Trying to get a new phone that sounds good for music

I have an old iRiver MP3 player that sounds amazing, but it has 1 GB of storage and I don't like to go out carrying both my phone and that player, I would like to get a phone that sounds at least decent with my small Sony MDR-J20 headphones, which sound excellent with my iRiver player, but not surprisingly sound like crap with my phone, because the phone is a piece of crap, the HTC Droid Eris. I tried the headphones with an iPhone and they sound much better. But the iPhone is a little over my reach, at $170 and I need to stay at $100 tops.

That gives me about six choices, the Samsung Stratosphere, the Motorola Droid 3, the HTC Thunderbolt, the LG Revolution, the Motorola Droid X2 and the HTC Droid Incredible.

Does anybody here have first hand experience with any of these, and what's your opinion on them, especially when it comes to music quality, especially Spotify?

Thanks for the reply. I remember buying an iPod Nano in 2006 that I ended up returning and getting the iRiver, which sounds better. But I remember the iPod had an equalizer that while it couldn't be adjusted per band, it had different presets like Rock, Jazz, etc. Does the iPhone have an EQ? And does that EQ work for Spotify as well, in other words, is it system wide, or just for iTunes?

So far I'm leaning towards the Droid 3 because it has a dual core processor and also a very nice slide out keyboard, which is also very important for me. Does anybody know this phone regarding music quality?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubercaffeinated 

The iPhone 4's default EQ blows - but I use IEMs without any EQing needed so it works for me.

I didn't know what IEMs were, so I googled it, and they are those that go deep into your ear, right? I never liked those, they just don't stay in place for me, and they lack bass. But out of curiosity, which ones do you have?

I went with the Droid 3. It may be missing a few features like 4G but it's a speed demon. And it sounds as good as the iPhone when using Spotify. Now, what absolutely blew my mind is this player app called Poweramp, that not only has a giant EQ, but also bass and treble that are great enough in themselves, and the EQ on top of that if you need more fine tuning, but my $12 Sony headphones sound like $200 Sennheiser with this app. It's just amazing. Unfortunately it's only for local files, it doesn't do anything for Spotify, but still, it's an excellent replacement for my iRiver MP3 player. It comes with 16 GB of flash storage on board, and with Poweramp it sounds even better than my iRiver, something that not even a $400 Sony walkman could achieve. Until now, my iRiver was the standard against which I measured any other portable players. It's amazing that this phone was $200 just a few months ago and now it's $100 because they're releasing the Droid 4 soon. I would say I made a great deal. Oh, and forget about what some people say about call quality with this phone, call quality is great too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nywytboy68 

Motorola for the WIN!!! And yes, PowerAMP is EXCELLENT!!! 

It is, in fact I think my Panasonic HTF600 headphones connected to it along with Poweramp sound even better than when connected to my Pioneer VSX-1020 receiver, which sounds amazing anyway. I'm listening to Foo Fighters' "Wasting Light" now and it's blowing my mind how great it sounds. I never thought that a cell phone could sound so perfect for music. Now, if the people behind Poweramp would release a system-wide EQ so I could have the same sound quality in Spotify, that would be a piece of heaven.