Samsung May Bring Back the Headphone Jack

[zeusthemoose]

Summary

 Twitter user Mauri QHD, who is a reliable leaker, has said that Samsung is considering bringing back the headphone jack back to their next smartphones.  It is not known if it will be coming to the S line or Note line, but it is likely to come sometime in 2021. This will be an experiment for Samsung and as such, it may only be back for one year.

 

Quotes

Quote

According to tipster @MauriQHD, Samsung is contemplating bringing back the headphone jack on next year's Galaxy S21 series. The source tweet implies that the company is willing to do so for at its 2021 flagships at least, starting with the S21 series, to gauge how much influence it has on sales. 

 

While there's no concrete evidence as to how true this is—it's mere hearsay at this point—this would be a sound decision by the company. Samsung received plenty of flak for removing the headphone jack from the Note 10 last year, and bringing it back would ensure plenty of media goodwill.

 

This isn't the first time something like this is happening either; Sony just brought back the jack on the new Xperia 1 II after ignoring it for two years, for instance. Samsung removed the SD Card slot from the Galaxy S6 in 2015 and brought it back the following year, too.

(Notebookcheck)

 

My thoughts

 I really hope it comes back. I wont be getting it, but if it does well, then hopefully Apple will bring it back to their phones and tablets. Lets hope this trend is almost over!

 

Sources

 Original Tweet - By Mauri QHD

 Notebookcheck

 Phone Arena

[starry]

I will never ever buy a phone or any device that doesnt have a headphone jack. USB C headphones and earbuds are not a replacement,

They will keep making shitty thin and light phones and laptops with only USB C and thunderbolt that have 30 minutes of battery life. And I will sit here with my lineage OS Moto G7 Power that lasts 3 days, and my gen 1 i5 laptop that has firewire and a modded battery, and laugh at people wasting their money on locked down, less robust garbage.

 

Edit: My wording here was a bit strong, I dont actually care if you buy newer hardware, whatever makes you happy.

Edited August 16, 2020 by seapriestess

[starry]

Just now, seapriestess said:

I will never ever buy a phone or any device that doesnt have a headphone jack. USB C headphones and earbuds are not a replacement,

They will keep making shitty thin and light phones and laptops with only USB C and thunderbolt that have 30 minutes of battery life. And I will sit here with my lineage OS Moto G7 Power that lasts 3 days, and my gen 1 i5 laptop that has firewire and a modded battery, and laugh at people wasting their money on locked down, less robust garbage

Thunderbolt on my laptop would be nice tho, but Im not going to give up the freedom that older hardware has for that.

[Letgomyleghoe]

4 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

and my gen 1 i5 laptop that has firewire and a modded battery, and laugh at people wasting their money on locked down, less robust garbage

lmao good luck doing anything that requires processing power...

 

4 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

I will never ever buy a phone or any device that doesnt have a headphone jack. USB C headphones and earbuds are not a replacement,

They will keep making shitty thin and light phones

my iphone 11 battery lasts 2 days with moderate use

 

5 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

And I will sit here with my lineage OS Moto G7 Power that lasts 3 days

somehow i doubt this, or that you left it turned off for three days.

[starry]

Just now, gabrielcarvfer said:

Same for me. Also prefer phones with dedicated camera button (that's why my last two phones are/were from Sony since Windows Phone died).

If only I could get a phone with as big a battery as I have with a dedicated camera button, that would literally be perfect. I could stand for moterola to stop using notches too

[Letgomyleghoe]

2 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

Thunderbolt on my laptop would be nice tho, but Im not going to give up the freedom that older hardware has for that.

what freedons are you talking about?

 

[starry]

16 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

lmao good luck doing anything that requires processing power...

 

my iphone 11 battery lasts 2 days with moderate use

 

somehow i doubt this, or that you left it turned off for three days.

I have not charged it in 3 days and its currently at 15%, its been on the whole time, my screen brightness is on the lowest setting because I have sensative eyes. I message people with it and use the camera, sometimes it does spotify to my bluetooth speaker. Im running a stripped down version of android that I flashed onto it, its not that unbeleivable. Idk what you want from me.

