Lumia 800 Audio Quality
 

What is the final word on the Lumia 800's audio quality? I only want opinions from those with the latest updates.

The audio quality of my Lumia 900 is excellent. But, if you want an onboard eq, the Lumia isn't for you. And that's my only gripe about my Lumia - I want an eq.

I had the Lumia 710 and the audio quality was fine, but - as above - no EQ.

Also, Zune was a real pain to deal with.

Zune is annoying, and I dislike the way autoplaylists are created - they do suck. I wish I could do what I can with the Zune software that can be done with my Sony mp3 players - drag a playlist from iTunes to the Lumia 900 and have it sync. That's the only Zune software request I would like to have fulfilled.

What about the 800? I heard specifically that the 800 had some audio quality issues.

It certainly has, at least with low impedance headphones. See the bottom of this page. I have seen a lot of complaints about e.g. rolled off bass -- the measured distortion levels are not looking too good either. I guess the issue is related to Lumia's built-in amp circuitry and therefore not fixable by any software upgrade.

What are low impedance headphones? Are most cheap headphones low impedance? Will I be satisfied with the Lumia's audio quality? I don't have particularly high standards, and the most expensive headphones I will use are 10 dollars.

Also, I think that my iPod Nano 2G, iPod Classic 6G, and Clip+ all sound just fine. I know that the iPod Nano 2G especially isn't particularly known for its sound quality. I know the Clip+ is known for its sound quality, but I don't really notice a significant difference between the two. Will I be satisfied by the Lumia?

You're probably worrying too much about your source then. There are some good cheap earphones out there, that people here can point out, but they would most likely be low impedance in-ear models, which can be problematic for some devices.

Most cheap headphones are lowish impedance. If you don't care about quality, then yes it will be fine.

Actually, the Nano 2G (as well as all of those devices) are known to have very good sound quality. No surprise you don't notice a difference between them, they are uniformly excellent.

I guess the best thing to do is order it and see how I like the sound quality :). Thanks for all the help guys!