Audio on Bluetooth is horribly broken and unsafe - X 2014 General

Much like the original Moto X under early KitKat, this phone is almost unusable in the car over Bluetooth, and is far more "unsafe" than a ringer that does not start out in an attenuated state.
1.) Moto Voice prompts are at least 10-15dB below Google voice prompts and other notifications, making them unheard, and forcing the driver to take his eyes off the road.
2.) In call volume is often reset to much lower levels than when last used, forcing the driver to take a hand off the wheel to raise the volume on the handset.
3.) Numerous other intermittent issues including remote controls not pausing/resuming media playback, notifications pausing playback sometimes, and playing over it others.
The whole thing really is a mess and I can't tell you how frustrating it is to go through this all over again with a new Moto phone. If safety is really a concern for Moto, as evidenced by the stupid ringer "feature" previously discussed here, you'd think this would be of the utmost priority for Motorola developers and lawyers alike.

Thank you perfectly said.

I have found the bluetooth experience to be sporadic between devices, very inconsistent.

Solutions Etcetera said:
Much like the original Moto X under early KitKat, this phone is almost unusable in the car over Bluetooth, and is far more "unsafe" than a ringer that does not start out in an attenuated state.
1.) Moto Voice prompts are at least 10-15dB below Google voice prompts and other notifications, making them unheard, and forcing the driver to take his eyes off the road.
2.) In call volume is often reset to much lower levels than when last used, forcing the driver to take a hand off the wheel to raise the volume on the handset.
3.) Numerous other intermittent issues including remote controls not pausing/resuming media playback, notifications pausing playback sometimes, and playing over it others.
The whole thing really is a mess and I can't tell you how frustrating it is to go through this all over again with a new Moto phone. If safety is really a concern for Moto, as evidenced by the stupid ringer "feature" previously discussed here, you'd think this would be of the utmost priority for Motorola developers and lawyers alike.
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While it can be frustrating...enough with the dramatics already.
If a text or call is so important to you while you're driving, I hope common sense would kick in and pull over instead of trying to figure it out while driving, and blame Motorola for any possible hazard...

First world problems.

Lol wow.....this is the world I live in.

I agree that BT is a little wonky and should be a high priority for Moto to fix. I don't really agree that Motorola's lawyers and developers need to be all that worried about legal problems though... That is a little extreme.

no issues with my x on a 2014 chrysler 300.

Yes, I agree that this post is somewhat overstated. I certainly don't feel like my safety is at risk due to Bluetooth issues. Are you kidding? Then disconnect it entirely.
Like the poster above with the Chrysler, I have had minimal issues with my phone connecting to the Ford Sync system since the update. I get **maybe** one or two popping sounds in my connection every week. After that, it continues as normal. This I can deal with. The Moto X on Lollipop is still a far superior user experience compared to other software available from Samsung, LG, Apple, and others.

A bit over the top but yes, the bugs are very annoying and should be an easy fix. We should be writing this on a bug report somewhere where moto will see it

kylepsp said:
A bit over the top but yes, the bugs are very annoying and should be an easy fix. We should be writing this on a bug report somewhere where moto will see it
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Post to either of these threads:
https://forums.motorola.com/posts/c69f739c05
https://forums.motorola.com/posts/5a580708e7

Related

Bluetooth Headset + MS Voice Command (I searched)

