Just me or do speakers in cell phones sound harsh?


Sorry if this doesn't seem to be the right venue for this topic, but I've been through 3 cell phones I can't use because they literally make my ear hurt. They sound harsh like bad metallic drivers breaking up even at average listening levels. Anyone actually own one that sounds natural and not fatiguing? If this is not the right forum, please direct me to the right one.
dracule1
What you're looking for is a tube cell phone. They sound great but they burn your hand pretty badly. Nothing free in life....
I have always been amazed at the sound my Motorola RAZR has. Voices have a neutral quality.
I'm a flat earther: I use only a pair of tin cans connected by a length of string. Highly efficient, they use no power whatsoever. I use larger, institutional-size cans for deep, resonant bass, and pure cotton string, uncolored, for - wait for it - uncolored sound. ;-)
Look at the Krell cell phone. It weighs 62lbs and runs pure class A. Of course, the battery pack which consist of six car batteries, has to pulled around in your kids wagon. That gets you about five minutes of talk time and recharging takes a day. I can guarantee your texting never sounded better.
Dracule1,
Figure that speaker you're listening to probably cost way less than a $1.
One serious reply by Philjolet and rest are bunch of knucklehead jokers. I figured that was going to happen, but very funny in any case. If I can only find an electrostatic cell phone, I would be set. Does Stax make cell phones?
One serious reply by Philjolet and rest are bunch of knucklehead jokers. I figured that was going to happen, but very funny in any case. If I can only find an electrostatic cell phone, I would be set. Does Stax make cell phones?

What would you really expect in response to a truly knuckleheaded question?

Given the right forum - say, one pertaining to cell phones, your question would be quite legitimate - nothing knuckleheaded about it....
i re-wired my Iphone using Nordost Vallhalla and i swear it sounds like callers are right in my living room, 3rd row center, with the stock wire, it was like rt rear balcony
Hello? You've got to try the Machina Dynamica Teleportation Tweek. More micro details with silkier highs.
You should address the acoustics first before upgrading. I hear silk ear pads make the voice silky smooth.
I'm on one all day. I hold it 3 inches from my head. They are killers. I'll try the razor next time.
Lirpa Labs is working on one.
Judging by the specks it should sound great.

# Channels= 1/2
Slew rate= 4 V/minute
power = .01 watts into 100 ohms.
Number of inputs = 0
Number of outputs = 3
IM distortion = greater the 100db
Dynamic headroom = -25db
freq. responce = N/A
Weight = 999 lbs

LOL !!
Cell phone audio is done completely different than what you might think. It's not just the little speaker. The audio is limited to 4 kHz and the voice or sounds you hear are not even digitally sampled A/D/A conversions. What you hear is sound synthesized by the vocoder. At the sending end your voice summarized to pitch, timbre, and phonic information and then re-synthesized at the other end based on that information. Vocoders used to be optimized for specific languages though I'm not sure that's the case anymore because so many languages are used these days. There's no regular A/D/A sampling in the same manner as is done for CDs.

I tried looking up the speaker cost of the iphone in the teardown analysis but it wasn't listed. I'm not too thrilled with the audio quality either. Always seems to take an extra little bit of effort to understand what people are saying on cell phones.
Speaking of cell phones, go to Manley Labs and check out Eve Anna's new one. What a hoot !!!!!!!!
So far, Wireless200 has given the most informative answer why cell phones suck.