I've got a Note 2, and tried an S3 as well as an S2 (family members) and found that the audio quality is actually quite bad for all of these devices. I'm not sure if its part Touchwiz or if its a default operating mode for android devices (previous used a 3gs/4 until a few months ago so I'm not sure about other android devices), but from what I can 'hear'/understand the samsung devices cut audio until you have some form of media that requires audio then actually boosts it. You don't need any high end headphones to notice this, but its particularly annoying with my se535's and basically every other headphone I have. You can still hear the noise with music playing, it doesn't go away.It's not noticeable with songs that don't have a large dynamic range (not really an issue for most recordings from 2000+ with everyone trying to fill every second with whatever they can throw in there) but it can be an issue for acoustic performances, classical, electronica or anything else that have really big gaps of space in between notes.
If you've had the se530's or se535's for a long time, you may have gotten used to the inherent hiss you get from these headphones with 90% of the sources that you try. The note 2 and the other samsung devices seem to have the same effect with other headphones that may not be as sensitive as the shures. I've never fully tuned out the hiss, but I've changed my listening habits to work around the weaknesses of the note 2 because I do admit to enjoying the phone and its marvelous screen. Now I primarily listen to pandora and have rock tunes in the background as I do work when I decide to use the note 2 for audio. But once I get home, the note 2 goes very low on my list in terms of sources I would use with gear.
I suppose I could get digital audio out and use a usb dac with it, but most of my dacs are non-portable now a days.
On a side note, I've had very few problems with the iphone 3gs and 4, while I still notice hiss from the se535/530's, its fainter and less noticeable by a large margin to the Note 2. I've actually thought about picking up the iphone 5 once it hits T-mobile so I can use it on their 4g network. I really wanted to ditch the note 2 and get the ATT iphone5 during my first week of trying to use my note 2 as a dedicated mp3 player, but getting stuck at edge speeds was too much of a sacrifice.
