Smartphone for the audiophile?

If you are looking for fidelity, you cannot beat the Pure i20 digital docking station. You will need a phone with 30-pin connector or a new iphone to 30-pin adapter cable. i20 is $85 on Amazon.com.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Steve,

Thank you - that's interesting and good to know. But not my thing to dock a portable device at my desk and in fact have a brand new in the box, never even opened Wadia dock that I impulsively purchased when they first came out and were back ordered.

What I am trying to do is to extract digital data from my HTC One smartphone (a Droid) when traveling and commuting - so I need it to be portable.

Here you can see another thread I found, as well as my question to the Android forum:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s4/287133-anybody-else-using-usb-otg-digital-audio-out.html

So if you know how I might find a cable with the right spec' would be grateful.

Surprised more people haven't figured this out amidst the popularity of smartphones, 3rd party headphones etc.

To the extent any phone is cool, sleek, slim etc, I would expect the equal and opposite reaction of a mediocre DAC and wimpy amp, correct?

Thank you,

Both Google and Apple based devices are suitable. NEither are designed for "audiophiles" specifically, but there are sufficient options available for each to make either a useful device for an "audiophile".

In terms of inherent sound quality, Apple is more a fixed known quantity whereas Google will offer more choices. That alone may dictate which path is best.

In terms of getting good sound out of either, a good set of headphones or earbuds designed specifically for use with portable (as opposed to home devices with beefier amplifiers) will go a long way. SO many good ones to choose from. The hardest part is deciding which ones to try. Many are quite good and offer good sound quality, especially when compared to what was available even just a few short years ago.

I use multiple wireless devices to control my digital music setup at home. Iphone, Ipods, Android TAblet. I use Klipsch S4 earbuds to listen directly on each as well. These do not cost much and sound quite good top to bottom, if not quite the nth degree possible in terms of detail.

Mapman,

Right, but that sounds like something a normal person would say, not an "audiophile".

It seems to me that BOTH devices can climb way up the audiophile mountain by simply bypassing the internal DAC and amp?

With Apple, this seems to be more proprietary, subject to licenses, docking stations etc.

With Droid, this seems to be more open source and easy to achieve, albeit with the right cable which I still cant find.

I've heard about the LG G2 (the LG flagship model) it supports 24-bit/192kHz audio playback. Anyone here have experience with it?