Database Users

Any way to improve music audio quality? (hack)

I was wondering if there is any way to tweak the audio quality of the Magic?
..it has cut-off bass frequencies, have a look at gsmarena.com review, I'm sure there's some way to tickle more performace out of it! Of course I've changed the headphones already

I too am interested in a volume increase or overall quality hack. was advised the g1 hack by meltus does not work on mytouch... Any info or suggestions to increase volume

I have the same question. Actually, it's stopping me from buying one and I will get Diamond2 instead, if no solution comes up soon...
Here is a link to the page of the review which criticizes the sound quality:
http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_magic-review-377p7.php
Here is a link to frequency responce graph from that review:
http://pic.gsmarena.com/vv/reviewsimg/htc-magic/gsmarena_a001.png
Here is a quote of what they say about it:
It has cut-off bass frequencies, probably due to some kind of high-pass filter meant to improve sound on small size headphones.
I'm planning to use high-end headphones which don't need any bass cut-offs and I'm wondering if this is a software thing, or a hardware low-pass filter?
For comparison, here's a link to Diamond2's frequency response graph:
http://pic.gsmarena.com/vv/reviewsimg/htc-touch-diamond2/gsmarena_a001.png
As you can see, even though lower frequencies are lowered a bit, it's not drastic by any means and is perfectly equaliseable.
Here is a quote of what they say about Diamond2 audio quality:
With the introduction of the Diamond2 HTC are making a huge step forward in matching the music phones' audio quality.
Please help us on this! I'm really sold to Android's UI philosophy and I'm ready to sacrifice 800x480 screen, better browsing experience with flash, exhange, wmp, etc. for it, but not audio quality..it's a deal breaker for me.

From personal test I found that the Hero sounds better than the Magic or Diamond2, a wider sound somehow with more "umpf", but if you're picky with sound-quality like me there's still no smart-phone around with Windows Mobile or Android which comares to the excellent sound-quality of the iphone 3gs or others..it's sad but true..
I'm not sure about the Samsung Galaxy sound quality, somehow I don't like the sound..like the extreme highs are missing..there's no EQ in Android, sadly, because I think upping the highs would improve the Galaxy with (my head phones at least)

I'm just talking about high pass filter, which cuts off bass.

I don't know if the high-pass-filter is hardware or software..
but I know that if you really have high-end head phones for 250€ or something..you're never going to be happy with any of the smartphones around right now..except the iPhone, the sad truth, I'm sorry..

I'm just talking about bass-cutting low pass filter (either software or hardware), which just removes any basses.
Diamond2 quality is more than decent for me.

yea, nobody seems to know if this is possible..it can't be very hard to hack! I know that Samsung improved their Omnia sound quality through a firmware update..so I hoped it was possible on any of the HTC devices..I'd be happy to have some improvement on a Diamond1, or a HTC Magic..

An EQ widget or app would be a gold mine in the market

phatmanxxl said:
An EQ widget or app would be a gold mine in the market
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I doubt that EQ is enough. You would have to turn up lows on EQ to the maximum just to get a straight frequency responce graph, which is still not possible, because 20hz is just infinitely too low. And extreme EQ settings ALWAYS cause distortion...

I think the sound quality of this phone is just adaquete for use on the go. I am currently feeding a head-direct re2 (bass light) through a fiio e5 and I am fairly happy with the sound quality. Of course it can never compare to my home headphone set up with delicated DAC and a tube amp, but when you use those on the road there will always be enough noise leaking in to cover the lower spectrum. I do find it to have enough mid bass to make none analytical listening to be pretty enjoyable.

Adequate. It can be a lot better on other devices - be good.

If someone can get true line out in this phone, which should bypass any of the nonsense, I bet people will rejoice. Optical out would be nice too.

I'd say streaming over bluetooth will give you the best quality out of these phones right now..not sure if this is true though

emugpp said:
I'd say streaming over bluetooth will give you the best quality out of these phones right now..not sure if this is true though
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It is not.

I've tried this with my super old hermes, once i tweaked up the bluetooth and get rid of the skipping I had much better quality music through my Sony-Erricson Stereo-Bluetooth headset..

