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Stock music player versus poweramp for sound signature

Man....I can't tell... with the stock music player versus power amp, is there a difference between sound quality? This comparison is with eq and tone controls off in poweramp.
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dman777 said:
Man....I can't tell... with the stock music player versus power amp, is there a difference between sound quality? This comparison is with eq and tone controls off in poweramp.
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there might be.. Try them out and see.
Edit: oops.. I guess if you can't tell it doesn't matter
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if you want differences in sound quality, try a kernel with Voodoo Sound. I recommend Netarchy's 1.2.5a/1.2.8 BFS or CFS. when you flash this kernel, get Voodoo Control from the market

I love the sound quality I get out of powersmp. But then again I haven't tried messing with the voodoo sound stuff.
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zephiK said:
if you want differences in sound quality, try a kernel with Voodoo Sound. I recommend Netarchy's 1.2.5a/1.2.8 BFS or CFS. when you flash this kernel, get Voodoo Control from the market
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^this. Voodoo sound will blow you away.
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ya'll didn't see my signature? can there be a voodoo patched kernel with color only? no.
i wasn't asking for a better sounding qaulity media player. i was asking if there is an actual diff. between sound quality/personality with stock media player versus poweramp(with it's tone and eq settings off).

Voodoo and poweramp is AWESOME. Non voodoo i like lithium player best

dman777 said:
ya'll didn't see my signature? can there be a voodoo patched kernel with color only? no.
i wasn't asking for a better sounding qaulity media player. i was asking if there is an actual diff. between sound quality/personality with stock media player versus poweramp(with it's tone and eq settings off).
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And I wasn't being out of relevance but helping you by telling you to get Voodoo Sound.
Voodoo sound + Poweramp will make cause a eargasm.
So get it. If you don't like the kernel.. you can disable it or revert back to your previous kernel.

How did this topic become "Is Voodoo sound good"? I already have voodoo sound! I have had voodoo sound! THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VOODOO SOUND. I just want to know if there is a diff. in sound personality between the 2 media players: Poweramp and Stock Media player

Poweramp is much better. It actually has an EQ plus a ton of other settings.
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This still ignores the OP's very good question - we know Power Amp has better eq and interface than the stock player, but does it actually sound better than stock with eq switched off? I tried to compare the two using my Etymotic Research ER4 earphones which are very revealing - for me the stock player sounded a bit muddier than Power Amp with slightly less detail coming through , but saying that it was a smoother sound easier on the ears which may benefit earphones with less bass. Winamp seems somewhere in between but I need to do more comparisons with different music. However good Power amp's eq may be, it is always better to have this switched off if your earphones and source material are up to it.
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Is there really a difference? Aren't they both (all music players for that matter) using hardware deciding and/or Android sound stream api? They should sound the same as if I wrote my own player in a dozen lines, right?
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I think the difference is in how the players are configured for flat response - the stock player, not having any built in eq seems warmer than power amp - this gives it good alround compabilty with a variety of earphones. Power amp on the other hand is less coloured to my ears resulting in a flatter spectrum - I think this is actually more accurate, but less forgiving of poor sources and earphones. Personally I get a better sound from power amp. Voodoo makes both sound fantastic though - easily as good if not better than my X series Sony Walkman.
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I find Power Amp to have a fuller sound (without tone or eq) than stock. It also seems to highlight treble sounds a little better. (I'm no audiophile) Just my opinion that's probably wrong
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phillevy said:
This still ignores the OP's very good question - we know Power Amp has better eq and interface than the stock player, but does it actually sound better than stock with eq switched off? I tried to compare the two using my Etymotic Research ER4 earphones which are very revealing - for me the stock player sounded a bit muddier than Power Amp with slightly less detail coming through , but saying that it was a smoother sound easier on the ears which may benefit earphones with less bass. Winamp seems somewhere in between but I need to do more comparisons with different music. However good Power amp's eq may be, it is always better to have this switched off if your earphones and source material are up to it.
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Yes, thank you.
Here are my findings so far...this is with using only the eq in cm7 rc2. Not using any tone adjustments in the players:
1) Stock- Has the best sound stage and mids. Meaning stereo seperation is really good. However, bass is not as tight as the others and highs not as sharp as the others. The sound signature did have a more full sound(all instruments were fully present without some being muted). This player had the best natural non colored sound also. Missing Que option...big burden for me.
2) PowerAmp- Had the punchiest tightest bass and the sharpest and cleanest highs. Mids were so so. Sound stage(stereo seperation) was the worse of the three. lestioning to regage some detail on instruments were muted since the mids were recessed and sound stage was minimal. The sound signature was the most colored...unnatural(this was with the eq and tone settings off). This had the best GUI interface.
3) Winamp- inbetween the stock player and Poweramp. Although the stock player still had a significantly better sound stage. Interface was ugly. But had good functionality like Poweramp(like que option).
If the stock player had a que option I would just stick with that. Wish it did
I used Super hi pro inner cannal buds to test. I will test again with Shure headphones which will be a better test.

