[Q] Bluetooth audio quality - AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin

Is there any way to fix the bluetooth audio quality other than switching to a CM-based ROM?
My old phone over bluetooth sounds fine. My S4 via a wired connection sounds fine. My S4 over bluetooth sounds like everything was sampled at 32 kHz. All other equipment is the same, so I'm relatively sure it's a bluetooth-specific issue. My girlfriend's S4 does the same thing.
So, any fixes? I'd really like to avoid switching to an aftermarket ROM right now.
Edit: L337 on AT&T

Tourney3p0 said:
Is there any way to fix the bluetooth audio quality other than switching to a CM-based ROM?
My old phone over bluetooth sounds fine. My S4 via a wired connection sounds fine. My S4 over bluetooth sounds like everything was sampled at 32 kHz. All other equipment is the same, so I'm relatively sure it's a bluetooth-specific issue. My girlfriend's S4 does the same thing.
So, any fixes? I'd really like to avoid switching to an aftermarket ROM right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Random guess: Could this issue be caused by the adaptive sound feature? I'm not a true audiophile, but I haven't noticed a problem through my receiver in the car or at home.

Try playing something with cymbals and a lot of treble. Turn the volume up a bit higher than normal while still maintaining a reasonable level. The cymbals sound like someone is smacking a plastic grocery bag with a stick instead of being crisp and clean like they should be. I can then disconnect the S4, connect my old phone, and play the same mp3 without any sound distortion. Or I can play the same mp3 from the S4 via aux and it sounds fine.
Try it on both bluetooth and aux. If you truly don't notice a difference, I guess it must just be my phone. If it does do it however, you definitely don't need to be an audiophile to hear it.
My old phone had the exact same problem until I moved to JB on a CM build. The problem there is well-documented as existing on the S3 (try looking up bitpool settings), but I kind of figured they would have fixed it by now. I'm coming from the world of HTC, so I was hoping there is a fix for Samsung.

Sorry to revive this thread, but I have an update.
My car has built-in bluetooth for phone only, so no a2dp. I have a third-party bluetooth adapter that I'm using for music.
I've found that when both of these are connected, the audio quality (especially on trebles and guitars with distortion) is absolutely terrible. That was the point of my original post. Since then, I've determined that this happens ONLY when I am paired with both my car and my third-party bluetooth. I can actually pair and unpair from my car in real time and hear the audio quality immediately get better/worse. The quality gets worse immediately when it pairs, even if the car bluetooth is not in use (but still connected).
I've verified this is the case with both my phone and my girlfriend's S4. Can anyone with such a setup verify this does or does not happen for them? I'm thinking this is a bug with the bluetooth stack, and it'd be nice if it could be fixed. If anyone can try pairing to two different devices and confirm my problem, I'll start a bug report with Samsung. Otherwise I'll try another bluetooth adapter for a2dp.

Related

Bluetooth Audio Quality

(Update: 2/23/10: To replicate the problem, use a bluetooth headset, make a call, then walk away from the phone until you're almost out of range. That's exactly the problem I have when I'm holding the device, it doesn't matter where I am distance wise, the best audio call quality I get STARTS where most phones get when you're too far from the device. Ideas?)
After weeks (3 straight) of searching, I have to finally ask.
Does anyone else have an issue with the quality of their bluetooth connection (calls only) regardless of brand and distance from the phone?
I've purchased nearly 13 different bluetooth devices trying to fix this. Changing the distance from the actual handset (experimenting if there's a different to if the Hero is plugged in or not), the price of the bluetooth unit, what type it was (speaker phone unit only, carkit, headphones, ad2p or not, etc etc), and I still have a poor call quality call.
Reception isn't an issue, I've tried from full bars to almost no bars, and in every instance, when I disconnected the bluetooth and went back to using either speakerphone, headphones, or directly on the device, the noise went away.
You can only hear the noise when the remote party speaks, and it really sounds like the old analog bag phones in bad reception. Is there anything as far as changing settings on the bluetooth to improve the audio quality?
not really. the BT module sends information to the receiver and the receiver decodes that into audio. so you cant really set an EQ for BT with android at least so it basically depends on the receiving unit. while music is playing turn the volume down to 75% on the phone and thats the best quality you will get. im an audiophile and it works for me.
I have a Plantonics Stereo BT.
It works great on my Hero... Much better than my HTC Diamond!
Haven't had any trouble from my Jawbone 1. The sound quality isn't as good as it was on my TP, TP2 or Pre but it's ok. Haven't had any weird noises. But it does randomly disconnect from my Hero. Well the phone says it is still connected but I get no call notifications through it and when I answer, the audio is through the handset. Even right after I finish talking to someone through the BT. Gonna have to chalk it up to the Hero cause I've had no issuse with it on any other phones. Best BT ever in my opinion.
Yeah, I don't know. I have used the Jawbone II, Jawbone Prime, Moto H12, Moto H790, and Plantronics Voyager Pro all with no problems in sound quality, also audio quality is very important to me because I do have some hearing loss. My call quality with the Hero isn't quite as good as with my old Blackberry Curve, but it is still very functional as I use it at least an hour everyday. If you have gone through that many headsets it is quite possibly the device itself.
I don't know, I have 3 Hero's and I honestly don't like the quality of sound on any of them. One of them is just straight stock. I just wish I could get it with a clear quality as my old dumbphones have. I think I've been helped to discover the answer to my question, thank you all!