EQ and Audio Hack
Check these out.
http://forums.androidclubhouse.com/showthread.php?t=30
http://forums.androidclubhouse.com/showthread.php?t=82
These threads are basically for G1/Dream. I'm pretty sure it would work with Magic.

I'm very disappointed with my Magic audio, despite the audio quality, the Magic produces noise and interference. Using earphones like sennheiser cx-300 for example, at lower sounds and when the music stop, I can distinctly hear noise, and some sort of interference, like I hear when I plug the earphones to my old computer.
using my nokia device with same earphones and same mp3 the sound is perfect!
I'm using original HTC accessory (YC A300) to convert to 3.5mm and have original firmware version, android 1.5.
Anyone with same problem? I don't know if this is hardware problem or not.

[Q] sound quality through headphones

I just spent some time at the local T-Mobile store checking this thing out in person. I'm very seriously thinking about picking one up but I have one thing I want to ask you guys that already have one....How is the sound quality when listening to music? If I get this phone, it will be my second android phone but my first htc. I currently have a samsung moment and I detest a lot of things about it. One of the things that bothers me is that I still carry around my outdated ipod because the sound quality of my moment is brutal. I never noticed with the generic ear buds that came with the phone but once I plugged in some quality cans, I realized the phone doesn't have any balls. My music sounds like I'm listening to cheapo headphones even though I have a pair of $100 dollar grados.
I'm a bit of an audiophile so if the thing can't sound high end, its a big drawback to me. I'm so tired of carrying an ipod in one pocket and the phone in another. Been doing that too many years and the idea of getting a smartphone was supposed to cure that need.
Thanks in advance for any feedback!

I have the JH5's.. will listen to music on my G2 for some time and report back. I'm pretty satisfied with the Galaxy S, that has good SQ. My iPad also has great SQ..

One major problem I have with most android phones is that they aren't loud enough. That's the main reason I still carry around my touch. I hope I am able to solve this soon...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

This question was bugging me, as I have the G2 on my short list of phones I want, so I went back to the T-Mobile store today and asked if I could see their live demo unit and test music playback on it.
They didn't agree, not wanting me to put an sdcard with music on it in the demo phone, but one of the employees had his own G2 with music already on it. He let me plug my headphones in (Head Direct RE2, not the most spectacular, but not cheap $20 earbuds either) and played a few tracks.
It sounded pretty good for an HTC phone.
Now, granted, these MP3s were not very high quality. They were 128kbps encodes, probably not LAME encoded. But I'll say it definitely sounded better than the utterly bass-lacking Nexus One.
It doesn't sound half as decent as the Samsung Vibrant, though.

greengoldmello said:
One major problem I have with most android phones is that they aren't loud enough. That's the main reason I still carry around my touch. I hope I am able to solve this soon...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
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that desire hd has dolby srs or whatever, should sound good. really hoping t-mobile brings it to the US.

greengoldmello said:
One major problem I have with most android phones is that they aren't loud enough. That's the main reason I still carry around my touch. I hope I am able to solve this soon...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
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Exactly. I know in terms of specs the iPhones don't compare to Androids, but sound quality as I said is a big deal to me. I would tolerate a slightly slower phone for good sound.
As far as people noting that newer Samsung phones have good sound...that's nice to know but I've already decided I can never buy another Samsung phone for as long as I live. I'll spare you all the self-righteous diatribe but suffice it to say my Moment's lack of sound quality is only one of a number of issues I have with it.

That's why I have a Ipod touch 4G

Unfortunately this is all opinion so our opinion of good may not mesh with yours, however I use Klipsch S4s which have been reviewed by many different people as the best in the price range and better than many that cost twice as much...
I listen to FLAC all day on my G2 with these earphones at work and am happy with the quality.

Using the JH5's, the G2 sounds decent for average listening. Not as good as the iPad or iPhone 4, but good enough. It doesn't make the music sound bad, just the bass performance is not as good and its a bit focused on treble.

Kind of like the speaker for the phone.. sounds good but a little quiet.