Considering this is my first post, I just would like to thank all the members of this forum. I have gotten so many programs, flashed, and learned a lot about my newly bought T-Mobile MDA. I have been searching for about an hour and a half and could not find a solution to my problem. Though I'm sure somebody will show me that there has already been a post.
Anyway, my issue lies with using my BT headset (Jabra BT150) and my MDA. It works fine, it listens, it comes on when I hit the button, etc. However, it does not seem to understand me correctly. Though I can dial contacts without much of a problem, it's when I try to give it a number to dial. It works perfectly on the device itself when I am not using BT, but either it gets really close or it's completly off. My main issue lies with the number "six". I don't think I've gotten it to understand me saying a "six" yet. I'm not quite sure what the problem is. I have voice recorded myself on both and there really isn't a huge difference except the BT sounds a good amount quieter.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would be very greatful. I'm beginning to wonder if it was my tempation to be "conservative" *cough* cheap *cough* when buying the 150 as opposed to like the 250.
Regards,
ChrisG
I, too, had a problem with VC recognizing the number six. A possible explanation lies here, where someone at Microsoft gives details on Bluetooth and the speech recognition technology.
Apparently, the Voice Command team team built their speech recognition engine around a 16Khz sampling rate. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth headsets we're thinking of only do 8Khz. I'm not sure if this is a Bth profile limitation so I'm not sure if the higher-end (maybe the stereo ones, for example) headsets/headphones support higher sampling rates.
Where does the sampling rate difference come into play? With higher frequencies. Sibilance (the 'sss' sound) is basically a bunch of high frequencies. A lower sampling rate means these higher frequencies can't be captured as accurately or even at all. (Related reading: Nyquist theorem)
So, not surprisingly, Voice Command has a lot of trouble recognizing the number six, which has a lot of sibilance both in its intial attack and its release*. Combine that with the fact that the user's environment may be noisy, the mic may not be placed at an ideal position, etc. and you have a difficult situation for the speech recognition engine to deal with.
Try this: Call yourself on voicemail and leave yourself a message, repeating the command VC has trouble with. Then, listen to the recording you just made. This is what VC hears. Find out where the mic on your headset is. Now, call your voicemail again, but try to adjust the position of the headset until it begins to sound clearer and sibilance more pronounced. If you have to, physically take the headset off your ear and hold it in front of your mouth--close enough to capture more sibilance but not too close as to cause popping or other nasties. Not the most elegant solution, but a solution nonetheless.
I noticed the speech recognition problems when I went shopping for Bth headsets. I tried four--Plantronics 510, Motorola HS840 and H700, and finally the Plantronics 610. The 610 was the only one that actually recognized my sixes sometimes. Still, though, there's only around a 30% chance that it gets the whole phone number correct, until I take the headset off my head and hold it some distance away from my mouth.
Sucks, but hey. This is a situation where we're doing something that's not supported, so quirks have to be tolerated. Sometimes stuff like this works flawlessly, sometimes it doesn't.
* (maybe these aren't the correct terms, but coming from a music background, these are the closest terms I can relate to)
Thank you for your reply. I have already tried your suggestions numerous times to no avail. I have used the voice recording feature to record both from the phone and the headset and they don't sound all that different. Since it does dial from the phone itself anyway, I might be inclined to buy it and hope for an upgrade. Thanks for your detailed reply once again.
Thanks for posting this -- I hooked up my HS820 with my 8125 and VC and seemingly had no problems on Day One. Then yesterday (Day Two), I all of the sudden couldn't get anywhere: half my "call [Contact]" requests didn't go through and my sixes were all eights:
Me: "Dial six one one."
VC Lady: "Dial eight one one?"
Me: "Dial six six six six six six six."
VC Lady: "Dial eight eight eight eight eight eight eight?"
Me: "No, you idiot!"
Sorry to hear it's a technical issue rather than a solveable thing. I suppose at least the contacts mostly work without voicetags, so it's slightly better than the built-in voice recognition.
As a note, my previous phone (RAZR V3C), which altogether wasn't anything special, had amazing voice recognition by comparison. No voicetags, always got digits and contacts via BT without issue. How can we install that software on the Wizard??
Y