A2DP sound quality issue with Galaxy S 2

Hi guys
i read xda so much, but i don't write as well
i have a big issue with my galaxy s 2
i use a bt car stereo, with a2dp and avrcp support
i used to stream all my music collection from my iphone4
now i got my sgs2 and i love it... but
the audio stream looks "limited"
it seems a bandwidth issue, or i don't know a quality issue
with iphone4 i streamed at full quality, now the sgs2 sounds a lot worst
other than that, i have to disable wifi because if on, the music is choppy and skips a lot
with wifi off, the stream goes well, but it sound bad...
sorry for my not so perfect english... i hope there is a way to improve sound quality because i "live" with a2dp on in my car...
That's strange. My a2dp stream actually sound better from sgs2 than it does from my ipod touch 2nd gen, iphone or my computer (bluez).
Receiver is a belkin stereo a2dp receiver.
Are you sure that it's not in handsfree mode? Long press the a2dp device in bluetooth settings and there should be an option to select it to be a media device, make sure it's checked.
thanks for the reply gvoima, no it's in media device mode
i think the problem is the bitpool
i've got the same problem of this guy: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=708685
there is an mp3 sample of the problem in the first page
gvoima said:
That's strange. My a2dp stream actually sound better from sgs2 than it does from my ipod touch 2nd gen, iphone or my computer (bluez).
Receiver is a belkin stereo a2dp receiver.
Are you sure that it's not in handsfree mode? Long press the a2dp device in bluetooth settings and there should be an option to select it to be a media device, make sure it's checked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got a belkin stereo receiver as well, but it sounds bad and choppy, just like the topic starter described. Though still compressed (this is a known issue for A2DP due to bandwidth limitations) songs sounds much better from my Nokia E52 work phone.
rikc said:
I got a belkin stereo receiver as well, but it sounds bad and choppy, just like the topic starter described. Though still compressed (this is a known issue for A2DP due to bandwidth limitations) songs sounds much better from my Nokia E52 work phone.
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Click to collapse
The "but my (insert phone) worked better" isn't really valid. For as many people who make that statement there are an equal number who are shocked that the SGS2 works where other phones haven't. This is kind of like the Wi-Fi issue. When two pieces of equipment don't interact well you can't just blame one of them.
In my car and on my Yamaha YSP-4000 the SGS2's Bluetooth works better than any phone I've used. That includes the HD2, G2, and G2X. The sound is much more defined and headset controls (random and repeat) show available for the first time. The SGS2 also feeds track info to the car which none of the others did.
Bluetooth connections and sound quality are always a big YMMV.
My Sony MW600 sound great, I use to have a Motorola Defy , and it use to have an "Enhanced Stereo" option in the blue-tooth menu, the Samsung S2 does not have this option.
@BarryH,
Oh I know, I not blaming the SGS2. I only think the SGS2 out sound to it's output module which is somehow less suitable for the kind of compression, maybe set by the Belkin module. Actually I'm currious if there would be ways to change the way the SGS2 sends sound signals via A2DP
rikc said:
@BarryH,
Oh I know, I not blaming the SGS2. I only think the SGS2 out sound to it's output module which is somehow less suitable for the kind of compression, maybe set by the Belkin module. Actually I'm currious if there would be ways to change the way the SGS2 sends sound signals via A2DP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LG's implementation of Bluetooth drove G2X owners crazy. Check out this thread from the G2X forum...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1117769
