[elfary]

  Damn, I forgot about that. I live in Turkey which is not in the EU though, I wonder if the Apple Store here sells the one with the volume limit?

 That's easy to check out. Get to an Apple Store and then check an iPhone 6 Music menu -> Volume Limit.
 
If it appears a toggle to de-activate EU volume limit then it is capped. By that switching that toggle you just override the 85db limit (EU first limit) but you can not override the 100db limit (2nd EU Limit & not user removable). Both are calculated with bundled headphones (so iPads are not capped).
 
In addition to less output voltage you are given the screen that auto turns on when you go past 50% of volume to show you yellow/red volume squares.
 
IMHO all utter crap by the EU that does not seem to know that there are many headphones and recordings out there that need output power.
 
Hence i will not trade my american iPhone 5s 64Gb for an european iPhone 6 in any case. My quest for an american one is about to begin...

 

[Baroninkjet]

A bunch of reviews are out today. But they are pretty much all fluff. I guess that is what you get when Apple gives them the phone early to review. No mention of audio that I have seen either.
 
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/16/review-roundup-apples-iphone-6-and-iphone-6-plus-running-ios-8

 

[meat01]

People who buy iPhones don't buy them for the audio quality.  They buy them for the interface and ecosystem.  The DACs in iPhones measure ruler flat.  They do not have high powered amps, but they sound damn good.  Level matched, listening blind, I doubt you could tell the difference from an iphone 5 or 5s.

 

[elfary]

I don't know about people but i'm an iPhone user since 2009 because of the headphone out quality and reliability (no hiccups, no hiss or any of that Androidish issues).
 
To me a non European iPhone is a miracle of electrical engineering and power management.The European versions is as good but headroom is worse due to the crappy regulations in place.
 
I'm yet to hear anything that powers in ear monitors better than my US iPhone 5s. And God knows i've tried boutique stuff, headphone amplifiers and so on...

 

[Baroninkjet]

If you want a respectable (zoomable) camera and decent output, there really is no other choice. M8 has a goofball camera, and none of the rest have any power. The old Wolfson Samsungs could be easily hacked to get a lot of clean power, but no mas...

 

[obsidyen]

  People who buy iPhones don't buy them for the audio quality.  They buy them for the interface and ecosystem.  The DACs in iPhones measure ruler flat.  They do not have high powered amps, but they sound damn good.  Level matched, listening blind, I doubt you could tell the difference from an iphone 5 or 5s.

Wrong... Lots of people buy iPhone because they think audio quality with headphones is better than other mobile phones. You can see this in many online forums about technology. Indeed iPhone is better than almost all mobile phones out there in terms of SQ because of the use of a discrete dac chip.

 

[obsidyen]

 
 That's easy to check out. Get to an Apple Store and then check an iPhone 6 Music menu -> Volume Limit.
 
If it appears a toggle to de-activate EU volume limit then it is capped. By that switching that toggle you just override the 85db limit (EU first limit) but you can not override the 100db limit (2nd EU Limit & not user removable). Both are calculated with bundled headphones (so iPads are not capped).
 
In addition to less output voltage you are given the screen that auto turns on when you go past 50% of volume to show you yellow/red volume squares.
 
IMHO all utter crap by the EU that does not seem to know that there are many headphones and recordings out there that need output power.
 
Hence i will not trade my american iPhone 5s 64Gb for an european iPhone 6 in any case. My quest for an american one is about to begin...

I did and there's the volume limit. I'm also thinking of buying from the US but I'm afraid the Apple Store here wouldn't provide any technical help for US iPhones. That said I wouldn't want to pay so much for a phone with volume limit. I guess I'll have to buy from the US too.

 

[LFC_SL]

iOS 8 apparently out. Guess the rumoured native hi-res (i.e. no need to resort to third party apps) did not make the cut?

 

[DeadeyeM]

 
 That's easy to check out. Get to an Apple Store and then check an iPhone 6 Music menu -> Volume Limit.
 
If it appears a toggle to de-activate EU volume limit then it is capped. By that switching that toggle you just override the 85db limit (EU first limit) but you can not override the 100db limit (2nd EU Limit & not user removable). Both are calculated with bundled headphones (so iPads are not capped).
 