Anyone Tried Motorola S9 Headphones

Curious if it works with the Kaiser and if you would recommend it.
Thanks!
http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=177
Motorola S9
New to this site. First time poster. I just got these headphones for my Tilt. I tried them with my 8125 using mfrazz WM6 rom and they worked well. Volume got fairly loud and sound quality was pretty good.
I haven't gotten my microSD card yet for the Tilt, but listened to some of the music that came with phone. Volume was lower, but I don't know if that was the audio level of that particular file. I haven't tried it with any personal mp3 files. I placed a phone call with this headset and sound quality was average. The caller could only be heard through the left earphone, not stereo.
The headset was fairly comfortable to wear, but I haven't tried it for extended periods. I'm going to try using it while running this weekend to see how well it stays in place.
that combo works great for me, used them at the gym all the time
There are many many user comments about these headphones over at Howard Forums bluetooth message forum. I went thrui 2 paris of these. Both failed for the same reason, The first lasted 1 week. the second lasted 1 month. The issue is they aren't really sweatproof as they claim. if you sweat alopt (and running in Phoenix will make you sweat), they konk out (i.e. technical term for stop working altogehter) after a while. The seals aren't really tight enough to keep water out. I tried a second one cuaz there were rumors of a bad inital batch. so I got a one from a later batch a couple months after and it did the same.
Two other issues with them: they tended to skip alot and also people complained it wasn';t very good for calls. So, if you have had good xperience with them that's great. But if you are still considering them, be forewarned. I loved the concept of them. But they just didn't meet their own marketing's expectations IMO.
Im now looking at the Plantronics 855, which is just becoming avail. No it's not sweatproof (but at least they don't claim to be). I;ve given up on getting a sweatproof BT headset for now. But otherwise, it looks like it might be a great solution for both calls and "casual" music.
Here's my two cents...
I bought the S9 headphones a few months ago after using the Motorola HT820's for close to a year (the HT820's are the ones that make you look like Mickey Mouse when you wear them).
The pros:
- The sleeker design of the S9 dont make you look like Mickey Mouse or Princess Lea. In fact, many people don't even realize I'm wearing headphones at all...
- They generally sound good
- The controls on both ears allow you to start/stop phone calls, raise and lower the volume, start/stop music and change music tracks
The cons (as compared with the HT820):
- Battery life is not wonderful -- the HT820's provide 14 hours or music, the S9 seem to provide more like 8
- Phone call audio plays only in one ear (the left one, to be exact). I had gotten used to phone calls in stereo...
- The middle button on each ears' control panel is a bit hard to use -- and those are the buttons which are used to start/stop phone calls and play/pause music
Overall, the sound quality is good. I dont usually have many dropouts during music and almost never during phone calls. People have never complained that they cant hear me speaking when using the S9 for calls.
Hope this helps....
Music sounds pretty decent. Not on caliber with a nice set of wired phones, but compared to the Shure Ec3, I'd give them a 7. On the plus side, if you can get a good fit for your ear, the bass response is a bit better than some of the "reference" quality earbuds. I think this is a matter of taste though.
Comfort is OK, but my ears do get a bit sore after an hour or so, but never to the point where I feel the need to take them off.
Music controls work fine, but I have not had great luck with activating incoming calls from the headset. Sometimes it works, others not. The buttons don't have a great tactile feel, so I may not be hitting the accept call button squarely. I also notice the music does not always pick right back up after using the head set activation button, so for these reasons, I usually hit the call accept button on the phone. This works fine.
I do get occasional skipping, but this seems to be related to Activesync.
I get occasional droped connections. Just turn the headset off and back on to reconnect. Happens maybe 1 out of 7 times I use them, and usually in the first few minutes - odd.
Phone call quality leaves a lot to be desired. For some reason, they only play through one ear when on a call and is seems that no matter what I do, the incoming person is too loud and boomy, even when I turn it way down. Usually this is passable for a short conversation, but if the person on the other end has an unfamiliar accent, I wind up having to switch over to the handset. People in general say they can hear me fine, but I don not use them in an environment with a lot of ambient noise.
That being said, I still use them very often at work as I don't get a lot of personal calls during the day. Battery life is usually sufficient for most of the day on a full charge. If you are at your desk the entire day, you may find they are drained before the end of the day (6-7 hours).
For home, I was thinking about picking up a pair of the Bluetrek phones. From the reviews I have read, if they fit you well, the sound quality is good, the battery life is a bit longer (though not much), they play phone calls in both ears and come with a nice carry case.
One final consideration, for some reason they do not get very loud with the Kaiser connection. It is still adequate, but if you like your music really loud, they may be lacking. I wouldn't rile them out on this though as they are plenty loud when connecting to my laptop, so there might be some software limitation on the volume which can be tweaked in the registry. I have seen some others mentioning this too and have not come across a fix yet, but I'd be willing to bet there will be one as soon as the BT headphones start getting more use.

