Improving headphone audio on N4? - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I never really used the N4 as an MP3 player but after the death of my iPod I have no other choice, 2 things I have noticed. The audio volume when up full is about 60% of what an iPod can go to, and even at that some songs especially base heavy distort and go muffled. Secondly audio isn't even that crisp. 320Kbps songs are a hell of alot clearer on an iPod. Does the N4 have a rubbish audio chip or is there anything that can be done to improve audio. I am stock 4.4 I should add but don't mind putting a ROM on or rooting if it improves things.

2 things I use, but you will need to be rooted. Franco kernel will allow you to boost the output and gain of your headset. And I also use viperaudio to boost and clean the sound.
Viper http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2191223
Franco http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2002782
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+1 for Viper
HUGE difference in sound quality.

Related

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).
Click to expand...
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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.

music now sounding very good on my note

Hello
I thought i would share my music experience on the note so far. LIke most i was gutted with the sound quality of the note compared to SGS1 and voodoo sound and poweramp
I still have my sgs1 and have been using it when i know i will be stuck on a train for a while or somewhere where i know i will be listening to music for an extended period. The difference to me when listening to the sgs was that almost every other song made you sit up and notice it rather then just listen to it. Which to me made it significantly better as i just enjoyed listening more.
Long story short. i am on rooted stock firmware 4.04. I have installed the beats audio files and i believe this did make the phone sound marginally better. I have also now installed the voodoo louder app which again has made a difference to the sound(presume because its just made it louder)
The final piece of the jigsaw was neutron music player. I have tweaked eq to my liking to suit my headphones, switched dither on, set resampling mode and switched 64 bit processing on.
Now i think the sound is actually preferable to my sgs. (blasphemy i know ) I wont bore you with exotic description about soundstage and presence and seperation. It just sounds good and i am now prepared to leave my sgs1 at home when i am listening to music.
Obviously the above requires a rooted phone and buying voodoo louder. you can download a trial of neutron player. but if you follow the above then i am pretty sure that you will end up buying it. I did pretty quick.
tested with sennheiser hd595, sennheiser HD215, and Audio Technica ATH-WS50. Its made the latter particulary pleasing sounding as they are my usual travelling headphones.
What kind of audio files do you use?
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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.

Audio Quality

Having some issues regarding audio quality. over 92% of my phone's use goes to listening to music through headphones. ALL my past phones have all been HTC running PowerAmp and i have been happy. Unfortunately the audio quality in my Samsung is whack. i changed my mixer settings to get it to be a bit louder at least but when it comes to applying any sort of EQ, the quality is severely damaged. I can't really touch the PowerAmp EQ without bass distortion. i Also tried applying the MusicFX tweak but that only worked once upon enabling. Disabling broke it. and it didn't really work great anyway.
Can anyone shed some light on this? Is there a mod for KitKat that is worth checking out?
billybag said:
Having some issues regarding audio quality. over 92% of my phone's use goes to listening to music through headphones. ALL my past phones have all been HTC running PowerAmp and i have been happy. Unfortunately the audio quality in my Samsung is whack. i changed my mixer settings to get it to be a bit louder at least but when it comes to applying any sort of EQ, the quality is severely damaged. I can't really touch the PowerAmp EQ without bass distortion. i Also tried applying the MusicFX tweak but that only worked once upon enabling. Disabling broke it. and it didn't really work great anyway.
Can anyone shed some light on this? Is there a mod for KitKat that is worth checking out?
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Click to collapse
My opinion on this:
if you use ANY equalizer, your headphones are crap. Buy some better headphones.
billybag said:
Having some issues regarding audio quality. over 92% of my phone's use goes to listening to music through headphones. ALL my past phones have all been HTC running PowerAmp and i have been happy. Unfortunately the audio quality in my Samsung is whack. i changed my mixer settings to get it to be a bit louder at least but when it comes to applying any sort of EQ, the quality is severely damaged. I can't really touch the PowerAmp EQ without bass distortion. i Also tried applying the MusicFX tweak but that only worked once upon enabling. Disabling broke it. and it didn't really work great anyway.
Can anyone shed some light on this? Is there a mod for KitKat that is worth checking out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Viper4Android :good:
I owned a HTC One and that's my regret… HTC is the best for music…
Now, I use PlayerPro with DSP Pack but sound not equal the HTC…
JacK_Sparr0W said:
Try Viper4Android :good:
I owned a HTC One and that's my regret… HTC is the best for music…
Now, I use PlayerPro with DSP Pack but sound not equal the HTC…
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Thanks i am looking into Viper now actually.
billybag said:
Thanks i am looking into Viper now actually.
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Ok but äon is right. If your headphones are crap, any app or mod make your headphones magical… :angel:
I use viper4android right now on my galaxy note 3 and it works amazingly with my "unbranded" beats headphones that came with my HTC One
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I have used Neutronmp music player on all phones over the last year, including HTC One, Nexus 5 and Note 3.
If you're looking to get better audio quality then try flac files rather than mp3.
If you want very high quality audio then use flac files via usb otg cable to external dac / headphone amp such as Fiio E17 provided you have good quality headphones (not iem ear buds irrespective of who makes them )
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speedyjay said:
I use viper4android right now on my galaxy note 3 and it works amazingly with my "unbranded" beats headphones that came with my HTC One
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+1
Same combination as me pretty much, also I use Faux sound and set to quality audio depending on what kernel I am using

