Accessories Wired earbud sound quality......

The bundled earbuds are USB-C as I recall. Most manufacturers moving to USB-C audio are not including a DAC in the phone and so any adapter or USB-C headphones needs to include their own DAC and amp, just as BT buds do. Hence if they use a lesser DAC or amp in the bundled headphones than your BT ones then you'll get lesser results.

Any manufacturer produces higher and lower quality kit, and if you describe yourself as an audiophile I suspect you haven't got the cheapest BT buds AKG produce. So I wouldn't assume that a pair of bundled wired headphones would automatically be better, even less so when as noted above wired USB-C buds share some of the characteristics of wireless ones.

Moreover AKG are owned by Samsung, so if Samsung want to use that branding on their bundled buds they can. It doesn't mean that they will necessarily be comparable to what AKG sell in their own right for the same price (as has been seen with previous bundled AKG earbuds - when the S8 launched Samsung made a big marketing story out of bundling "a pair of $99 AKG earbuds" with the phone, but audio reviewers didn't reckon they were competitive with what you could buy commercially at that price, though better than the usual included junk).

In short, I don't find it as hard to believe as you do.

rnlcomp said:

Blows compared to bluetooth earbuds. Both are AKG. What gives?

Anyone else notice this? I'm an audiophile thus I take my music quality very seriously. Usually I've found bluetooth buds lack the punch and crispness of high quality playback.

The exact opposite is true with the earbuds that came with the phone and the AKG BT buds I bought. Strange indeed.

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My wired is AKG N60 and sony mdr extra bass, both are deafening and ear piercing. MY buds lack volume/galaxy buds.

rnlcomp said:

I'm not talking about volume, both are about equal in that respect. I'm talking about the sound quality. What Hadron said above makes perfect sense and hadn't occurred to me at the time of my original posting.

Also I had read about the latest September update fixing some issues with wired sound quality from others not in the U.S. They just started rolling that update out recently here and unfortunately I have to wait until all the provider locked phones get it before I can ( I'm unlocked).

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GREAT QUALITY on any I OWN and use and its up to the music player abilities. I use poweramp hires player.

rnlcomp said:

Blows compared to bluetooth earbuds. Both are AKG. What gives?

Anyone else notice this? I'm an audiophile thus I take my music quality very seriously. Usually I've found bluetooth buds lack the punch and crispness of high quality playback.

The exact opposite is true with the earbuds that came with the phone and the AKG BT buds I bought. Strange indeed.
.

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I like my AKG headset that came with my Note 10+

rnlcomp said:

Blows compared to bluetooth earbuds. Both are AKG. What gives?

Anyone else notice this? I'm an audiophile thus I take my music quality very seriously. Usually I've found bluetooth buds lack the punch and crispness of high quality playback.

The exact opposite is true with the earbuds that came with the phone and the AKG BT buds I bought. Strange indeed.
.

Click to expand...

Could be these Samsung AKG buds are using a lossless codec with your N10? Usually BT audio devices use lossy codecs, either SBC or AAC. You can actually see, and sometimes change what codec a BT audio device is using, by going into the Developer Settings on your phone.

mikedt said:

Could be these Samsung AKG buds are using a lossless codec with your N10? Usually BT audio devices use lossy codecs, either SBC or AAC. You can actually see, and sometimes change what codec a BT audio device is using, by going into the Developer Settings on your phone.

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im loving the sweet sounds.