[Q] Phone call quality on headset

Does anyone actually use the phone as a phone? I'm finding that the echo cancel really limits the quality of the phone. I can hardly carry on a decent conversation in the car using the supplied headset.
Does anyone else have this problem?
Try this: connect the headset. Call your phone from another phone. Listen to both at the same time. You can clearly hear when you talk that the phone is suppressing noise.
What I find is that when I'm in the car, it actually seems to suppress the volume of the person on the other end! So, it can be very frustrating as I miss words that they say.
Combine this with AT&T's marvelous AGC (where if you don't talk, it cranks the volume so that when you do talk, it blows the person on the other end away!), and the total quality of the call is horrible.
I've been using cell phones for almost 20 years. This is the worst phone quality I've ever experience.
When I use the phone directly for calls, everything sounds clear and at a consistent volume with one exception, while waiting for the other party to answer, the call ringing tone goes up and down in volume.
I've paired 3 different bluetooth headsets to the phone and found that the volume in my headset goes up and down quite a bit. Usually it's the worst at the beginning of the call. Sometimes I can't hear the other person answer but then it levels out a bit and the volume fluctuations are less extreme. I've tried an old Sony Ericsson, a Jabra Extreme, and have settled on a Plantronics Voyager Pro+. The Voyager is about the best I've tried but still exhibits the volume fluctuations but not as bad. It also supports A2DP so I can listen to podcasts through the headset.
I use it with the Sync system in my ford f150 and have no problems at all. It works great. I dont use headsets so..........only my sync system
I thought it was just me. My Plantronics 925 does this as well. Calls from the phone are fine, but the headset volume cuts in and out. Is this a bad Bluetooth stack or other problem? I think I remember another phone (WM 6.5) that had to get hacked to fix this. I'm a little miffed on this. Did anyone at Samsung or ATT test the bluetooth on this phone before selling it?
I have had very good call quality whether using the "phone as a phone", the phones speaker phone, or a blue ant bluetooth headset. I have had poor call quality only when trying to call someone in very low signal area. That has only been once. Otherwise overall clarity and volume have not been an issue, actually phone volume on high is too loud for my ears!
adding to my earlier post. I exchanged my Focus due to an unrelated issue. Both handsets had the same fade out issue with the bluetooth headsets. I've experienced it on every call so I don't think it's signal related. I don't see any volume fluctuation at all when using the handset without the bluetooth headset. I've tried the same three bluetooth headsets on my wife's iPhone 3GS and all work fine. I've also streamed at least a couple of hours of podcasts from the Focus to my headset and the volume is perfectly level. Whatever the issue, it's only related to phone calls. Very frustrating.
I've experienced the same issues. I have an Aliph Jawbone Icon. Before I updated the firmware on it I could barely hear someone on the other end. With the new jawbone firmware I have the ability to control the volume in the headset and only when I have it turned all the way up does it work ok. I do, however, still have trouble when people are talking that when the first start and or finish talking what they say seems to get clipped. Further, the volume seems to fade in and out. Also, if I'm using the AT&T navigator software and have my headset attached it will give me directions through the headset, but the end of every direction gets chopped off. So, the avene or street part of a direction doesn't come through.
I've been following this issue in a few different forums. Today a moderator in the Microsoft Answers forum jumped in and said they were experiencing the same problem and they would escalate the issue.
http://social.answers.microsoft.com...4ce-30ee-4734-9dab-28ce0d561132?prof=required
Can't recommend this phone
I was so excited when I first got my Focus. I thought it was such a huge step forward for MS mobile and actually had some chance at being mainstream. Sure it lacked a few features but there was the hope that MS would update the phone quickly. After all, they seemed to have made such phenomenal progress in getting the phone to market, seemed like fixing a few things and adding a few features would be a no-brainer.
Well, here we are 3 months later (Apple released the first update for iPhone 1.0.1 only one month later) and lots of rumors but nothing substantial on the long-awaited update. We'll see cut/paste but it's not at all clear if they will address anything else.
Here in CA we have a law that says we can't talk on the phone unless it's hands free. For the first time since that law was imposed, I've been regularly breaking it. I can't use a handsfree headset. Even the wired one that comes with the phone is so damn inconvenient that by the time I get it going, the caller is long gone. So, seemingly MAJOR features like BT headsets appear to get no notice at all from MS. I've looked through all the threads and there's nothing from MS. They don't even acknowledge the problem.
Looking at the thread from mcraine, I don't see where MS is going to do anything about this. Also, don't see any indication that it's part of any forthcoming updates.
Too bad. I thought this MS had a chance with this phone but they are blowing it big time. Momentum is gone now. If we have to wait another 3 months to get the browser fixed then the phone is destined to be like the Palm Pre. Good phone but can't keep up with the 'big' boys. This horse jumped out of the gate and was looking really good for the first couple of strides but then completely fell down and they are trying to coax it to get up again.
same issue here as well. mine is only a month old. it is not as noticable when sync'd to the car, but still noticable. and as said before more at the beginning of the call. if there were not issues, it would not be M$

