[Rclark]

Used to be a hifi system was absolutely mandatory for reference quality sound. And for the most part, this is still true, as "reference level", that semi-nebulous metric we all intrinsically understand, keeps advancing.

But I remember things like the horrible sounding boomboxes from the '80's, even into the early 2000's, most small music playback systems, phones, laptops, had just horrible sound quality, compared to "reference level", mind you.

Barring the Walkman, or personal CD players, anything with headphones attached, for decades, any smallish device designed for music playback has been woefully inadequate.

They would distort heavily when pushed, pretty much no separation, often words would be hard to decipher, bass output of any kind, laughable, even big boxes that could produce bass had very crude quality, power consumption was terrible, on and on.

I've owned several laptops, tablets, and always get the latest phone, and, as I break in my latest ASUS laptop, it blows me away just how delicate and refined it sounds, the super accurate soundstage, crystalline highs..

Same with phones, they are even more amazing. You have a device, thin as a wafer, that with one tiny speaker can produce music so loud it defies any memory of ancient small equipment of the past, with again, very, very decent sound quality, very good highs, very good clarity, and a surprising amount of punch and midbass.

I own a Galaxy S5, my housemate has a Galaxy S3 and I can hear his phone blasting music from 30 feet away, and the music is perfectly intelligible, clear, powerful, given the device.

At work, someone has a Beats By Dre sound pod or something of the like. It is a technological marvel. It's a pod shaped device about 6 inches long, maybe 3 inches wide, that flat out rocks the house when he turns it up. Clear, clean, something like this built in the 90's or 80's would sound laughably bad, with huge amounts of audible distortion. This thing is clean and clear and has an appreciable amount of low bass output. Must have some crazy long throw driver inside.

Point is, small devices are rapidly blurring the line between hi fi and lo fi, in fact, I don't even believe lo fi exists anymore, I think it's been permanently banished. Even the modern "boombox" has taken a quantum leap in capability.

We now exist in a world were pretty much any device you are going to buy now is going to be more than adequate, and sound quality now lives in a range of good to supreme.

The fear is that "good" enough will diminish the need to seek that reference level we all here care so deeply about.

To be clear, there is no replacement for displacement, I own several pairs of big speakers, amps, there is no replacing that, but for portable, on the go type stuff, you no longer suffer.

[Russell Dawkins]

I'm amazed at the sound quality from iPhones, too. I have been unable to find any meaningful information on their design, but it does fascinate me that what I am hearing comes from that tiny aperture. I can't help wondering what a bookshelf-sized speaker would sound like if built with the same technology.

[JohnR]

It's not been that hard for me to tell the difference between the output straight from my iPad mini Retina latest-buzzword here and another device plugged in via USB, but OTOH another contender in the ~$200 range was dispatched after I preferred the direct iPad output. I agree that the bar is getting higher....

[Rclark]

Yeah guys, tablets and phones are astounding these days. It boggles my mind, would love to see a technical breakdown of the driver type used, and how they get that much sound out of a few ounces of plastic and metal.

.. not to mention the battery tech. That same lightweight device sounds better and cleaner than, say, a 4 or 5 LB "tape deck" or CD player small boombox from the 80's or 90's, but not only that, can probably play at least as long as the big box which requires big clunky alkaline batteries.

I agree, a bookshelf based on this would be cool, but maybe it doesn't scale very well? Might be a special case.

Amazing though, you can load up your favorite music service, streamed to your phone, press play, lay it on the ground, and have room filling music with surprising amount of reach into the lower frequencies. And that driver can't be more than half an inch across.

Even more astounding, is most of the device is phone, it isn't a purpose built music player.

[W9tr]

I'm constantly surprised at how good my 5th Gen iPod sounds. (Yes, I still have one!) My iPhone 5s is also pretty good, but doesn't quite have the presence of the older iPod. I guess that's to be expected due to its purpose built nature.
Tom

[geowak]

Yes I agree.... I have been playing around with alternate music sources for a few years now. Just casually trying to hear what sounds the best and how I can get a big library of new and old music at my fingertips. A library of music that I would not be embarrassed to run through my modest audio system at home.

Rather than download music to a HD, I have opted to use Spotify (premium) and stream music that I want on the fly.
Yes I have a HD full of music that I ripped from CDs and downloaded from the net. But that's alot of work and streaming is quick. Streaming allows one to sample music anywhere, anytime with an Iphone. So I use an Iphone 5S atop a Pure I20 dock and feed that digital signal into a high quality DAC.

So yes, the quality coming from small devices is astounding....

[Folsom]

You should hear an HTC One M8 set up correctly. Every other phone and iPod available sounds pretty dumpy by comparison. I'm not sure what on the market under a G will compete.

[Rclark]

Yes I agree.... I have been playing around with alternate music sources for a few years now. Just casually trying to hear what sounds the best and how I can get a big library of new and old music at my fingertips. A library of music that I would not be embarrassed to run through my modest audio system at home.

Rather than download music to a HD, I have opted to use Spotify (premium) and stream music that I want on the fly.
Yes I have a HD full of music that I ripped from CDs and downloaded from the net. But that's alot of work and streaming is quick. Streaming allows one to sample music anywhere, anytime with an Iphone. So I use an Iphone 5S atop a Pure I20 dock and feed that digital signal into a high quality DAC.

So yes, the quality coming from small devices is astounding....

You should switch to Music Unlimited.  I had both Spotify and MU on trial status, and cancelled Spotify. Music Unlimited has a far larger library, far, far larger, and I would say it sounds better after comparing.

Also runs on the PS4, and I have to say the ps4 is a pretty badass digital transport. I sold my Emotiva cdp and haven't bought another.