAC not being a real difference in every thread this topic comes up? If you don't jump so hard maybe people won't get defensive on you.
I've always used the iPhone headphone output and I have never found any issues with sound quality. Funny how some people here are offering advice when they clearly have no idea what they are talking about.
Beats... EQ... lol. Anything done in post processing cannot be used to define sound quality. Wolfson DAC? Please, a DAC hardly makes any difference at all.
The only thing you should focus on is output impedance, and the impedance of your headphones. The output impedance should be as close to zero as possible, and your headphone impedance should be as low as possible to avoid the need to drive the op-amp to distortion levels, or the need for an external amplifier.
If the output impedance is high, then you starting having issues. Your headphone impedance either needs to match or be higher (and you may have to use an external amplifier). If your output impedance is higher than your headphone impedance, you start to completely change the frequency response of your headphones.
Just for everyone's information, iPods and iPhones have use good op-amps with output impedance under 5 ohms, which makes them sound accurate with just about any headphone (although high impedance headphones may need external amplification). So if your sound quality is shit out of your iPhone, it's clearly your headphones.
So OP, next time you think something doesn't sound right, find out the output impedance of the device you are using, and the impedance of your headphones, and you'll have your answer. The former should ALWAYS be lower.
If this is directed at me, I mostly use Grado 225s, and Shure IEMs. I have really good ears. If you think the headphone out on all models sound good, all I can say is that ignorance is bliss. Either that or clean out your ears.
Well I have custom IEMs that are 10x more reveling than your Shure IEMs (my girlfriend's 535s sound like $20 earphones in comparison), and I can tell you that there is virtually no difference between the headphone output of the iPhone 4, 4S and 5. They all have output impedance very close to zero and sound very much the same, that is: great.
I couldn't tell you about the iPhone 2G/3G/3GS because I did not have these IEMs and so a comparison wouldn't be fair. What I can tell you by direct comparison is that the 6th gen nano sounds slightly different (less response in the high frequencies), and the 2nd gen iPod shuffle sounded like garbage (lots of hiss and just plain bad response in both high and low frequencies).
So you see, I am honest about what I tell you. Current generation iPhones are very very good, and I would expect the the current generation iPod Nano and Touch to be comparable. But I could be wrong though because I don't act
ually owned any iPods for a couple of years now.
Go back and read the post by the person I originally quoted, who was talking about the Ipods, and why it was ironic. If you don't get it, that is on you, but it has something to do with Ipods.
Well, one thing that apple got very right was gapless playback. Does Android offer native gapless playback? Windows Phone 8 definitely DOES NOT.
The Nokia 820 I think was based off of the Cowon x8 or something.
That would be me. Yes, the iphone and ipods are probably the worse sounding out now. Old or new, they were never the best. I have no idea how jag can equate ipod and quality in the same conversation. No amount of custom IEMs are going to fix that.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the iPhone's headphone out. It's been extremely good over at least the past 3 gens. So maybe there's something wrong with your headphones (i.e. they are high impedance), or your ears...
As far as iPods, I've already mentioned that I haven't used one in the last 2 years, but I'd be skeptical if you told me that the output of a current gen iPod Touch is different from the iPhone. Perhaps the nano or shuffle, that I can see.
For those with the S4, with that annoying volume warning, I did find that after getting a pair of Klipsch headphones they have a app that allows you to set the default volume level that allows you to crank it to 100% upon connecting the headphone port regardless of whats plugged in, so when I plug my headphone adapter into my car now it goes back to 100% volume and I don't have to deal with that annoying warning anymore.