[Q] Audio Jack Issues?

Just came across a disturbing report in a very recent Droid Life review of the Note 3 (from a list of N3 reviews posted on this forum) concerning "Audio Jack Issues". Anybody who treasures their hearing and uses their phablet for audio material (including movies, music, audiobooks, etc), especially using earbuds or headphones, might want to "listen up." The following is an excerpt from the review:
"...When listening to music through the 3.5mm jack, you are sometimes met with a very weak sound. It’s as if the sound of the music isn’t “full” or quite loud enough. Then, after a few minutes without touching anything while at full volume, the volume just explodes and you are left deafened by the surprise volume attack. Some people are pointing towards low-impedance headphones being the issue, but I have had the problem on multiple pairs of headphones, in-ear buds, through car decks, and everything else. It’s a very frustrating and reoccurring issue that I wish Samsung would find a cure for. Until then, I fear listening to music out of this device because I don’t want to go deaf. It might sound crazy, but it’s a very real issue that I experienced over the course of time I had the device."
I've had 3 Samsungs: a flip-phone a few years ago, a Fascinate 2 years ago, and currently Galaxy S3, and just preordered a Note 3. Of the three previous phones, two had infrequent but definitely-occurring audio issues where the volume changed unexpectedly. The flip phone blew out my ears once, and swore after that would never buy another Sammy (what a kidding-myself that turned out to be). What's unnerving is this seems to have appeared intermittently in multiple samsung phone models (the article reports yet another audio jack issue in the S4).
Chatted online with a VZW customer service rep. about this, who was really no help (wasn't her fault, i guess). She just regurgitated the company standard lines--14 days to return, restocking fee, can get a replacement if the problem occurs, etc. But she pretty much stated if there turns out to be a Note 3-specific issue, the customer is stuck with that model of phone; don't expect help from the carrier other than replacing with an identical unit might likely have the same problem; if you enjoy any kind of audio produced by the phone's audio jack, use it at your own risk. (Even more dicey is that it's intermittent--no guarantee you'll be able to demonstrate it to the carrier's service rep.)
Furthermore, i was one of those who got a free continuation of unlimited plan (thanks to the VZW ordering "system glitch" last weekend), which has been reported in the last day that VZW is going to honor contracts which show unlimited data. This rep completely contradicted that and claimed my data will be capped at 2gb at activation time. So with this diametrically-opposed chatter from VZW, what is one supposed to believe? Really suggests getting a satisfactory resolution from any carrier on a brand-specific phone problem like this to be wishful thinking.
Any thoughts or has anybody experienced thru-the-audio-jack sound issues with sammy phone products? My take is i'm not going to be on the bleeding edge of this one, too much of a hearing risk, cancelling preorder and wait for more reports on the N3 as time goes by.
For sure something is wrong with mine. (tmobile N3) The output levels are maybe half or less what my N2 can put out. I have carefully setup audio systems in my house and car, and it is unusable. Its also not USB compatible with the new Kenwood KMM 100u deck that plays FLAC files. It must be a glitch they can fix, i hope! The jack SQ sucks right now.
I hope mine won't have this problem.
*wierd double post an hour later*
dareo said:
For sure something is wrong with mine. (tmobile N3) The output levels are maybe half or less what my N2 can put out. I have carefully setup audio systems in my house and car, and it is unusable. Its also not USB compatible with the new Kenwood KMM 100u deck that plays FLAC files. It must be a glitch they can fix, i hope! The jack SQ sucks right now.
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I got that the first time you said it.
im experiencing this too with an AU Telstra Note 3.
ive tested it a bit and it seems like its 2 separate things to me, but I could be wrong.
firstly it seems like all EQs either crash or just lose their settings at random moments. this can be things like between track changes or when the 3G signal drops out. if you go back into the EQ panel it will kick in again, almost like it was off and you've launched it again.. very annoying. ive verified this with both the stock EQ and noozxoide. the difference in volume is minimal though, its more quality / bass / whatever EQ you use.