Rate audio quality of ZF2!

So which earphones / cans do you use to listen to music.
On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best, how would you rate the audio quality?
Have you used ASUS earphones/headphones with ZF2?
Discuss!
I used NT100 in-ear (I buy the 550ML, lowest spec, so no quick-charger and earphone included)
Playing music with PowerAMP, customize EQ, Limiting activated. At highest volume, I didn't hear any clipping like my old phone. I usually use it at 50-60% volume.
Really, I have to say that I could not diffrentiate between phones audio output once Viper4Android is installed with same settings. No earphones with my ZE551 4Gb ... I think US version gets that removed.
p.s: Using Yamaha EPH-50 Gold earbuds.
aziz07 said:
Really, I have to say that I could not diffrentiate between phones audio output once Viper4Android is installed with same settings. No earphones with my ZE551 4Gb ... I think US version gets that removed.
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No earphones with my 551ML either. Not that i would ever use them lol. I use a pair of Sony MDRs and it sounds alright, without Viper installed.
1 mine is awful
Using Sony headset, great along with viper4android as default music fx..
I am using monster beats + EXTREMEMusic + stock music app. Result is cool ?
I use Helium earphones and Google Play music app on my Zenfone 2 4go/64go model and it is awesome.
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vegasdiceshooter said:
1 mine is awful
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Try Viper4Android?
The speaker on the Zenfone is pathetic. The tiny single speaker on my old phone (iPhone 5) is both louder and clearer. I got the ASUS headphones with my 550, but they are awful (I hate all inner-ear headphones anyway, but these sound very muddy and over-bassy and they keep popping out of my ears). Get much better sound through my old iPhone buds, which I always thought sounded good despite getting a lot of criticism. Max volume of the phone seems a little low to me, and reduces still further if you turn off the ASUS AudioWizard. I would like to try the phone with viper4android and some better headphones.
+1 ASUS AudioWizard is needed for proper sound. I wonder if there is a way to boost the speaker just like MTK devices ... The speaker is as big as the G3 yet the G3 sounds 2x louder. Boosted speaker with viper4android, its better than stock now.
It's not bad or about middle of the road for me. Primarily use aux (jack) for the cars. Bluetooth works fine. Speaker sucks. That's the best description. When I need to use Waze (nav app) I need to jack in or use bluetooth since you won't really hear it. 3.5mm audio jack and bluetooth are on the quiet side but the only improvement over the sub par speaker.
im using jabra step bluetooth headset with viper4android..makes me feel like partying in a club using SRS Audio (Extreme Trubass) convolver..
I'm going to echo @aziz07 - AudioWizard is necessary. If you've disabled it thinking it was bloat, go back and restore it or push it from a stock ROM.
After I had "cleaned up" the ROM, I had the most hollow-sounding audio: no bass, it was all harsh mids and treble. In my car, the woofers were barely engaging. Viper4Android did nothing except bring up the mids and make it sound even more hollow. That's when I realized there was something else EQ-related that was missing. I then restored AudioWizard and all was well.
The audio quality is good with this phone. It's a bit bass heavy (when things are default), but that's pretty objective and easily adjusted. Using cheap in-ear earphones, there's thump.