Plenty loud IMO :/

I have to admit that my blackberry bold 9700 earphone jack yielded better results as far as pandora is concerned to my auxiliary port of my head unit (even with high quality)
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

I don't know about the G2, but the Vibrant has amazing sound quality through its headphone jack. When tested by gsmarena.com, it beat the iphone on a few sound quality tests and was about the same on all the others. I've never heard better sound quality on a phone and its very customizable and pretty loud.

It's decent. The bundled earphones are pretty good quality, and the controls work flawless, without any lag. Perfect for gym. IMHO if you're using your phone for listening to music anywhere else, you're doing it wrong. At home a hi-fi system is obviously better, in the car... why bother. Unless you have a non-existent (or super ****ty) system in the car, why would you listen to music using your phone?

clivo360 said:
I don't know about the G2, but the Vibrant has amazing sound quality through its headphone jack. When tested by gsmarena.com, it beat the iphone on a few sound quality tests and was about the same on all the others. I've never heard better sound quality on a phone and its very customizable and pretty loud.
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Yup, the Vibrant/Galaxy S uses a discrete Wolfson DSP ; thus its Sound Quality is superb. The iPhone 4 uses a discrete Cirrus Logic DSP, whereas HTC phones/Qualcomm do not have a discrete DSP, its integrated into the SoC.

So to answer his question, He's still going to have to carry around the iPod.

I've been using the included headset and am very happy with the sound quality and volume.
I haven't tested any other earphones yet.
On a related note, the speaker is only adequate. I wouldn't rely on it. Samsung phones seem to be much better in this regard.

Included headset sucks compared to the S4s, but to be realistic you can't expect HTC to waste money including a "good" headset when 95% of the buyers can't tell a difference or don't care. I hope they continue to include cheap headsets so I'm not paying a premium for a phone with a mediocre pair that I won't use anyway.

Are you using the stock music player to listen to FLAC? It doesn't seem to work for me. Neither does the cube player.

Audio quality isn't the best on this phone. I have a pair of Senn's CX500's and the bass gets distorted when listening to the default player. The mid's are okay and sometimes the highs get distorted also. This btw is coming from music with at least 192kbps bitrate on them.
But still love the phone!

audioquality - really that bad? will 2.2 bring some improvements?

Hey Folks!!
I´ve read a lot about the very poor audio quality with the streak...what do you "initiated" guys can tell me about this (aside from the fact that they have positioned the audiojack on the SIDE of the device )? How would you rate the possibility to use this device as my no.1 mp3 player?
Will the update that everybody is waiting for compensate this issue?

Hi brooon
Well i don't know why you think the Streak has poor audio quality as that most certainly isn't my experience of using it to play my Music on and whilst i was on 1.6 i was more than happy using the Music player that was built into the Streak as i liked the Music Widget that came with it. Since moving to 2.1 and 2.2 Custom Roms i am using Lithium Player as like the Widget options it gives and i have no need for an EQ as have never used one on any device i use.
What is far more important IMO is how well you encode your Music as using low bit rates are never going to give you great results however good the hardware may be its restricted by to little information to work with when decoding it. All my Music is kept in iTunes although bought on Cd's and then transferred to it @256kbps AAC. The second most important factor is then your in ear phones as the supplied ones with any equipment are adequate at best IMO so dependant on your budget and the sound you like to hear upgrading your in ear or head phones is the other thing that will effect the quality of what you are listening to.
I listen to at least 2 hrs a day of Music either with my Shure EC2g's in ear phones plugged directly into my Streak or using my Nokia BH-500 and streaming the Stereo via Bluetooth to the same in ear phones and the sound is nothing short of stunning IMO. It produces a rich and full sound with good separation and sound stage with no need to use an EQ as IMO you shouldn't need to boost any frequencies as thats what a producer does when recording the Music for you to listen to in the recording studio.
So in answer to your question do nothing as I'm already running 2.2 and despite now using Lithium Player for the Widget options i have no issues with the sound quality my Streak delivers whilst listening to music or watching Videos.
Marc

brooon said:
I´ve read a lot about the very poor audio quality with the streak...[...]
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Where have you read it?
Streak has the best audio quality of all the devices I owned during last years. I was amazed when I first plugged the earphones and played some tunes.