the second part with the volume dropping out completely only happens to me between track changes. if i pause the music for a couple of seconds then play it again, it will play at normal volume. fast forwarding between tracks is the most obvious since every other track will be minimal volume, and the ones in-between normal volume.
ive only tested this with google music. although my phone isnt stock now, the same behaviour was there out of the box. using etymotic earbuds with reasonably high impedance but i doubt thats the issue since pause/replay fixes it.
Doesn't happen to me on N7player or PlayerPro. (nor on videos in Dice, MX or VLC.)
Try not using stock apps if you have the issue. Might just be a stock problem.
I can't test Google music, I disabled that. Stock player itself is too annoying for me to try.
Send From My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 N9005 Using Tapatalk
kanemari said:
im experiencing this too with an AU Telstra Note 3.
ive tested it a bit and it seems like its 2 separate things to me, but I could be wrong.
firstly it seems like all EQs either crash or just lose their settings at random moments. this can be things like between track changes or when the 3G signal drops out. if you go back into the EQ panel it will kick in again, almost like it was off and you've launched it again.. very annoying. ive verified this with both the stock EQ and noozxoide. the difference in volume is minimal though, its more quality / bass / whatever EQ you use.
the second part with the volume dropping out completely only happens to me between track changes. if i pause the music for a couple of seconds then play it again, it will play at normal volume. fast forwarding between tracks is the most obvious since every other track will be minimal volume, and the ones in-between normal volume.
ive only tested this with google music. although my phone isnt stock now, the same behaviour was there out of the box. using etymotic earbuds with reasonably high impedance but i doubt thats the issue since pause/replay fixes it.
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Got the same here. N9005 with Google Play Music. Sometimes it's also (it seems) input-triggered. Sometimes when I push Menu or Back button, volume goes down and when I open Browser volume goes up. I know this sounds like voodoo and I'm completely crazy but I got this situation some times now.
With original sound files this problem came very often but after installing sound mod, it became seldom but not solved.
Annoying!
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Silberpfeil3110 said:
Got the same here. N9005 with Google Play Music. Sometimes it's also (it seems) input-triggered. Sometimes when I push Menu or Back button, volume goes down and when I open Browser volume goes up. I know this sounds like voodoo and I'm completely crazy but I got this situation some times now.
With original sound files this problem came very often but after installing sound mod, it became seldom but not solved.
Annoying!
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I actually moved to the stock sammy app since it was irritating me so much. i have to say though, that if you can be bothered syncing a playlist to your phone that the sound is much better through that... hard to pick fault with.
i set up galaxy adaptive sound first, which is the one that plays high med low tones through left and right channels on your headphones independently and lets you tune it. found a much more balanced tone coming out after that, to which I then applied higher bass EQ settings from within the sammy music player and it sounds pretty good. some distortion on really heavy bass tracks at high volume, but very nice otherwise. MUCH BETTER than variable bass and audio volume on the google music player.
i think samsung neglected to test the standard music APIs and borked them, but their own proprietary ones work fine. the adaptive music filter doesnt work in any player apart from the sammy one I read.
since i cant cross-flash regional roms without voiding knox warranty i havent tried the updated EU roms, but maybe they fix it there?
Experiencing same problem on my AT&T note 3. Google Music tracks will randomly apply a shoddy EQ setting that is either too loud or too soft. Then the next track will be normal. It explodes my ear drums constantly. I have the EQ set off also, but that doesn't seem to matter. Also unplugging and re plugging the headphone jack "fixes" the issue as well. I'm pretty annoyed by this problem.