 

Glad to see that apple puts some effort into battery life, I hope the industry keeps going in that direction

 

Also I dont need processing power on my laptop, Im an illustrator, I use Gimp and Krita, it runs linux. I sometimes check my email on it, it works fine.

[starry]

7 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

what freedons are you talking about?

 

Being able to fix the damn thing, not having to worry about whether i can install linux on it, knowing that it will still work next year, not having to worry about soldered RAM, etc

[starry]

Just now, huilun02 said:

Choice = good

 

Now make a Snapdragon device with easily removable 4000mAh battery.

God yes take my money

[Arika]

good.

 

more ports > less ports. it's really very simple

[Letgomyleghoe]

8 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

Being able to fix the damn thing, not having to worry about whether i can install linux on it, knowing that it will still work next year

theres laptops that still allow you to do this 

[RejZoR]

What's most hilarious is when phones brag about having 32bit 384kHz DSP and then they don't actually have an output to utilize it. Like, what's the point of 32bit 384kHz DSP and DAC when all you can output audio from are tiny crappy speakers on the device and Bluetooth connection which shits the audio into oblivion. It's just dumb. Not to mention headphone jack is just so universal. When I was buying speakers for my computer years ago I just hooked them through headphone jack to my phone and bam, it was playing. Car stereos? AUX IN. Bam, playing. HiFi system? Jack, bam. Playing. Just assuming everything has BT support or option is silly when it's the jack that has the universal support.

I'm on iPhone XR which is what started this dumb trend, but it's because I don't really need it that much. Still missed it though in 2 or 3 rare occasions where jack would come in handy and I had no use of BT.

[starry]

Just now, Letgomyleghoe said:

theres laptops that still allow you to do this 

Im aware, Ive been eyeing up the System 76 Lemur Pro for a few months, can't really afford it at the moment though, and Im not exactly jumping out of my seat to upgrade, Im just saying that a lot of devices these days are really really locked down and its sad to me, perhaps my wording was a bit strong.

[Tech_Dreamer]

oohh, what happened? did sales take a hit?

[lewdicrous]

9 minutes ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

oohh, what happened? did sales take a hit?

"They're cowards" - Apple.

[RejZoR]

19 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

The built-in DSP is/can be used for all sorts of stuff, including audio. Image processing probably makes most use of it.

It's only for audio and there is no point in processing it for playback at that rate if you can only output it on shitty builtin speakers or via BT.

[Yatharth Shah]

26 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

What's most hilarious is when phones brag about having 32bit 384kHz DSP and then they don't actually have an output to utilize it. Like, what's the point of 32bit 384kHz DSP and DAC when all you can output audio from are tiny crappy speakers on the device and Bluetooth connection which shits the audio into oblivion. It's just dumb. Not to mention headphone jack is just so universal. When I was buying speakers for my computer years ago I just hooked them through headphone jack to my phone and bam, it was playing. Car stereos? AUX IN. Bam, playing. HiFi system? Jack, bam. Playing. Just assuming everything has BT support or option is silly when it's the jack that has the universal support.

I'm on iPhone XR which is what started this dumb trend, but it's because I don't really need it that much. Still missed it though in 2 or 3 rare occasions where jack would come in handy and I had no use of BT.

Hate to cut you off, but the iPhone 7 brought the Airpods and cut the headphone jack, and that is why, the most favorite iPhone for many people is still the 6(s)

[zeusthemoose]

32 minutes ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

oohh, what happened? did sales take a hit?

Major hits. From what I’ve seen, they sold anywhere between 10-60% less phones is q2 2020 compared to q2 2019 (depending on which country/market). I’m guessing it’s mostly due to the pandemic as the majority of phone manufacturers had similar decreases.
Im no expert in this, but I’m expecting that to be even worse when looking at the sales of the Note20 and 20 Ultra compared to their successors. The big increase in price for minor improvements (and some things that are worse) will lead to bad sales numbers this year.

Adding the headphone jack will make it so they get tons of free publicity and people who were holding out for headphone jacks before upgrading will finally do so. I think that once it’s back, it’s staying until the standard itself is outdated.