I don't think it sounds as dynamic as my LG G2, but I can't make a direct comparison since my G2 died.
I'm no audiophile, but I'm VERY pleased with the output quality at low to mid volumes.
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk
I know , it sounded like an empty can of coke :laugh: I told SuperZen Rom maker that it gives more power mA to AUX port ; he added AudioWizard backin R12 release. Along with viper4andorid, it beats my R.I.P lg g2 (Started freezing randomly then would not boot anymore ; anyway it felt so cheap to beginning with and was overheating all the time 74C ; this Zenfone rarely exceeds 50C unless using the 18W quick charge, yet still ~55C ; I have seen my SoC go as low as 29C and battery 25C - Intel 3D 22nm Tri-gate transistors :good.
I use Yamaha EPH-50 Gold (13.6mm drive) + Viper4Android with Sennheiser HD800 settings lol + AudioWizard Music ; the bass is so powerfull that it gives me a headache and I have to lower it lol
using a Xiaomi Piston 2 + Shuttle+ here
I can say that the sound quality is HORRIBLE,like one of the worst i've ever experienced.It's so bad i am cosider buying a used 32gb iPhone 5c for $175 just to listen to music
haha My iphone 4 sound like crap versus the Zenfone with the settings and boosts mentioned above. Read earlier posts or stay with iphone 5c. Same crappy sound with iphone6+ and worse is that you can't mod them and use Viper4Android. Bass is many times more powerfull in my car's stereo and Harman-Kardon home theater BIC PL-200 system.
Sound quality for me is pretty good. I've tried it with some Panasonic RPTCM125K in ears, koss KSC75, Grado SR60, and a Bose Soundlink mini. The Panasonic's sounded decent, if a little muffled, but no different than what I remember when using them with other phones. The KSC75s sound great, and have decent clarity. I also use them over Bluetooth with this phone via a g-cord wireless audio receiver (purchased on amazon). They sound quite good that way as well, maybe lacking a little detail. The grados sounded excellent, so I use those when I don't need to be moving around. the Bose sounded somewhat muffled. I'm not sure if equalizer settings on the phone and Soundlink were working against each other or what. Although, the Soundlink mini seems to be a bit finicky with the surface that you place it on, and I had it resting on my kitchen table when using it, so maybe that's what was causing it.
Audio characteristics aside, and I'm no audio expert, the audio amplifier used in this phone seems quite capable. TPA2080D1, in case you're wondering. The full Bill of materials can be found at http://www.ewisetech.com/Pages/Product/bom.aspx?s=1961&dt=6820
Edit: I'm running with the audio wizard turned off. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if there's still some equalizer adjustment going on in the background.
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Speaker quality is average at best. Volume is too low, audio is distorted at max volume.
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glock24 said:
Speaker quality is average at best. Volume is too low, audio is distorted at max volume.
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Are you using Viper4Android? It made a big difference here even for the external speaker, use Vocal Boost and maxout everything but don't use speaker optimization. You can also apply this systemwide by deleting 2 paragraphs in /system/etc/audio_policy ; --> See Zenfone 2 Resources thread in viper4android section. After audio_policy modding for better V4A compatibility, Its working with Tunein radio, making crappy 32kbps radio stations sound much better, it will work with Youtube, etc

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