Audiophiles rejoice: Samsung Galaxy S III contains a Wolfson DAC

Despite my initial disappointment with the external hardware of Samsung's new Galaxy S III, you can't deny that the device contains all the right sort of specs that would make it a successful flagship smartphone for 2012. Today, whilst lurking on my favourite audiophile headphone forum, Head-Fi, I stumbled upon a thread that confirms that the Galaxy S3 will contain a Wolfson DAC. That is a pretty awesome news if true, and will make the SGS3 a serious challenge to the Xperia S, at least when it comes to audio output.

Announced earlier this year, the Wolfson Micro WM1811 codec is allegedly similar to the one found on the highly regarded Samsung Galaxy S and Nexus S. This is awesome news because those two devices were actually rather good sounding. According to Wolfson's white paper, the WM1811 is a low power codec featuring a 24-bit 2-channel hi-fi DAC with 2 x 2W stereo speaker driver. It is capable of delivering 100db signal-to-noise ratio on DAC playback.

When Samsung removed the Wolfson DAC from the Galaxy S's successor, the Galaxy S II, there was a minor uproar within the headphone community. Wolfson after all powers most of Apple's none-touch iPod DAPs. With up to 64GB of storage plus another 64GB via an external microSDXC card, the SGS3 is set to be a favourite with audiophiles. FLAC anyone?

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