[Baroninkjet]

If you believe GSMarena, Qualcomm SOC phones have S/N close to 10db worse than Samsung w/Wolfson or iPhone. Though my trust in GSMarena testing is far from 100%.

 

[Huxley]

I've found any site with arena in the title, tends to have a heavy bias towards samsung.

 

[Lifted Andreas]

I've found any site with arena in the title, tends to have a heavy bias towards samsung.

Or Apple.

 

[Baroninkjet]

Actually, they seem to have been pretty biased toward HTC lately. They did not include I9300 or Apple in audio comparisons, only other Qualcomm devices. And then, when they reviewed S4, they reviewed Qualcomm version, not Wolfson one. 

 

[Huxley]

Well I do know they got such a hard time over that poor excuse for a review, they were forced to revise it as many of us knew full well which way they swung.

It's no secret that many reviews are paid for.

 

[Baroninkjet]

I guess a lot of people have been complaining -- see the Apr 11 revision.
 
http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one-review-912p7.php
 
So they revised some but not all, e.g., revised One but obviously not Butterfly which they say is almost identical. So now apples and oranges... I noticed they did revise the Qualcomm S4 also. But did not revise Nexus 4.
 
I may trust them even less now. 

 

[Baroninkjet]

I was curious -- a little googling later, the only reviews revised were HTC One and GS4(qualcomm). They didn't revise any of the models they were comparing them to. And the SN levels and crosstalk levels improved immensely in the new tests.
 
I just gotta laugh. 

 

[elfary]

The only valuable info on the gsmarena audio tests it's the output impedance. When the graph is ruler flat output impedance is lower than 2.
 
When it has a bump in the 50Hz region then there are output impedance issues.
 
Their loaded tests use an AKG headphone whose impedance is 45 ohms at 50Hz and 35 for the rest of the spectrum hence the bump. When the bump is 0.5 dBs we are on 10 ohms output impedance territory. A no go.
 
The readings for distortion and crosstalk are useless since they don't match volumes between devices. They just measure at full volume every handset they test.

 

[Huxley]

Trouble is supercurio knows what's in it, but he's either signed an nda or come to some sort of an agreement, as he's being very tight lipped.
 
But knowing he's on board must mean it's rather special, so htc don't want to give anything away.

 

[Duncan]

All I know is that it works really really well with the Sony XBA4, and I couldn't be happier - really shows up certain other high end cellphones / daps...
 

 

[Baroninkjet]

I wonder if supercurio's public complaints are part of the reason GSMarena made their changes. FWIW, some of his phone test results are seen here:
 
http://supercurio.project-voodoo.org/audio/
 
There is a very recent iPhone 5 one. (Noise = -107db)  But nothing on HTC.
 
Also, here is one for Nexus 4: http://supercurio.project-voodoo.org/perso/brian/ I first noticed this because his freq response was actually what my N4 sounded like (high end fall off) rather than what GSM published.

 

[elfary]

Quote:

I wonder if supercurio's public complaints are part of the reason GSMarena made their changes. FWIW, some of his phone test results are seen here:
 
http://supercurio.project-voodoo.org/audio/
 
There is a very recent iPhone 5 one. (Noise = -107db)  But nothing on HTC.
 
Also, here is one for Nexus 4: http://supercurio.project-voodoo.org/perso/brian/ I first noticed this because his freq response was actually what my N4 sounded like (high end fall off) rather than what GSM published.

 
But those are unloaded measurements that tell nothing about how these devices drive headphones ;(

 

[Snoopy Ears]

How's the battery life? I'm on the One X and I find the sound to be quite dull and lifeless compared to my iPod touch.

I was considering a DAC/AMP combo to remedy the ills of the One X but a One may fit the bill!!!

 

[gavinfabl]

Depends. Anything from reasonable that its 6am to midnight or 6am to 8pm. Depends how hard I hit it.


I think The included headphones are passable/ok and if I had these I wouldn't rush out and buy another in ear can. However, I have tried them with my Bose AE2, Sony MDR-1R, Sennheiser HD558 and Audio Technica ATH-AD900x.

All sounded much better than the included cans, but the 900x were totally out of this world with the HTC One. The Sony & Sennheiser were nothing special but still ok.

Beats EQ is always left on

 

[Duncan]

Quote:

Beats EQ is always left on

Glad i'm not alone...
 
I have to say that this is probably the best EQ I've heard, and - made me worried that I was hearing things - I mean, liking something with the beats logo on??? haha...
 
But, thanks for clarifying that i'm not going mad