The ONLY caveat that I have with the One is the stupid Beats branding on the back of the phone.

Beats is stupid, really wished that HTC didn't buy them over.

Because Beats = crap.
I'm not even pulling out of my ass here. Anyone who buys a product because of Beats is IMHO, has been swallowed blind by the marketting.

Beats on the One (as well as every previous HTC phones) is nothing more than a glorified EQ. That's it! Just that simple, just one glorified EQ.

And yes it's a personal thing, I'd polish the Beats branding off but it would make an impact on how the alluminium shell look.


Look man, no offense but Beats is a joke.
It's headphones are horribly overpriced, with ridiculously crap sound quality. On a phone? Like I said, it's nothing more than a glorified EQ.

I'd obviously not use it at all, but it's just a personal caveat that it has the branding on the phone. In my eyes at least, it just made the phone look like a "yo! me too man! Beats is beast!".

Other than that, I love the HTC One.

I'm happy to report that the One is capable of driving headphones up to 80ohms pretty decently (tested with a Sennheiser HD558 and a Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80ohm), thanks to the intergrated headphone amp.

Yes I've complained I hate Beats earlier on the thread, but yeah it does help here. The S4 has issues driving 50ohms headphones even, so yeap.. there you go.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Apr 29 2013, 02:45 PM

Hardware limitation, I think all phones should at least come with a headphone amp these days.
Majority still uses earbuds, but there are plenty who are willing to switch to full-sized audiophile headphones if their equipment can cope along with it.

Well, Power Amp does have an EQ so you can sort of "fake" the gain a little bit by adjusting the Preamp.
Though that wouldn't help much at all because the limitation of the S4 is that it simply just doesn't supply enough current to 50ohms headphone.

I was testing it with a Sennheiser HD558, which are known to be very easy to drive but fluctuates a lot. I get distortion on low frequencies, which I didn't quite like either due to the high output impedence on the S4.

I have Power Amp and Winamp as my main usage for music players. The One's stock player is pretty decent for what it is, just lacking the option to adjust EQ. Otherwise it is fine for what it is if you want all your music to be flat.

As for the Note 2, I do have one lying around but haven't tested with it yet on anything higher than the standard 32~36ohm headphones. But the Note 2 does indeed come with a Wolfson DAC (pretty good quality DAC btw) and will complement the Phonaks 232 pretty well assuming it can drive them — which I think they should.

Also check this out if you want to use the Note 2 as a music device - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2039716

Nope, beats doesn't work with anything else other than the stock player. It's tied to it.
Turning on the beats EQ doesn't change the sound signature from PowerAmp at all.

Again though, I hate the beats EQ due to how they try and over-emphasize on bass. It's so muddy I'd rather drown my ears with wax. It also boosts the preamp and this gives the illusion to users where their earbuds/headphones would sound "louder".

I don't have Neutron installed right now, tried it before though. But what I see Neutron as is that it is a broader version of PowerAmp. It's got more features than needed, IMO it's too bloated. We have to remember, we're using a phoen as a music device, it isn't ACTUALLY a dedicated music player.

So yeah with that said, I don't use most of the features that Neutron has at all. Might as well just keep it simple with PowerAmp.

As for its advertised "technologies", lol... there's only so much a software can do but if the hardware doesn't provide the proper equipment, most of improvements are placebo effects.


Agreed.
Problem with the S4 is that it has a decent DAC, just that it doesn't have a headphone amp. Which I don't understand why Samsung couldn't implement, it's not like they're expensive. Most headphones just sound so lifeless, so dull.

I've been seeing a lot of "sighs" about the HTC One dropping the HDR mic from here on end.
People seem to think and assume that with this, the HTC One will have a lower quality mic in their later batches.

Hold on a minute here...

When, where and how did HTC ever did say anything about using a lower quality mic?

They said:



Where exactly in that sentence did HTC say: "screw this, we're just gonna skimp on the mic... not like people will notice."?

For your info guys, there are plenty of EVEN better HACC mics on the market. Not just the one contracted to Nokia.
It might drive cost up for HTC, but no where and never did they say that later batches will have a lower quality mic.

Don't just place unnessasary mental stress on soon-to-be buyers for no reason.

Just thought I'd share my 2 cents.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: May 5 2013, 03:17 AM