The 5 Best Smartphones For Listening To Music

How we listen to music has evolved over the past century. We've gone from live performances to records to 8-tracks and cassettes, on to CDs and digital media. Nowadays, the most common way we jam out to our favorite songs is by streaming from our smartphones. And if you want the best possible sound experience when listening to music, you'll need the right device. They're not all created equal.

For music to even start to sound good on a smartphone, the device needs to be able to produce stereo sound, separating the "left" and "right" audio channels. Many low-end phones cram all audio channels into a single main speaker. Smartphones are comparatively small devices, so they need to be powerful enough to produce clear sound for your listening experience to be worthwhile. A phone's clarity is pivotal when listening to music because lower-quality speakers have a tendency to turn the high rings of guitars and any sort of purposeful distortion into a blurry mess of sound.

While no portable device is going to give you the quality of well-tuned surround sound, the nostalgia of a vintage record player, or the euphoria of a live performance, there's a handful that deserve your attention. The phones on this list are clear, loud, and hold great tone at the frequencies needed to make your favorite songs sound at least as good as the dusty old cassette you forgot on the floorboard.

Not all of the phones on this list will be available through every carrier or at every store, but the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is extremely easy to track down. When it comes to an upgrade in your smartphone music experience, it's a sure thing.

One advantage the Samsung has over many other smartphones is built-in audio software that gives the listener access to an equalizer and other sound customization options. If you're picky about sound, you can personalize your listening experience and make your genre-defining funk albums play exactly as they're supposed to.

The speakers on this device are exceptionally clear and provide music a fullness that lower-end devices just can't match, whether you're blasting it on full volume or listening in the mid-range. This isn't the loudest phone out there, but the fact that it retains immaculate quality at full volume is a massive win when it comes to listening to music. You won't lose any noticeable vocal tone at the top end either, which is where things really get shoddy with poorer-quality audio products.

There's an ongoing feud between Android lovers and iPhone fanatics. They may not brawl in the parking lot, but we've all heard the snorts and snickers when someone pulls out a competing device in their presence. But when it comes to listening to music on the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max, not even Android diehards can argue about the quality this phone brings to the table.

This iPhone sits on par with the previously mentioned Samsung, but their audio and listening experiences aren't identical. The iPhone is going to be less than one decibel quieter at peak volume, barely noticeable even to the most highly trained senses, and the Samsung is going to have less distortion on the higher end. The iPhone doesn't have much distortion, but enough to be noticeable on testing equipment at full volume.

In the range where the iPhone 17 Pro Max is clearest, just below full volume and lower, its clarity is actually slightly better than the Samsung. It also has slightly better bass. Either of these phones comes with tradeoffs that will technically affect your listening experience, but both are still really good options for music lovers.

The Poco F8 Ultra might be the only phone on the market with a three-way speaker setup, meaning it contains duo stereo speakers and a subwoofer. Yes, a phone with a subwoofer. This is the kind of audio technology you get when you partner with Bose, which Poco's parent company Xiaomi did to create the sound system on this device.

This phone is a powerhouse that doesn't need any external secondary speaker to make your music library sound phenomenal. Thanks to Bose's help, the phone has a tiny but clear subwoofer on the back of the device and crystal-clear duo main speakers. This phone has a higher top volume than many other high-end phones and reaches a rich bass out of the box that competitors can't touch. The 1620 subwoofer Bose put in and the sound tuning Bose engineers did was well worth whatever Xiaomi paid for the company's help.

As a bonus, this phone is usually a few hundred dollars cheaper than other models on this list, meaning you can have a fantastic pocket music experience on a budget. It's like having a tiny stereo you can take with you anywhere. Make sure to try both "balanced" and "dynamic" sound profiles and the different equalizer presets to see which makes your favorite '80s synth-pop sound like it did on the radio.

Most modern phones have their speakers positioned on the bottom edge of the device, but the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate moves them with the user's streaming and listening experience in mind. Asus went crazy and put its seriously high-quality speakers in the front of the phone so you can blast screenside. Not only does this make it great for listening to music, but it also increases the experience of watching music videos or footage of the wildest on-stage moments in rock history. Your hands won't mute the sound, because they're no longer covering the speaker.

Now, there are newer models of the Asus ROG Phone on the market — both the 8 and 9 (with their submodels) — but these phones revert to standard speaker layout. For the purpose of watching music videos or concert performances, it was a bit of a step backwards.

Though this phone doesn't come with a built-in subwoofer like the Poco, Asus made a proprietary workaround. Pairing the AeroActive Cooler 7 Subwoofer attachment with the ROG Phone 7 will give you a music listening experience you didn't know you could have on a phone. It's an added cost, however, and an extra device you have to keep track of. It's also an attachment you can't use with any other phone, making it useless if you ever decide to upgrade.

There's nothing about the Xiaomi 17 Ultra that is independently renowned — no subwoofer or alternative speaker system or anything like that. Nor does this phone have one single quality that anyone would call "the best on the market." What makes the Xiaomi valuable for listening to music is that it's just good at most things audio.

The phone has really good bass even though it doesn't come with a subwoofer. The sound is pretty clear throughout the majority of its range but has some minor muting on the high end. An experienced ear might notice it when Jimi Hendrix scales through a history-making solo but will otherwise forget it exists. The phone isn't as loud as others on this list, but that only matters if you're trying to blast a room or DJ a party. And let's be honest; you're better off with an actual speaker system for those things anyway.

So while this phone isn't exceptional in any particular single way, it excels by having a well-balanced overall sound that makes music sound great. The biggest issue with this device is that it isn't always available in the United States through traditional retailers. So, you might have to pick it up online if you ever want to test it out as your portable music listening machine.