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, zeusthemoose said:

then hopefully Apple will bring it back to their...  tablets

Only the iPad Pro is the one lacking the headphone jack. The following still has the headphone jack.

• iPad Mini with A12
• iPad Air with A12 
• 10.2” iPad with A10 
• iPod Touch with A10 

It might be possible if Apple changed the port of these tablets to USB C they’re going to remove it too. 

[KenTees]

If this is true and the next Note series device(s) follow suit, I believe we may have found Linus' next phone.

 

I'm just not exactly sure how he will overlook the Infinity-O display...

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

What's most hilarious is when phones brag about having 32bit 384kHz DSP and then they don't actually have an output to utilize it. Like, what's the point of 32bit 384kHz DSP and DAC when all you can output audio from are tiny crappy speakers on the device and Bluetooth connection which shits the audio into oblivion. It's just dumb. Not to mention headphone jack is just so universal. When I was buying speakers for my computer years ago I just hooked them through headphone jack to my phone and bam, it was playing. Car stereos? AUX IN. Bam, playing. HiFi system? Jack, bam. Playing. Just assuming everything has BT support or option is silly when it's the jack that has the universal support.

I'm on iPhone XR which is what started this dumb trend, but it's because I don't really need it that much. Still missed it though in 2 or 3 rare occasions where jack would come in handy and I had no use of BT.

The problem isn't the headphone jack, it's the lack of any alternative to the headphone jack.

 

Audio breaks down into five categories:

a) Analog two-channel output, 32khz, 16bit, stereo, at best on 3.5mm (1/8") or 1/4" audio jacks. The hardware may say it's 44, 48, 96, etc, but that's not what it sounds like on most crappy DAC's. Since the power amplifier is in the device, you can get either high quality DAC and amplifier circuits, or you can get ultra-crappy ones on budget devices, just like you get on PC motherboards.

b) mini-TosLink (S/PDIF)+Analog two-channel. Basically what Apple used to have on their devices.  48khz, 16-24bit (3.1mbits) to 125Mbits. There is enough bandwidth here for 16 192khz 32bit channels. The problem is that TosLink doesn't typically support that, and "optical headphones" would still require a power amplifier, which isn't possible to do with TosLink without sending power down the analog audio wires, which would then burn out normal headphones.

c) USB/USB-C , supports both an analog and a digital mode.

• Audio Device class (USB 1.1) and was about the same level as 2-channel S/PDIF that you would find in TosLink, without the need for optical parts.
• Audio Device Class 2.0 increases this to 32-bit/384khz, of which Android caps this to 24bit/48khz.
• Audio Device class 3.0 supports a new analog accessory mode (which is what dongles use) , but you need a much more expensive "dongle" if you want to charge using PD and use headphones. 

d) Bluetooth - Rubbish, Pure Rubbish. There are no good Bluetooth headphones because there is no good bluetooth standard for them, because Bluetooth was designed as "wireless USB", but doesn't actually act like USB, even though it's always electrically connected as USB in devices with it. 

• SBC codec - the standard lossy codec used in A2DP stereo profile (eg headphones and car audio music mode)
• AAC codec - the lossycodec that is used if listening to AAC audio (eg h264 videos that have been properly encoded)
• aptx/aptxHD - the good lossy codec made by Qualcomm that nothing supports. 352kbps for aptX,  576kbps for aptX HD
• LDAC - sony's codec, most phones default to the worst mode (330 rather than 990kbps), poor audio quality all around.
• Samsung Scalable codec - another codec that is mostly bad, used by samsung headphones and devices (88-512kbps)
• LC3 codec - the low-energy codec, designed for hearing aid use

Higher quality audio codecs give you less distance before they drop off. Since there are no lossless bluetooth devices, even if it were possible, it's likely you would have to stay within a few feet of the transmitter.