I'd be interested if supercurio had a take on this?
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Really? I'd love a developer's explanation if there is an actual difference in audio stream playback. I just can't imagine any of the devs reinventing the wheel for decoding mp3.
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I feel like PowerAMP has some issues with flat non-EQ playback. Def sounds way off compared to any other players, and devices as well. I can play the same file off PowerAMP, Winamp, stock player, and an MP3-CD, and the latter 3 will sound relatively the same. PowerAMP, on the other hand, sounds quiet, completely lacking mid and bass, and too heavy on the highs

To restate the op's observation that they can't tell the difference, I would still love to hear some objective comparison. With eq off, shouldn't poweramp sound exactly the same?
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I have a very faint memory of hearing something about PowerAmp uses its own decoder? If that's the case, then I can imagine it would sound different. I personally use Rockbox, it uses its own highly efficient and quality decoder. Though, I've not really compared the sound quality to the stock player, can't really say which sounds better.

How to boost audio volume?

Since voodoo isn't compatible with the N4 how do I boost the volume?
Is there something similar to voodoo sound?
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asphantix said:
Since voodoo isn't compatible with the N4 how do I boost the volume?
Is there something similar to voodoo sound?
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here
makes my volume considerably louder. It works great.

ADJack said:
here
makes my volume considerably louder. It works great.
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The nexus louder audio mod shown in that thread doesn't work. It just adds an app and changes some equaliser settings and generally makes the sound quality a lot worse.
What we need is something at kernel level to simply increase the volume of the phone like they did on the sgs3.
I wish kernel and ROM Devs would focus on this issue a.little bit because speed and battery life and other placebos aren't the only things people care about. The audio on this phone is Far far too quiet although it is good quality.

biffsmash said:
The nexus louder audio mod shown in that thread doesn't work. It just adds an app and changes some equaliser settings and generally makes the sound quality a lot worse.
What we need is something at kernel level to simply increase the volume of the phone like they did on the sgs3.
I wish kernel and ROM Devs would focus on this issue a.little bit because speed and battery life and other placebos aren't the only things people care about. The audio on this phone is Far far too quiet although it is good quality.
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I feel that the audio coming out on the N4 is much quieter than on any of my previous devices. If you have an N7, you can test this out by setting both devices to the loudest volume setting, setting them to play the same song, and then play the first song while plugged in to your car, then unplug the first device and plug in the second device and play the same song. I have to crank up my car volume double do get the same sound quality. Its really annoying. Is there a fix somewhere that just lets you boost the volume like changing something in the system? I like the native equalizer fine, but the sound is so quiet when plugged into a headphone jack!!

[Q]Volume+ Speaker and Headphones settings?

Does anybody knows which settings i need to use in Volume+ for awesome audio quality? (Speakers and headphones please, bluetooth isn't needed.) Thanks +1 for the one that can help me! :good:

This is always a person taste. That's why they let you set it. Just keep in mind that setting the bass boost will distort the sound. Plat some music and make small changes as it plays until it sounds good to you. This app isn't going to magically make the sound hardware in the nexus good though. It can only do so much.
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Thats true! Thanks!

Actually, Volume+ lowers my sound instead increasing it!

brakke97 said:
Actually, Volume+ lowers my sound instead increasing it!
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Volume + still does not work properly with Jelly Bean. I use NexusLouder V6 beta2. It installs DSP Manager as well asNoozxoide and Noozy Equalizers. And gives a big boost to volume.

I vote Noozxoide too. No root required either. I found that if you don't mess with the volume boost settings in volume+ it doesn't lower volume, at least not as much. Higher you boost volume, the quieter it actually gets.. But bass boosting settings on any eq will distort the sound to some degree.
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Output volume sucks

