+1 to this!
More interested by the loudspeaker area than when plugged into earphones though
Regarding the audio hardware:
taken from anandtech's review.
So the same as the one S etc. and other phones that use the S4 chipset, however, the software/driver optimisation plays a big part as usual, as other devices with the same CPU chipset don't have as good quality as what the one S does.
Will have to wait for gsmarena's review to see how it compares.
Be interesting to hear how it compares to the one S as well *cough* Sarge *cough*