 

e) HDMI (or Displayport) and ARC. Basically this is the only way you get HD audio. Period. The receiving device needs to support HDMI/DP and HDCP. Since mobile devices likely won't have HDMI ports, but USB-C the theory is you can create a HDMI/DP audio-only device over USB-C to get the full audio if you were in fact watching a film on a mobile device, but for all practical reasons (eg battery life) you're likely not going to get anything but dolby digital 2.0. 

 

For complexity reasons, eg removing the physical audio jack, the only thing that solves this gap is to go back to TosLink-like connectors and have the headphones have their own independent amplifier and DAC, and potentially power source for stuff like RGB lights and speakers. So imagine a 2.5mm TosLink connector that was only held in by a magnet which also acted as the power contact to the headphones that also acts as the armor to the optical cable. It's more complicated than the 3.5mm headphones, but solves the "simple connection, simple handshake" problem that all other physical connections have. However the recording industry wouldn't like something that can dump the raw audio out of a program, so that ain't happening. Killing the 3.5mm jack is something they certainly embrace because that means digital devices have to support some kind of copy protection.

 

To which really. I have no love for the 3.5mm jack itself, but I think removing a simple audio interface is a mistake because it results in people just getting mad at using the device with headphones that are a total crapshoot in build quality and how they actually work.

 

Tangent: If you think this isn't an issue, let me point you to a parallel situation with SCART connectors. Sure all SCART connectors look the same, but did you know that many of the ones advertised on eBay and Amazon as RGB are actually only Composite Video? That's because the customer has no way of knowing this without taking it apart.

 

Now make the electronics much smaller and more complicated. How do I know USB-C headphones support 192khz 32-bit audio ? Most don't actually, they might just implement the analog compatibility interface and never receive anything but 48khz 24bit audio. After all , allegedly you're not supposed to notice anything over 20-20khz. So why would any cheap headphones and microphones actually support the full range? Fancy headphones with the crappiest electronics in them sold at a premium for their leather pads or RGB lights or something else silly.

 

[RejZoR]

But if you introduce some weird TOSlink port you're not really solving anything, you're just replacing one weird port (USB-C for headphones) with another weird port (some new TOSlink). Also saying just because output drivers are just 20 or 22kHz doesn't mean processing output shouldn't be higher. Because it does matter how audio is reproduced on the actual output even if actual drivers can't come even close to the processing sampling.

 

Then again there is also a lot to do with how drivers are tuned. I use AirPods 2 a lot and I can't say the sound is bad because it goes through BT. I actually really like the sound profile of AirPods. In fact they sound much better than most other wired headphones I've had. And I've had Sennheiser and AKG ones until they all dropped earphones style for silicone in-ear crap. And I basically ended up only having AIrPods as an option for old style hard piece earphone without annoying silicone tips that you jam up your skull. Dumb trends...

[Kisai]

7 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

But if you introduce some weird TOSlink port you're not really solving anything, you're just replacing one weird port (USB-C for headphones) with another weird port (some new TOSlink). Also saying just because output drivers are just 20 or 22kHz doesn't mean processing output shouldn't be higher. Because it does matter how audio is reproduced on the actual output even if actual drivers can't come even close to the processing sampling.

 

Then again there is also a lot to do with how drivers are tuned. I use AirPods 2 a lot and I can't say the sound is bad because it goes through BT. I actually really like the sound profile of AirPods. In fact they sound much better than most other wired headphones I've had. And I've had Sennheiser and AKG ones until they all dropped earphones style for silicone in-ear crap. And I basically ended up only having AIrPods as an option for old style hard piece earphone without annoying silicone tips that you jam up your skull. Dumb trends...

The thing is, there really is no reason to have "competing standards" when the existing standard is what everyone is using and "better" stuff only lines the pockets of the one with the better standard.

 

Hence some kind of "better toslink" that was a pure optical connection has all the same problems wireless has, except has higher bandwidth and thus requires less power to operate.

 

I looked up one of the multi-channel audio codec chips and it literately doubles the energy requirements to go from 48khz to 96khz in that chip, so I imagine the same is true in everything. So if you don't have to increase the energy use by sending it out digitially, and the amplifier is separate in the headphones or speakers, then it's just up to how good or bad the headphones are built. Running one LED for TosLink is a lot more energy efficient than running a radio for bluetooth and a compression codec in software on the device CPU.