Maybe it will help. The only other solution for the G2X was installing an AOSP ROM.
Well, I tried it (Bluetooth Fix Repair), but off-course that tool is for a problem the SGS2 does not have.
From the tinkering I've done now I know.
- Having MusicFX installed does not make a difference
- Video players running ffmpeg codec do also not make much difference in sound quality
- The -type- of file does make a difference, i.e. low bitrate files play better
This makes me think, is there a music program which can resample/recode music before playing. I'd rather have software do that than A2DP do it badly, or is mono output (other than all the tools enabling playback on mono headsets which is for pre-A2DP headsets and thus something else) possible?
Edit /system/etc/bluetooth/audio.conf
Uncomment "Master" option and set it to "True".
Uncomment "MaxConnections" and set it to 3.
Most Android devices have this file configured poorly by default, those 2 settings should help though.
I'd suggest also enabling HFP and AutoConnect.
Great! That definitly reduced creaking/noises and even the occasional stuttering music!
Since you seem to know your stuff, would there be a way to send a mono signal to (only) the A2DP stack and would this decrease the 'tin can' effect? I'd rather have better upper tones than stereo.
knightnz said:
Edit /system/etc/bluetooth/audio.conf
Uncomment "Master" option and set it to "True".
Uncomment "MaxConnections" and set it to 3.
Most Android devices have this file configured poorly by default, those 2 settings should help though.
I'd suggest also enabling HFP and AutoConnect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestions...going to try this and see if the sound quality improves in my car stereo.
Till now the best A2dp sound quality was on my Nexus S, but that was with the help of custom rom development and vodoo sound. Worst was the g2x.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
Ok guys, I think I might have... accidentily... run into a phenonemon.
I tested my phone on a Creative D100 wireless speaker it it went great, no tin can sound, no hickups.
This proved to me that there had to be something wrong. Now when I was posting here earlier I was listening a lot to music and at a certain moment I thought... wait I'm not hearing a tin-can sound anymore. However, later on while testing I heard it again so I thought I imagined it.
Powering off the phone and powering on again I was able to create this again. No tin can sound... however a lot of hickups (as if a lot of data had to be sent and it didn't quite fit). I made a call to my work phone (sound on the handset) to test and then the tin can sound was there again, no hick ups anymore though. Strangely enough a haven't been able to replicate the 'no tin can sound but hickup situation' though by powering off and on again. Tried after playing on the Belkin on the D100 again and no problems at all, great sound and no hickups whatsoever.
It appears to be a bigger issue with android connected to the bitpool setting the bluetooth receiver desires...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=14944891#post14944891
Let's hope the upcoming Cynogen can fix this issue.
I too felt that the A2DP sound quality on the Nokia BH103 is crap as compared to my Nokia 5800 (sounded even better than stock wired headset). It also uses a lot more battery, I find mediaserver using a lot of battery.
How do we escalate this to Samsung?
knightnz said:
Edit /system/etc/bluetooth/audio.conf
Uncomment "Master" option and set it to "True".
Uncomment "MaxConnections" and set it to 3.
Most Android devices have this file configured poorly by default, those 2 settings should help though.
I'd suggest also enabling HFP and AutoConnect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, i'm on darky rom and i don't find this file, could someone help me out ?
Thanks