So I've recently been using my tablet to play music onto my nice dj style headphones. But output volume and quality is absolutely horrendous. I have to be at full volume to get and reasonably level sound, and then when I'm at that level, everything is very distorted. On my one X which has some beats eq thing, sound is wonderful and much louder. Maybe this is just a problem with stock Android, but I need to find some way to get much higher quality and more importantly louder music. I've tried a few mods available here but they don't seem to do much.
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What mods have you tried. I use awesome beats on my galaxy nexus. If not that trickster mod app has a setting to make the volume high. (Correct me if I'm wrong) I have my galaxy nexus stock and rooted.
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I have tried awesome beats and it doesn't seem to do much. I also tried AC!D mod and for some reason, whenever I started to play audio, my tablet would freeze up

mikel.canovas said:
So I've recently been using my tablet to play music onto my nice dj style headphones. But output volume and quality is absolutely horrendous. I have to be at full volume to get and reasonably level sound, and then when I'm at that level, everything is very distorted. On my one X which has some beats eq thing, sound is wonderful and much louder. Maybe this is just a problem with stock Android, but I need to find some way to get much higher quality and more importantly louder music. I've tried a few mods available here but they don't seem to do much.
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I haven't used much except for DSP, but the audio is just difficult to have it loud. I've found external speakers BT or through audio jack is the only way to go.

Be careful what you try because I've read about people blowing their speaker trying to increase volume. That being said volume+ from the play store worked when it wasn't fighting the other sound mods I had installed. Pimp my ROM app. has some flashable zips that helped. Bottom line its one of the sacrifices that kept the price of the N7 low. Better the speaker to be mediocre rather than the screen. I bought some ear buds and if I want to play it loud for the neighbors I jack in to a stereo. Also a set of desktop computer speakers (sub and two bookshelf) work great with tablets
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I use my N7 speaker to listen to music and get quite surprised and how loud it gets and don't notice any distortion. So I'm not experiencing what you are. Maybe I'm just easily pleased and aren't as passionate about audio quality as others

Sorry to say this but, it will never sound good. Not even with sound mods. The sound chip inside the N7 is just really, really bad. I've tried it with a pair of $900 Shure headphones and nothing can save this thing.

I prefer the speaker of the s3

I noticed that during loud crashes and explosion, the galaxy s4 speakers distorts while my s3 didn't. It seems like it has much more treble which seems to be what's causing the distortion. Anyone else notice the difference in sounds or is mine damaged out of the box?
This is only with the volume maxed.

esqueue said:
I noticed that during loud crashes and explosion, the galaxy s4 speakers distorts while my s3 didn't. It seems like it has much more treble which seems to be what's causing the distortion. Anyone else notice the difference in sounds or is mine damaged out of the box?
This is only with the volume maxed.
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The speaker is different i know. When i put my text tones on it, they sound like its more stereo but also in like a box or hall with some echo which i think is what causes the distortion.

kyhassen said:
The speaker is different i know. When i put my text tones on it, they sound like its more stereo but also in like a box or hall with some echo which i think is what causes the distortion.
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Well, thanks for the response, if they made it that way then there is nothing I can do about it. I just wanted to make sure that mine wasn't broken.

I think the speaker phone sounds awesome.
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it does sound awesome but compared to the SIII it does sound different. mine sounds like it echos for some things and then others it sounds incredible. i think its the bass and treble settings.

I think that they only tested it out for music. It sounds great during most music but any loud explosions or crashes is where the increased treble is the culprit. I wish there was an equalizer type setting where I could lower the treble.

esqueue said:
I think that they only tested it out for music. It sounds great during most music but any loud explosions or crashes is where the increased treble is the culprit. I wish there was an equalizer type setting where I could lower the treble.
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Once the custom roms get going/they make them compatible with our device, I'm sure with DSP manager or Awesome Beats or any of the other sounds mods, you will be able edit the various sound options to your liking!
:thumbup:
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Speaker is the same as sgs3 to me
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I think the speakers are terrible. I switched from iPhone 4S to the GS4, and the GS4 sounds quiet and muffled.
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Turtle Beach
I prefer the new turtle beach XO7's

Lol, are you guys actually complaining about the sound quality of the built-in speaker during movies? It's not even designed to have the frequency response of a pair of $5 headphones, much less reproducing accurate explosions and crashes. Think about it, you have a tiny speaker that is pushing out sound loud enough to where you can actually hear it well enough from far away. It's there for one reason only, to have to ability to do a hands-free phone call.

sputnik767 said:
Lol, are you guys actually complaining about the sound quality of the built-in speaker during movies? It's not even designed to have the frequency response of a pair of $5 headphones, much less reproducing accurate explosions and crashes. Think about it, you have a tiny speaker that is pushing out sound loud enough to where you can actually hear it well enough from far away. It's there for one reason only, to have to ability to do a hands-free phone call.
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If you are going to respond to a 1 year old topic at least make sure that your response is somewhat relevant. This was made in comparison with the galaxy SIII. I was just making sure that my speaker wasn't broken. There was only one guy here comparing it to a ****ty iphone.
The guy before you doesn't even deserve a response. Since I'm commenting here, I'm sure that they messed with the sound on one of it's many updates as it doesn't distort anymore.