Theres a lot of fud around.....
I'd agree with smoku it's the best (although the speaker isn't great maybe that's what he read)
I'm now using power amp for all my music needs, the eq in there really brings out the best of the sound quality on the streak... It even plays m4a and wma and can boost the sound level out of the rear speaker

This is a valid thread, thanks for starting it.
For my part I am interested in portable audiophile gear, Sennheiser IE8 with custom moulds, iBasso D10, iRiver H140, that sort of thing.
My music is encoded in FLAC and I haven’t yet tried the Streak as a music player. Possibly in part so as not to be disappointed and also I am waiting on final 2.2 or maybe even 2.3 so as to bring the platform to maturity and with it good quality media apps. The original 1.6 just seemed to be rough around the edges and with poor app support.
So the responses from Dogmann, smoku and fards are very encouraging and I shall give it go sooner rather than later.

i use the hf2,s from emotec and you need a diff player to play flac but the sound quality is ok just the standared head set that come with its pants

I think 2.2 has increased the sound quality for the speaker but still not good as HTC tilt2. The sound from earphone jack is good on both 1.6 and 2.2 for me.

im using a pair of klipsch images and the sound on my streak sounds horrible. I hear alot of popping and noise. You can even hear when the internal amp comes on when its about to start playing sound, and you can hear it turn off when sounds go off its rather noticable. I recently installed poweramp and the inbuilt eq does make the sound alot better. Maybe all our streaks aren't created equal id love to hear one that sounds good.

hi @all!!
Thanks for the comments and experiences, your impressions are really helping a lot here guys
shigga said:
I hear alot of popping and noise. You can even hear when the internal amp comes on when its about to start playing sound, and you can hear it turn off when sounds go off its rather noticable.
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That´s what i´ve read several times in reports that i´ve found during my googletrip ...it seems like you´re not the only one suffering under these (audio)circumstances. I must say, Im very surprised about the positive impressions here (although I´m happy to read such things )?!?
Don´t you guys hear those "poppings" and noises, too? What could be the reason for such a variety of impressions? Any idea?

This thread comes straight from the android knockers over at ilounge! i've owned both, there's no difference! i read the same stuff before i got android.
The only thing about the stereo system on the streak is the incredibly stupid placement of the headphone jack on the side of the device, meaning it sticks out sideways when in your pocket, the 'designers' even thought that you would carry the streak around in your pocket in landscape mode

tbh I'm not an audiophile, I've been a musician for way too long
never heard popping or buzz... except intentional as part of whatever I'm listening to..

My Streak does sound real good, even when listening to classical music. And I am using it straight out of the box.

Crap statement. It's not spectacular, but for a mobile phone device it's very satisfactory. I use it as a player both in my car and when I'm on the train and it sounds phenomenal.

Obviously it is not spectacular, lol. How could the sound on such a small device ever be spectacular? I was comparing it to other mobile devices (my wife's iPhone 3G, my old HTCs) and I am pleasantly surprised.

I switched to bluetooth headphones and they deliver much better sound quality, than the original streak's earplugs.

HansTWN said:
Obviously it is not spectacular, lol. How could the sound on such a small device ever be spectacular? I was comparing it to other mobile devices (my wife's iPhone 3G, my old HTCs) and I am pleasantly surprised.
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Didn't mean to directly attack your statement . I'm actually agreeing with you, I think the sound quality is good on the Streak, and I'm calling the "reviewers" who said that the sound is bad on the Streak crap.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Its weird there is such differing opinions on it.
I've owned two and returned both for bad audio. I even had an email from the executive support team saying they're aware of an audio issue!
I just wondered whether maybe, as mine were both from the very first Carphone Warehouse batch in Brighton that I got a bum lot!?