 

Anyway the point wasn't to advocate for bringing back TosLink, but rather that USB-C doesn't solve anything for audio that wasn't already solved with TosLink, and wireless is only worse than TosLink because it requires more energy to compress and decompress the audio with crappy codecs that aren't necessary on TosLink, and even if you did compress TosLink you likely would only compress it with lossless codecs since that's what the equipment on either end would be looking for.

[Origami Cactus]

17 minutes ago, Kisai said:

• AAC codec - the lossycodec that is used if listening to AAC audio (eg h264 videos that have been properly encoded)
• aptx/aptxHD - the good lossy codec made by Qualcomm that nothing supports. 352kbps for aptX,  576kbps for aptX HD
• LDAC - sony's codec, most phones default to the worst mode (330 rather than 990kbps), poor audio quality all around.

How is LDAC poor audio quality? It sounds better than aptxHD, and imo is the best bluetooth that i have used. Also it doesn't default to 330 on any device, the default is the "scalable" version, that switches between the 3 modes (330, 660, 990) on the fly, depending on the enviroment. On my sony phone i can enable 32bit, 96kHz, 990kbps.

Also it is really close to the FLAC 1047kbit, and as far as i know, FLAC is considered a lossless format.

Also nothing supports aptxHD? Pretty much all bluetooth headphones support it, even my sonys.

 

You might hate bluetooth as much as you want, but it isn't 2009 where bluetooth sucks. For most people bluetooth audio sounds pretty damn good, and i would say that LDAC is pretty much on the point of diminishing returns, i don't see the point of using wired connection over it.

[Kisai]

30 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

How is LDAC poor audio quality? It sounds better than aptxHD, and imo is the best bluetooth that i have used. Also it doesn't default to 330 on any device, the default is the "scalable" version, that switches between the 3 modes (330, 660, 990) on the fly, depending on the enviroment. On my sony phone i can enable 32bit, 96kHz, 990kbps.

Also it is really close to the FLAC 1047kbit, and as far as i know, FLAC is considered a lossless format.

Also nothing supports aptxHD? Pretty much all bluetooth headphones support it, even my sonys.

 

You might hate bluetooth as much as you want, but it isn't 2009 where bluetooth sucks. For most people bluetooth audio sounds pretty damn good, and i would say that LDAC is pretty much on the point of diminishing returns, i don't see the point of using wired connection over it.

Because all bluetooth headphones suck, and if you can't tell, then your hearing is not as good as you think it is. 

 

Audio over analog headphones sounds ok on good headphones. Compressed audio (eg mp3, aac) has this distinct "underwater" warble to it, and when you listen to the same compressed audio on bluetooth of course it sounds no different, it's lossy compression being lossy compressed again. 

 

Here, try this. Find a song that you ripped yourself to ALAC/FLAC/WAV from an actual CD, and then listen to the same version on Spotify without a subscription. That's the difference between listening to a CD and listening to a CD with bluetooth headphones.

 

There's always a lot of people trying to make liars out of audiophiles, and that's largely because the people who think the audiophile is lying, are using cheap equipment to listen to music, and have always listened to music that way and wouldn't know what the music is supposed to sound like without the lossy compression. 

 

I'll give you a small history lesson. When audio piracy was ramping up, MP2's, not MP3's were a thing. MP2's sucked, a lot. People didn't know how to rip cd's let alone how to share them. Then when MPEG1 Layer III audio (MP3) came out, suddenly a 96kbit crappy mp3 was miles ahead of what came before it. However listen to any of these mp3's from 1996 and you'll certainly hear how rubbish they are. If people wanted to share a "CD Rip" they often ripped a CD into a 64MB , 128kbit mp3 file, and nearly every mp3 from the beginning of Napster to the end of Kazaa was like this and had that distinct "underwater warble" that persists to this day in lossy compression.

 

But more importantly, the "joint stereo" collapses music into one center channel, and all lossy compression still does this. If you can't notice this, then you've never listened to a CD.