Galaxy S III: USB audio, is it really working?

Could this be THE audio lovers Android handset? Your
gateway device to the world of hard audio?
(apologies in advance for your wallet)

I hope you guys don't mind hearing about my little hobby horse once again, but I have some news that I thought I'd share with you in relation to the back-and-forth saga of USB audio and the Galaxy S III.

If you want to know whether the S III can really be a portable player to satisfy the more demanding audio fans out there, then you'd better read on just over the break...

o86's Audio Reviews - An introduction to better quality digital music

Grado SR60i. You want these.

Good day, friends. This article kicks off a little series I’ve been planning for a while – the discussion and brief review of a few audio accessories I use. While not technically Android-specific, I do use these with my assorted Android devices, and thus considered it worthwhile to blither on about them a bit. Thanks in no small part to Supercurio’s amazing Voodoo Sound drivers for a lucky few phones and tablets, Android users are becoming increasingly concerned about audio quality, especially when playing music. The Wolfson audio chips in the original Galaxy S line set the bar for Android, and Voodoo sound took them to another level – they set the bar for mobile phones in general, over and above anything else on the market, iPhones included. With more interest in audio comes more scope for content like this, so here we are now.

I intend to cover three pieces of my own equipment –the little Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5 In-Ear Monitors (Or ‘earphones’, if you’re so inclined. This model has since been rebadged as the Ultimate Ears 600), the large Grado SR-60i headphones, and my wee FiiO E5 headphone amplifier. These represent on-the-go listening, home listening, and an optional add-on, respectively. To cap things off, fellow editor Neets has been kind enough to lend me her Koss PortaPros, which are somewhere inbetween the Ultimate Ears and the Grados in terms of size and portability.

We’ll start with some background on the industry and my experiences with portable audio in this instalment, and then ease into the actual review components. Read on after the jump, good people.