Just tried the demo display at my local best buy and brought my earbuds and it sounded equally as bad as mine. My captivate, aria and nexus sound so much better.

shigga said:
im using a pair of klipsch images and the sound on my streak sounds horrible. I hear alot of popping and noise. You can even hear when the internal amp comes on when its about to start playing sound, and you can hear it turn off when sounds go off its rather noticable. I recently installed poweramp and the inbuilt eq does make the sound alot better. Maybe all our streaks aren't created equal id love to hear one that sounds good.
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This is my only gripe with the audio quality. If you listen at low volumes, you can hear fuzz/hiss sounds. I also can hear the amp/DAC/whatever it is turning on and off when I start/stop my music. Course, you can crank up the music to drown out the noise, but I like to be able to hear what's going on around me when i listen to music (so the yard gnomes et al can't sneak up on me.)
If you're in a reasonably quiet room, try playing some music with headphones and the volume turned all the way down to 0 (yes, zero). I can hear audio noise over the sound of my apartment heater blowing air around.
side note: I've confirmed this with the earbuds that came with the streak, as well as a set that came with my old iphone. i'm guessing if you have less sensitive headphones, this will be less of a problem cause you'll be pushing the audio out at higher volume levels.

After the encouraging observations here I decided to finally check out the sound quality for myself. My reference portable rig is a pair of Sennheiser IE8’s with custom ear moulds, iBasso D10 Headphone amplifier with an optical digital interconnect to an iRiver H140.
The music I like tends to be recorded as low-fi, e.g. The National, Bon Iver, Cymbals Eat Guitars. Last night I loaded up a selection of Calexico on both the Streak and iRiver. While these are clean recordings they are certainly not Hi-Fi reference standard, you know, the sort of stuff that is used to demonstrate high end audiophile equipment.
Basically my subjective comparison is just me listening to the sort of music that appeals. The cognoscenti over at Head-Fi may well have finer tuned ears and a more analytical framework and disagree of course.
I approached this with some trepidation bracing myself for a degree of disappointment in the Streak as a music player. No way did I expect what I found.
To summarise, given the choice of listening to the iRiver/iBasso rig or the Streak I would probably select the former. However I would be hard pressed to actually explain why. Perhaps because it has the ability to go louder - though the Streak is quite loud enough.
TBH after a couple of hours listening to the same tracks back and forth on both devices, I couldn’t discern any difference. Dell has really come through on this device in so many ways.
Kudos also to PowerAmp which is a joy to use and a bargain at $5.
For reference, the last time I performed this exercise was to compare with my old iPhone 3GS and there was no doubt then that the iRiver/iBasso was superior. I can’t say the same with the Streak, the best I can manage is ‘neck and neck’.
I am sorry for those who are having audio problems but this shouldn’t be so and your device could be faulty.

Head Phone Sound Quality

I've been looking through the forums in anticipation if getting an Atrix and have read the topics on the speaker quality. However, I didn't really read how the quality of sound is through headphones. I have a nice pair of headphones so I want it to sound good. So my questions are:
1. Does the Atrix have a Wolfson amplifier??
2. How does it compare to the Infuse or SGS2??

I can't answer your first question, but I have a pair of Dr. Dre Beats (yea i know i know, but they do sound pretty good) and I personally think the sound quality is better than the infuse. My cousin has an infuse and I played the same track on both phones with my headphones and I preferred the sound on the Atrix. Your best bet is to go to an AT&T store (or whoever your atrix provider might be) and bring your headphones and ask them to let you try out both and judge for yourself. Although music itself and even certain equalizer settings are subjective, I think you will get a pretty good idea on which one "sounds better".

Two thumbs up for sound quality.
I am probably one of the very few people here who replaced their SGS2 with Atrix 4G.
SGS2 sound quality is not bad, but its not great either. Specially if you are using it on EDGE network which does happen to me when I am not in 3G coverage area.
Anyway, coming to Atrix, its one of the best sounding handsets I have used after original Galaxy S. Output is clean, loud enough and free of distortions/clipping even at high volume on earphones and headphones.
To be honest, 8/10 people will not be able to decide which sounds better Atrix or SGS2 or infuse.
And with cheap headphones, its even harder to decide which one is better.
My opinions here are with Audio Technica ATH M50, Brainwavz M2 and Nuforce NE700.

My only problem is that it seems that the volume is overall pretty low (i.e. I find myself keeping the slider close-ish to the top). When I'm outside walking to and from class, the city sounds almost drown out my music even when I have it at max...I know it's not the headphones, because I use them on all of my music playing devices, and they are just fine elsewhere. The sound is good, but the max volume seems to be set low...Messing with the equalizer in my music player (PowerAmp) helps..