In addition to less output voltage you are given the screen that auto turns on when you go past 50% of volume to show you yellow/red volume squares.
 
IMHO all utter crap by the EU that does not seem to know that there are many headphones and recordings out there that need output power.
 
Hence i will not trade my american iPhone 5s 64Gb for an european iPhone 6 in any case. My quest for an american one is about to begin...

I'm just wandering how about EU HTC One's they have an amplifier but i don't recall that they have lower volumes then US? maybe it's not EU but more Apple that makes this cap 

 

[elfary]

 
 That's easy to check out. Get to an Apple Store and then check an iPhone 6 Music menu -> Volume Limit.
 
If it appears a toggle to de-activate EU volume limit then it is capped. By that switching that toggle you just override the 85db limit (EU first limit) but you can not override the 100db limit (2nd EU Limit & not user removable). Both are calculated with bundled headphones (so iPads are not capped).
 
In addition to less output voltage you are given the screen that auto turns on when you go past 50% of volume to show you yellow/red volume squares.
 
IMHO all utter crap by the EU that does not seem to know that there are many headphones and recordings out there that need output power.
 
Hence i will not trade my american iPhone 5s 64Gb for an european iPhone 6 in any case. My quest for an american one is about to begin...

I did and there's the volume limit. I'm also thinking of buying from the US but I'm afraid the Apple Store here wouldn't provide any technical help for US iPhones. That said I wouldn't want to pay so much for a phone with volume limit. I guess I'll have to buy from the US too.

At least in Spain Applecare for noN EU iPhones still works AS LONG as you are able to bring the iPhone to an Apple Store. That means there is not pick up service. You gotta make it to an Apple Store.

 

[obsidyen]

At least in Spain Applecare for noN EU iPhones still works AS LONG as you are able to bring the iPhone to an Apple Store. That means there is not pick up service. You gotta make it to an Apple Store.

Maybe it works here too... I was just assuming.
 
Any news on the dac chip in new iPhones?

 

[alienden]

According to iFixIt https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+6+Plus+Teardown/29206 , it's Cirrus Logic 338S1201 , which is like the same or very similar to 5s

 

[Buckster]

 
Wrong... Lots of people buy iPhone because they think audio quality with headphones is better than other mobile phones. You can see this in many online forums about technology. Indeed iPhone is better than almost all mobile phones out there in terms of SQ because of the use of a discrete dac chip.

 
I agree - except for the discrete DAC part - I think you'll find most phones have DAC chips that are separate from the main cpu/gpu
 
that said - the only phone or tablet that has stood up to my suite of IPADs and old Iphone 4 is my Note 3 - which sounds fantastic since Android 4.4 - I actually prefer it to both the Ipad 3 and Ipad 4 we have - it also seems to drive my headphones with ease
 
at the time I was mainly attracted to Android because of the big screen - so thats not an issue now - but also because of the ability to use external memory - I begrudge paying a fortune for 64gb + devices when I only need that capacity 1% of the time (when I go away on holiday, away with work etc), so being able to pay 20 quid or so for 64gb card or 50 for 128gb seems preferable than spending a couple of hundred extra on the device itself
 
our Ipad 4 is 128gb variant - and most of the time its sat at just over 32gb - but the extra space is useful when going on hols etc
 
would have preferred to just buy a microsd card

 

[Jakkal]

  According to iFixIt https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+6+Plus+Teardown/29206 , it's Cirrus Logic 338S1201 , which is like the same or very similar to 5s

Yep it is the same 338S1201 audio codec for 5S, 6 and 6+ which is great, now we are waiting to see if the amp chip is the same 338S1202.
I'll will get iPhone 6 next month and will be able to compare it to 5S.

 

[alienden]

Yeah, this might be the most interesting part now, considering that there were rumors over the summer that Cirrus Logic might not be supplying amps for iPhone 6
 

Cirrus Logic may have lost iPhone 6 amplifier business, says Rosenblatt
Rosenblatt Securities said Cirrus Logic (CRUS) has kept the Audio CODEC design in the iPhone 6 but has lost 50% and maybe 100% of the two amplifier designs in both iPhone 6 models to Maxim Integrated (MXIM). The analyst believes this reduces Cirrus' content in the iPhone 6 by 80c per a unit resulting in the company moving to a cautious stance on shares.