iPhone vs Android(s) + portable amp?

Some Nokia phones let you bypass the internal DAC and gives out digital output with this USB OTG thing, might want to do a bit of research on them. The iPhone 4 (not 4S) did measure with a flat FR so I'd say they are not half bad, but take that with a bucket of salt since I own an iPod Touch 4th Gen

I cant find any concrete information about whether the galaxy s ii connects with a usb dac using its usb otg functionality. does anyone know anything about this. The Nokia n8 works with some but not all dacs by the look of it. i just got some dt1350's but the output on the sgsii is really grim!

I'm not sure about the Galaxy S II but does Android even support digital out ? I don't remember Android doing so. Nokia phones uses the Symbian OS so that might be why. 

It certainly connects to keyboards and mice via a usb adaptor, but its unclear to me whether or not it can output sound that way. my best bet might be to take apart an offical dock you can buy which has a lineout from it (output from the usb micro). It costs £30 ish though, and still leaves you with the cruddy yamaha dac. Purely from a headfi pov its hard to see any advantage with android at this minute, which is very annoying for me as i love my phone but i love my sq more :(

I did, with the iPhone 4, when it was upgrade time.  I don't use a portable amp too much with it anymore though, since I put an otterbox on it.  I do use it in the car with an LOD cable.

 

Edited by HeatFan12 - 10/7/11 at 5:23am

If you are fixate on using a portable amp and higher impedance headphones I wouldn't go Android, there's just no easy way to get a good clean line-out signal out of any of the current Android phones for amp use, not to mention most Android phones have worse sound quality than iPhones to start with, it's just a fact that iPhones measures flatter with much less cross talk than the majority of its Android competitors.  

 

I tried my Voodoo Galaxy S with the UHA4 and UM3x and it sounds terrible with a lot of noise (no real surprise since it's double-amping), whereas I got pitch black background with a 5g iPod and a 3GS using LOD via a dock with the same 3.5mm cable.  I have no love for Apple but it's hard to fight the facts - Android phones are, in general, fairly poor for music playback, and I own the one that is supposed to be the "best" of the bunch already.  

The truth hurts :)

strange notion for you, if you dont like it then dont do it.  i know i just said it, dont buy one then.

Having an Android tablet and having owned an iPod Touch (it was a 1st gen), I can say that iOS is definitely better as far as music if you want something simple and easy to use. And as far as I know, not many (if any) android phones have a line out, but they do have USB hosting if you wanted to get a portable amp/dac like an E7. You can, however get WinAmp for Android, but the stock media player is just god awful. Well, maybe not that bad, but the iPod layout in the iPhone is definitely better imo. Also, the iPhone has iTunes, so managing your music would be easier. Androids just have a file explorer, unless you would prefer that. The only reason I would choose Android over iOS is flash capability which I use a lot.

USB hosting is only available on Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) or higher - which is currently only available on tablets.  There is NO Honeycomb for phones, so no Android phones will be able to use a USB DAC.  When Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) comes in the next few weeks then it's possible that the new phones and old phones that is upgraded to 4.0 will get USB hosting.  However even when hosting is available someone still has to write the driver to interface with the DAC, maybe in time we will see USB DACs with build in Android/Linux drivers, but I seriously won't hold my breath for one as the scene is barely beginning for Android and there's not enough market forces to drive the development there either.  

Ah, I guess I assumed Google would have given Gingerbread that capability. I would imagine something like the E7 would work given that it is plug and play and it works with the iPad so why not phones with USB hosting?

 

<edit> Not sure if I'm using plug and play in the right context.

Edited by lilkoolaidman - 10/7/11 at 9:55pm

I have a usb host cable in the post so when that comes i will confirm whether the galaxy sii works with the dacmagic. im not up for getting an e7 to try unless i know for sure though.

because usb hosting often requires the host to supply the power, fr tablets they usually have a higher capacity battery and higher output current on the usb, phones probably cannot support this due to smaller, lower capacity, lower voltage battery

Pity iPhones have superior sq compared to sq, was getting excited I could have a drag and drop flac player