[Sublimit]

Hi all it's my first look in this forum and i need the community's help.
 
in 2-3 weeks i will be getting the new Phone from Samsung, the SGSII and i'm going to need a amp for this because unfortunately this devise doesn't have the on board amp and dac it's predecessor had, which used wolfsen hardware and by all accounts, sounded pretty good, this is the SGS I, with the SGSII they've managed to make probably the device of the year, but go backwards and use hardware made by yamaha and as a result it noticeably doesn't sound as good.
 
So basically this phone is great, but it needs a little help to get the SQ to a decent level. I don't expect any amp to turn the SGSII into a Cowon, or any speakers for that matter. I will be getting a Cowon down the track, maybe the android D3, but right now i'm near the end of a 2 year contract with 3 and i'm eligible to upgrade for free. Not sure if i want to stay with them and Voda, but i'm waiting for everyone else bar optus to have it in until i sign a new contract. So in 6 months time i will get the DAP, but until then i wan't to use this smartphone as a music player.
 
I plan to buy some nice IEM's after i know which amp i will be getting to make this phone sound nice. my price range would be 50-50 with amounts spent on Amp's and on Hphones, i don't know enough about portable amp's, i've never used one. my price range would be around 200-300 for both speakers and amp's.
 
here's the specs on the SGSII http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-3621.php

 

[129207]

Amping the SII's headphone out will do just that, amplify. An amplifier isn't a magical SQ-creator. It won't make it sound better, it will only make the bad sound quality louder, or in other words, you'll just be amplifying it's shortcomings. 
 
My advice would be to just buy a cheap $30 Sansa Clip+, install Rockbox on it and use the remaining $70 for a nice set of headphones/in-ears and use your phone for everything but audio. 

 

[dan1son]

I have a Galaxy S (Vibrant) with the Wolfson chip in it and use the Voodoo sound addons and have to say it is a very pleasant audio experience, especially for a cell phone.  I doubt the new phone will be quite as nice, but I also don't think it'll be too bad.  I don't tend to use a portable amp with my cell phone since it's a very on the go type of use for me.  I use the lineout into the car or audio out into my Ety's or KSC-35s when I'm out and about.  Carrying an amp with me isn't really an option since it takes up more space that I don't have in my pockets. 
 
I suggest you give the phone a listen before deciding on buying an amp for portable use.  I know there are a lot of people on here that use portable amps, but there are more that don't and find them unnecessary with efficient iems or portable phones.  I have one, but only tend to use it when I'm in bed with the er-4 with S adapter.  The S adapter drops the efficiency down enough that you need an amp to get the volume up, otherwise it doesn't do a whole lot.  The S adapter makes far more of a difference than using just the amp. 

 

[faisal2003456]

The S2 has sub-par audio quality. It doesn't even hold a candle to my Cowon S9. I don't have an amp, so I can't comment on amping it.
 
GSMArena states:
 
Quote:

Very good audio output

The Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II might have lost a mm around the waist, but it certainly hasn't lost its voice. The performance of the smartphone in our audio quality test is pretty good overall and it's really impressive in the active external amplifier part.

So when the Galaxy S I9100 has no resistance applied to its line-out it got excellent scores all over. There are really no weak points to its performance here and since its pretty loud too we are left with no other option but to give it an excellent mark.

Things aren't as impressive when you plug-in a pair of headphones. Stereo crosstalk, which increases rapidly, volume levels decrease and intermodulation distortion starts creeping in. The general result is still decent, but we've certainly seen better here.

 

 

[Navyblue]

Quote:

Amping the SII's headphone out will do just that, amplify. An amplifier isn't a magical SQ-creator. It won't make it sound better, it will only make the bad sound quality louder, or in other words, you'll just be amplifying it's shortcomings.

It's not that simple, distortion is related to load.
 
As mentioned above:
 
"So when the Galaxy S I9100 has no resistance applied to its line-out it got excellent scores all over. There are really no weak points to its performance here and since its pretty loud too we are left with no other option but to give it an excellent mark.
 
Things aren't as impressive when you plug-in a pair of headphones. Stereo crosstalk, which increases rapidly, volume levels decrease and intermodulation distortion starts creeping in."
 
Not saying that it would sound good or bad though, just to set things straight. However I won't take any cell phone seriously for audio quality, at least not yet.

 

[Coop]

I own a SGS2, and yes, it doesn't sound like you'd expect from an otherwise awesome phone.
 
I tried a few setups playing some tracks from Classic FMs guitar album (in FLAC, using Andless player):
 
SGS2 > manufacturer supplied headset: eeehm, there's sound... maybe good enough SQ for some, but probably not good enough for the friendly folks at head-fi.
 
SGS2 > Sennheiser IE7: Quite acceptable, it won't win any SQ competitions, but to me it's good enough to use in environments where you can't *really* listen to your music anyway, but where it isn't overly noisy, like in the supermarket.
 
SGS2 > iBasso D2+ > Sennheiser IE7: Sounded freaking horrible. Note, I did this test on a SGS2 owned by one of the guys from work, this was before I owned one myself. SQ was so bad it nearly put me off buying the SGS2 alltogether. As there is no line out, just headphone out, I tried this setup at 5 volume levels on the phone: approximately 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and max. and used the D2+ volume to adjust the volume so it sounded pretty much the same. 1/2 on the phone was best, but still didn't sound very good.
 
SGS2 > Westone UM3X: Sounds good to me! I have no problems using this as my portable rig when I want to travel light. (SGS2 is the 1st phone ever that makes me even consider leaving home without a dedicated mediaplayer and a camera).
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[ballcall2]

Coop I heard that you can buy an otg cable for the galaxy s2 and with it connecting the phone to other extranal devices like keyboards and mouses. Maybe with that cable you can connect the pohne to an extranal dac with usb connection (like the ipad and the camera kit).

 

[RudeWolf]

Recently plugged my Grado SR80i in the S2 and the sound was not that bad, of course a dedicated DAP will trump it, but for casual listening it's okay. For amping you could try the P2V2 or a Cmoy of some kind. My Wave drives them a bit better so no amp needed there. Nonetheless it's no excuse not to buy one!