The audio gurus at Dolby Labs are taking aim at the dull, lifeless sound coming from your cell phone's music player.

Yahoo! has the full story.

This sure could be an interesting mix.

I believe this is the hoped for design

 

 

 

What no 5 channel surround?

I personally find the music sound on my HTC Touch Cruise to be better than mediocre.

I have been using my phone in parrallel with my iPod to gauge the quality and have found that using the HTC Audio Manager along with the HTC Audio Booster creates a sound far richer than my iPod.

Now, if I can just get my FM Transmitter...

In Audiophile circles the iPod is renowned as being a low quality device. There are a fair few applications that can get some really nice sound out of the WM devices. 40iPlay for example is excellent.

Dave and Biomehanika - thanks for the excellent info! I was vaguely aware of the criticisms of the iPod's sound, but hadn't ever heard this comparison with WM. This seems like a powerful competitive selling point to keep in one's back pocket for customers who walk in with music on their minds. Out there in the open marketplace, it seems like iPod is often regarded as the digital audio standard - it's great to know it's not...

 

I now a couple of guys who are audiophiles and use 40iplay with Shure headphones. They seem to think the quality is acceptable. They also say iPod quality is less than acceptable.

Andy Lees has previously mentioned that:

Andy Lees:

Microsoft Corp will focus on improving music in future versions of its Windows Mobile software for mobile phones.

Knowing that the iPod's quality is easily supassable and knowing that Microsoft are already focussing on increasing Windows Mobile's music quality, we may see a major step up when WM7 is released. I wouldnt expect it to come any sooner though.

 

Getting increased audio quality from devices over which you have no control of the hardware components is not going to be an easy task though. There's only so much you can do with software. At some point you have to rely on the components HTC et al are including in their devices. Typically this is all low end audio gear from what I've heard.

Dave Parker MVP:

There's only so much you can do with software

But Microsoftdo have enough influence to convince HTC and the other manufacturers on which hardware standards to use. If they can show the manufacturers that the next versions of Windows Mobile will make use of better sound hardware, the manufacturers will put it in.

"Build it and they will come"

Hmm.... I'll believe when I see it. It would probably come out in devices that are aimed at music usage rather than across the board. We'll have to see I guess.