1y ago

Do old phones just sound better?

So I've been messing around with a few phones lately, a nexus 6p, a pixel 3a xl, and a s21 ultra, and I've noticed that on the 6p and 3a xl both sound louder, punchier, and clearer when compared to the s21 ultra. They also both have that thicc notch design with a massive speakerphone which might add to the high volume levels.

25 comments

you're comparing apples to oranges here. it has nothing to do with their generations per se.
the 6p had fantastic speakers; perhaps the best non-gaming phone speakers in all of phone history. only the pixel 2 series matched it for loudness and quality.
samsung's galaxy series really skimps on that front because they want to give you an excuse to buy their otherwise wholly unnecessary earbuds. they've a 2cm grill at the bottom of the phone coupled with a tinny earpiece. of course the sound from them is shit.
- valid point, but you would expect a flagship phone from 2021 to at least compete with a lower end phone from 2019
  
  Speaker technology (at least for something "old school" like stereo) hasn't improved significantly for a very long time. That's not to say it's not good, we just figured out how to make a good speaker a long time ago.
  DSP has improved since then but no amount of DSP will make regular speakers sound like great ones (like the nexus 6's) of the same size or type
- Man, do I miss those awesome front firing speakers on the pixel 2...
  
  I can report that the speakers on the Pixel 8 Pro are a massive improvement. I have owned all Pixel phones since the 2.
Yeah definitely I remember being totally fine watching YouTube videos on my phone speakers on my Nexus 6 and even my OnePlus 5t in the morning before school, but I have a hard time doing anything but tiktok on speakers nowadays, my p6 and my pixel 8 sound completely garbage...
Nexus 6 had better speakers.
Yeah, that's right, an another dead product of google.
I haven't. If anything they keep sounding better. The only phone of the past I remember that didn't sound like garbage was a Sony Ericsson that was designed as a media player first with a phone shoehorned into it. When I actually turn my pixel 8 to the side for a video, it sounds as good as my headphones with noise cancellation off. Though I also have all the adaptive sound shaping stuff on and setup the equalizer. It might not sound as good with all that shit turned off (which is the default).
My pixel 8 pro is better than any other pixel I've ever owned. I have owned the OG, the pixel 3, pixel 5, pixel 6 pro. It's not even close
My Nokia 3210 definitely was louder. But then I didn't have a hearing aid yet back then.
I keep my old phones instead of throwing them away. They become music players in the house/garage. My pixel 7 pro definitely has garbage speakers compared to a pixel 3, or an old Samsung note (can't remember the Gen). It's a stat I didn't even bother looking at, since we seemed to have hammered it out years ago. It's akin to asking if a new car has electric Windows.
I wish I would have checked.
- My old phone became my alarm clock. Sounds ridiculous but my OnePlus Nord N30 has missed a few alarms since I've owned it, less than a year. It actually doesn't even tell you until you restart the phone. Never thought I'd have to worry about a fucking alarm not working on my phone. That's got to be one of the simplest things a phone can do.
  
  Newer phones have a lot of battery saving features that can mess with apps. Make sure to exclude your alarm app from them, which might be hidden in several submenus.
No idea, been using equalizer since years ago and didn't noticed anything..
Make sure they are using the same modulation scheme. Newer ones have maybe more latency and maybe more dropouts.
- How do I do that?
  
  LTE vs LTE, 5g vs 5g, that type of comparison.

25 comments