Bad Bluetooth Audio Quality

So I love my note thus far except for one problem. It would appear like the galaxy s and galaxy s2 it suffers from bad bluetooth audio quality. While it doesn't sound bad when paired with my headphones, it's horrible when paired with my car stereo. My phone is my main source of music in my car so this is a pretty big problem for me. Poking around in the GS2 forum it seems the problem only really gets resolved when they install a custom rom that is not based on the stock samsung, like cyanogen because it uses its own bluetooth stack instead of the sammy one. So basically wondering if anyone else has a problem, if any dev's have plans to tweak anything in custom roms for this problem... or if they can, or if anyone has any other ideas.
The same problem. Music over bluetooth sound terrible.

getting very bad bluetooth audio quality

iam having the worst ever audio quality over bluetooth while listening to songs...whenever there's treble it sounds like a worst radio quality..iam using sony ericsson MW600 bluetooth stereo headset..does someone have a solution for this? or is this universal problem?
smackdownn said:
iam having the worst ever audio quality over bluetooth while listening to songs...whenever there's treble it sounds like a worst radio quality..iam using sony ericsson MW600 bluetooth stereo headset..does someone have a solution for this? or is this universal problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds like it's using the hands free profile instead of A2DP. You could try going to the options of your bluetooth headset on and untick the "Phone" box, and make sure "Media" is ticked.
I have generally decent bluetooth audio using Motorola T505 to broadcast FM to the car radio (must get around to buying a proper BT head unit, or a new car with one built in...). Most of the problems I have are interference with the FM signal rather than dodgy bluetooth.
However, I do see this kind of bad distortion on the high end with certain pieces of music - generally the solution is to turn down the volume on the Note a couple of notches and crank it up on the car stereo. I assume some of my tunes are just recorded/ripped REALLY DAMNED LOUD, it seems to mainly be things I ripped myself years ago so I probably didn't pay much attention to the levels at the time.
If you lower the volume from the Note does the distortion disappear?
Barkotron said:
I have generally decent bluetooth audio using Motorola T505 to broadcast FM to the car radio (must get around to buying a proper BT head unit, or a new car with one built in...). Most of the problems I have are interference with the FM signal rather than dodgy bluetooth.
However, I do see this kind of bad distortion on the high end with certain pieces of music - generally the solution is to turn down the volume on the Note a couple of notches and crank it up on the car stereo. I assume some of my tunes are just recorded/ripped REALLY DAMNED LOUD, it seems to mainly be things I ripped myself years ago so I probably didn't pay much attention to the levels at the time.
If you lower the volume from the Note does the distortion disappear?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, still there. I'm using Galaxy note and noticed a similar problem, both with a pair of Plantronics BackBeat and bluetooth car kit FM transmitter. It sounds pretty fine on my Archos 5IT that is running Android 1.6 and my Nokia N900 running Maemo. My note is currently running on Android 2.3.6 Rocket 12.
Bluetooth stereo sounds great for me using Sennheiser MM-200...
If you have exceptionally bad audio quality, it's probable that the headset is being used in handsfree audio mode, and not media mode. If you go to settings>bluetooth, and click on your device, you should see which modes are ticked.
Also, some people have reported better bluetooth audio quality with the LR1 modem. See here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1663810&highlight=bluetooth

Really, really poor bluetooth audio quality?

On my G6, I have really terrible audio quality over Bluetooth connections, I've had two separate G6s, of different colors, received weeks apart, and they both suck for Bluetooth audio, especially my Sony car stereo, and LG Tone Free... can anybody else report on their experience? Does your LS993 sound awful on your Bluetooth devices?
Have a fairly new G6 bluetooth og Bose earpiece working very well, also on 2010 F150 pick up and 2012 Buick no audio issues. Audio has been fine so far.
Mine also is pretty poor. The volume level is about half the level of the satellite radio or fm stations in my car
Hello all.
I had G2 in the past and I use to listen music in my car, using Bluetooth connection to Pioneer head unit. I have Spotify premium account and I have my Playlist downloaded with the best quality. However once I got G6 a week ago I noticed that audio quality from the g6 with the same songs, same Playlist, same Spotify account, is not as good as it was with g2. So I did a short research and found a thread in the net where people reported the same problem.
A guy from the thread suggested to disconnect all other Bluetooth devices from the phone (like smart watch or band) and actually that solved my problem. I have MiBand2. Once I disconnected it the audio quality became as good as before.
So guys, if you have a smart watch, try to remove it and check the quality again. I hope that helps.
I went a couple of months with no issues on my Kia Optima, then suddenly, I started getting really bad aliasing on the highs. As said above, I turned off my Huwaei watch and the sound was normal again. After a bit, I turned my watch back on, and it remained fine.
I had it happen once again many weeks later; and again, a quick off - wait - on, cycle with the watch fixed it. So whatever it is, seems to be a bandwith allocation issue with the bluetooth software. From March '17 thorugh almost Sept '17 and I've only had to do this twice? I think I can live with this.
Hey heres something for you to try..
Download WiFi Scanner from App Store.. Look at your 2.4ghz networks.. then keep in mind your cordless phones, IP Cams, Walkie Talkies, baby monitors in your area.. You may be a victim of signal interference.
Bluetooth operates on the 2.4ghz spectrum along with a TON of other devices now available.
Your sony stereo may be the culprit.. if is an aftermarket "Xplod" deck
Im an audiophile, and my G6 runs better than my Samsungs.. (also no issues with the "preventative volume warning"
What you also may have is an app that is causing the volume to lower...
For example.. when i stream the music player with the stock app, sometimes Snapchat notification sounds cause the rest of the volume to be lower..
Google Maps is another one that can hijack the sound but you can control in settings.
For using music try a different app ( i use Maple Player) and it works great ..
Based on your experiences i think its something outside causing the problem to be honest. but thats ALOT of trial and error to deal with.. if worse comes to worse- you can always get an aux jack bluetooth adapter for your car stereo if it IS the stereos bluetooth receiver .

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