Yeah its a wolfson dac not amp which is what really matters. Overall the phone sounds very good especially considering its a freaking phone. Ive used Beyerdynamic dt 770 80ohm pros, etymotic mc5's, grado sr80i's, and most impressively my Magnepan MC-12 planar speakers with the phone. They all sounded just fine, not jaw dropping or anything but just fine and fairly balanced throughout. If you have good copies of your music and decent headphones the atrix will take care of you if your not too picky. Much more so if you have an external headphone amp. you'd be surprised how much something little like this
http://www.amazon.com/FiiO-E5-Headphone-Amplifier/dp/B001P9EQH8
can improve sound quality not to mention get you to the volume you want.
Also don't mess around with equalizers too much they have a tendency to distort music no matter what your sourcing it from.
happy listening \m/d>_<b\m/

Im wondering how is audio via bluetooth a2dp, my SGSII sounds very bad, crapy and maybe Atrix could be a better solution for me with this matter ?

arkadius41 said:
Im wondering how is audio via bluetooth a2dp, my SGSII sounds very bad, crapy and maybe Atrix could be a better solution for me with this matter ?
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The sound via a a2dp headset is fine, no where near as good as 3.5 jack but same can be said about the gs2. I will miss my Atrix as I loved the audio quility

Sound quality over bluetooth on Motorola S9-HD headset is great as far as I am concerned. No issues with volume either. I keep media volume maxed, and control headset volume from headset. It will go much louder than I use it at, and it drowns out any ambient sound easily.

Audio through headphones surprisingly good

I'm not going to lie. Coming from an iPhone and a Galaxy S6 (my Moto G is sort of an interim phone while I sell those two to afford new stuff this fall), I expected the Moto G to sound considerably worse. And yeah, it's not quite as good. But it's certainly far from the worst I've had and I've only owned expensive devices in the past. The bass is punchy, the treble is fairly decent, and the volume levels aren't awful (although I may increase mixer_paths at some point to gain a couple levels). I've actually been listening through fairly decent earbuds for the past 40 minutes or so to various types of music (alternative, acoustic, heavy stuff, rap) and I could definitely live with this sound quality if I had to.
It is pretty damn amazing what ~$200 buys you today.

I've noticed this too! Big upgrade from my n4, no more distortion!

the earphones are 'good' for the price ... cant expect more at this price point

My ear is in a full moon party.
Yeah, this is awesome.
I'm using CM12.1 With a Dolby Atmis and Jet player.
After a hour to configure the player, my brain explode with the results.

Quality-wise, yes...very good. Volume-wise, I'd say it's extremely subpar. It's easily the lowest volume of any device I've ever had. Speaker volume is phenomenal...headphone volume is god awful!!! And I'm comparing this to my Nexus 4, just as the OP says.

You can mention the speaker which gives a quite punchy sound compared to many phones from this category which are mostly ear hurting with middle and high frequencies only...

If anyone's looking for a little boost without messing with viper, etc, I made a mixer_paths.xml mod here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3217132

I'm getting the same thing. The audio through my IEMs (Hifiman RE-400 for active/gym stuff and Yamaha EPH-100 for normal listening) is freakin' excellent, but the volume is indeed low.

AwesomeTurtle said:
I'm getting the same thing. The audio through my IEMs (Hifiman RE-400 for active/gym stuff and Yamaha EPH-100 for normal listening) is freakin' excellent, but the volume is indeed low.
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The mod thread I linked above makes headphone volume LOUD!!! It can go a few notches higher, but I think it sounds great, personally...it also boosts speaker volume pretty much to its limit. It may get slightly distorted occasionally, but it's definitely a good bit louder, as well!

Motorola has done an excellent job. the sound is excellent. the happy moment. :highfive:

Walkman
You can install Walkman to get the best out of the earphones.

hi guys, i have already bought the moto g3.. but the earphone is very very low. Is there any problem with my device or is in general of these phones problem ?? Could we fix it?

giwrgos21 said:
hi guys, i have already bought the moto g3.. but the earphone is very very low. Is there any problem with my device or is in general of these phones problem ?? Could we fix it?
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There's a button on the side of your phone that can fix it
Sent from my MotoG3 using XDA Free mobile app