Random Actions in Default Music App?

I haven't been using the default music app because randomly it does an action after a while of playback, pretty much every few minutes; back, forward, pause, whatever, it random action just randomly happens. I've wondered if I somehow accidentally used some sort of gesture or touched the screen, but it happens when the screen is off as well and there doesn't seem to be any gesture that would affect the music app anyway. Does anyone have any idea what can be causing this?
I've been using PowerAmp which doesn't seem to support the A7's DAC. I have it set to 24 bit sound in the last Alpha of PowerAmp (which was many months ago, I've given up on any update for PowerAmp ever arriving) but after side by side sample comparisons they do sound different. The problem is I'm not sure if there's a slight volume difference between programs causing that, or if it's some setting, or if it really is due to the output being done on different DACs resulting in the differences. Pocket Now's video stating it only outputs 16 bit downsampled audio has also stuck in my mind, but despite contacting them twice on different social media, they never responded. That's infuriating, making a bold statement like that, then never providing an explanation and leaving it ambiguous, never stating if the downsampling was at software level, firmware level, or anything.
So I basically have no idea what the hell is going on with the audio on this thing in any way, from software to hardware. That's incredibly frustrating considering the DAC is a major reason why I bought this phone instead of something else.
Edit: I forgot to ask, what software should I use to confirm what sort of bit rate depth the Axon 7 is outputting? I have a Sound Blaster ZxR for recording, so I can plug the A7 right into that.
I can't tell you how to test the depth of the audio coming from the cell. If you can't tell the difference is there any real point? It it just a matter of wanting the product you thought you were paying for?
For the other issue, a really simple thing you've probably done already is checking that ZTE's voice software isn't enabled for media control. An old S4 of mine would go "back" any time a sound remotely like a short "a" played.
PiArc said:
I can't tell you how to test the depth of the audio coming from the cell. If you can't tell the difference is there any real point? It it just a matter of wanting the product you thought you were paying for?
For the other issue, a really simple thing you've probably done already is checking that ZTE's voice software isn't enabled for media control. An old S4 of mine would go "back" any time a sound remotely like a short "a" played.
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I can tell a difference, on the default music player it sounds better, for example instruments sound more crisp and separated from the rest of the audio. The issue is that I can't tell if that perception of more crisp/separated sound is due to a slight difference of volume between programs which is difficult to perceive. Just to add to the confusion, different songs seem to have different volume levels on each player, which aren't consistent. For example song A may be louder on PowerAmp, but song B is louder on the stock player. In those cases where the songs are clearly different volumes (maybe 10% of the time) it makes it extremely difficult to tell which one sounds better to me. This is with all equalizer/Dolby settings disabled.
Humans easily mistake higher volume for "better" quality in various ways. That's really the reason for the "volume wars" or whatever it's called; music was often mastered with levels just blasting instead of balancing the audio properly.
What I was asking is what free program can I use to record audio from my phone to check if it's outputting 24 bit audio? But on that same note, yes, I suppose that would also let me directly measure volume as well.
As for the voice recognition, I'll try disabling that and see if it helps, but isn't that supposed to only work when holding down the back key anyway? Also, often when it did a random command like next or previous song, I was silent.
Ah, I see. Sorry to not be helpful whatsoever.
Hmm y somehow ZTE has volume differences. I also noticed it if i enable/disable Dolby Atmos.
But i also think that ZTE set up some DSP stuff on AK4490/61. I would be happy if there was an app which could change DSP etc settings of this DACs :/
I also noticed the fluctuating volume, for me it's via bluetooth.
It would progressively become quiet and when the next song starts it would scare the crap out of me (much louder), then repeat.
Rarely, it would continue to play randomly after I disconnect from bluetooth (not immediately after).
So it would be nice if someone found a good music player that takes advantage of the DACs and not exhibit random behavior -- alternatively if this was fixed that would also be good.
EDIT: For me, it happens in a certain volume range in the upper end. Anything lower or higher this does not happen.

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