Is it worth buying good headphones for an android?

I can say without a doubt that my Pantech Burst has awesome sound quality.  I have a Cowon J3, Sansa Fuze, and Sony S series players and the Burst sound better than all of them.  I was shocked the first time I listen to it and I haven't touched any of my MP3 players since.  The clarity is great but what I like most about the Burst SQ is how it makes the soundstage on all my IEM's sound larger than any other player I've heard.

So my Android phone sounds great but I have read that a lot of them don't.  Its funny I said I'd never get another Pantech phone because my last one was a joke but when I was looking at the Burst I didn't even know it was a Pantech.  I'm glad I got because it is a really nice phone over all and the SQ is just an awesome bonus.

Oh Geez...

I thought he was talkin bout some kind of robot?

Not a phones operating system.

Soory, Jim

It really depends on the individual phone, but if your phone supports the installation of the Voodoo sound kernel, than you should install i because it vastly improves the overall SQ of the player.

What phone do you have?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yogen 

So my mom got bosé speakers and it was a huge improvement to me and realized how much I was missing on regular speakers. I've been thinking a lot of getting new headphones to use with my phone when I'm not at home, but through my readings I found that other than the galaxy S, pretty much every android phone has a "poor" sound quality (I suppose when compared to 1000+ home players), but how bad is really the SQ on android?
If I buy $100- 200 headphones will I feel like I'm using that price range headphones?
Thank you.

I have a Samsung Galaxy SII, and am running the Poweramp andoid app on it. The difference in sound quality between the stock player and Poweramp is amazing - Poweramp rocks. You can give it a 14 day trial.

I would recommend starting with the "Rock" preset, and then playing around with the equalizer. You can then quickly make different personal presets (I have different ones for different headphones, but you can even assign presets to individual songs if you like). Make sure that you try out the "Stereo X" setting which seems to work surprisingly well at enhancing the width of the sound.

Try it out - I don't think you will regret it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yogen 

So my mom got bosé speakers and it was a huge improvement to me and realized how much I was missing on regular speakers. I've been thinking a lot of getting new headphones to use with my phone when I'm not at home, but through my readings I found that other than the galaxy S, pretty much every android phone has a "poor" sound quality (I suppose when compared to 1000+ home players), but how bad is really the SQ on android?
If I buy $100- 200 headphones will I feel like I'm using that price range headphones?
Thank you.

Sony ZX700 are some nice sounding headphone and at only 24-Ohm, easy to drive.

Best prices seem to be on Amazon and eBay.

I have an HTC Evo 4G LTE, and just got some Miles Davis Tribute. I'm powering it with a Fiio E5 (thinking about getting an E11) and it sounds really good. I also have a fuze and an Iriver H10. The Android sounds about as good. It definately sounds much better with good earphones.
 

Yes, its worth it.

Galaxy S does have great sound, but other models also have the DAC. Nexus S, and some versions of Galaxy S III.

Other models like Galaxy Nexus, have a good DAC but perhaps not as good as Wolfson DAC.

Qualify headphones pretty much always help. Make sure you audio files are good quality as well. If they are poor quality, nothing can help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Up 

Yes, its worth it.

 

Galaxy S does have great sound, but other models also have the DAC. Nexus S, and some versions of Galaxy S III.

 

Other models like Galaxy Nexus, have a good DAC but perhaps not as good as Wolfson DAC.

 

Ok, I just learned that DAC=digital to analog converter. Cool. I also learned this about my SII:

Now I am just annoyed LOL! Actually, it really does sound great to me (with Poweramp), so I'm not going to freak out too much!

Excellent advice. Fwiw, I am using $20 Koss KSC75's (on cheapo Price-Express headband), and for now, I am very happy with the sound.

More excellent advice.

Definitely.  I have a simple g2x but the headphones still make a huge difference.

The title made me lol... and reminded me of Vocaloid.

OT: Of course. Many Android phones suffer from poor sound quality, especially since there's such a wide variety, but there are good ones such as the SGS and SGSIII. In fact the SGS and SIII have hands down the best sound I've ever heard from a phone... the only thing they lack is a Line-Out.