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Is there any way to make the lowest headphone audio setting any quieter?
I am a big fan of in ear headphones, but the problem I always face is that the lowest setting on audio devices is too loud for these types of headphones. I was wondering if there were any tricks to make the lowest sound setting any quieter.
I'm also wondering where the limitation is, either hardware limit, audio driver, or the android API?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
On a side note, it seems like there is just one "Media Volume" setting state regardless of whether the headphones are plugged in or out. This is somewhat annoying as if I was listening to something on the loud speaker at full volume, and then plug in my headphones to listen to some music later without remembering to change the volume my ears would start to bleed
+1. I like how my previous winmo device had system volume AND player volume which stacked. Set both controls to minimum and I could enjoy my music late at night before going to sleep without having those crescendos making me jump out of my bed.... but with Android, I have yet to find something similar.
I noticed this too but when I switched to a different set of in-ear headphones it changed. Maybe buy a different pair of headphones?
It is noticed that while listening through headphones that the sound is being affected by some sort of 3D/spacial/EQ process that might give the impression of "punch" for movies but at the expense of phase-y sounding vocals and smeared high notes for music.
Yikes. Thst stuff is not good for music quality. No way to turn off? The settings options seems kind of scarce.
After playing around with various music players and headphones it seems that the audio is now OK.
Not sure what happened. It may have been a headphone jack issue. Audio sounds great now.
Oooops!
There is an issue with sound quality. Compared it to a Rockbox'ed Sandisk Clip Zip with a very wide stereo track 2-channel stereo track (fyi -- Brook Benton's "Kiddio" 1960). There is some EQ bast boost and high frequency crossfeed that narrows the stereo separation. I'm going to boot from CM and see if the problem persists.
For video I would not notice the issue, but could get to me listening to music with my Klipsch S4 buds.
Update:
It is not bad. Seems part of the issue is low gain which can be increased with Volume+ or other similar app function.
Volume+ did the trick for me. Jamming to some Coheed at the moment. Sounds as good as my other tablets now
The problem was never with volume -- I think stock has plenty of volume for driving Audio Technica ATH-900x. The problem is with some sort of audio processing that affects the soundstage and frequency response.
I am not hearing it using the Google player app. Gain is not the same as volume. Both need to correlate or weak quality.
SRS processing is used and applied at the headphone output. See HD+ file \system\etc\srs_processing.cfg
This is what I use, have my settings set to Jazz "my preference", audio sounds great, not talking about low resolution MP3's.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartandroidapps.equalizer
TonyBigs said:
SRS processing is used and applied at the headphone output. See HD+ file \system\etc\srs_processing.cfg
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I understand the config issue, but I am not hearing it. I should hear the sound manipulation with cymbal decay as example, but not hearing it. Weird.
Playback in CM 10.1 has the correct stereo image.
so am I
so am I ,after checking
First I need to add that I find the so much advertised two DACs of the Axon very highly exaggerated in terms of power. They are just too weak, even compared to my previous Note 3, both on headphones and speakers.
Second, they seem to not be able to be effectively used on almost any app since 98% of apps do not utilise them by default and one cannot change it.
If you tweak Dolby Atmos a bit you can get it to amplify the general audio output, both on speakers and headphones, and this is why I use it predominantly. I am on the B09 update on A2017G and it is still very buggy. No matter what setting I choose, i.e. Music, Voice, Game, Custom, when I leave the Dolby Atmos screen it drops sound for a second and always resets to Movie, no matter what. Also the sound regularly interrupts, especially when unlocking screen or doing things in the background, or just on its own.
What annoys me most however from when I bought the phone is that at very low or low volume (only on speakers), when there is speach or the music starts, there is some kind of hissing, ss/sh-ing sound corresponding to the words said or the tiny beats of the music played. It's like a background noise added on purpose simultaneously with special, mostly high frequencies, i.e. words, tiny/starting percussions or similar, no matter the Dolby Atmos setting. This noise stays apparently at all times, it just is not heard when more, mostly low and middle frequencies get in. This "noise" is not available when no Dolby Atmos is used, however the volume then drops by a few levels down. Good or bad, Atmos also adds some spatial effect to the sound, which is why I like it for...
Does anyone of you, an A2017G or A2017U user, observe similar behaviour on your device? Is Dolby Atmos working better for you, i.e. unconditionally steady settings, no low volume added speakers noise, no sound interruptions?
I also noticed browsers do not get use of the DACs/Dolby Atmos, i.e. YouTube, online videos, many video players. My favourite before Aimp was unable to do so also so I had to transfer to Jet Audio and PlayerPro, both of which can work with the Dolby.
Why did ZTE add (two) DACs when they couldn't be used by 95% of the apps and games by default and even manually, also there seems to be no gain in output at all? Was this the case with the Lenovo Phab2 Pro's Dolby Atmos? For the "regulated hiss" (not present on headphones at all) I cannot currently watch any movies on the phone with Dolby Atmos enabled, unless at very high speakers volume. It hisses so badly every time a word is pronounced or some subtle 'invisible' sound plays. The same is with playing music...
I dont use Dolby when I listen to music - it makes everything so much worse and much quieter. Listening to flacs on stock music player with Super HiFi on. No hisses on low or high sound levels. Silence is silent. as for speakers - no hiss also.
ZTE did not add 2 DACs for music, 1 is for music other one is for audio recording which is records at 128kbps. and quality.. I dunno it's quite clear, I had recorded a room full of people, with two girls singing and some people chatting in backgroud and I can hear everything. but sound itself if on the lower end, girls vocals are lower than they are, everything seems shifted to lower sound spectrum.
Tooks some time and checked spectrum of that sound file 50-2000Hz. everything over 2kHz is just a noise.
and a little edit: it records nothing less than 50Hz - total silence there.
The stock player is OK but it's lacking on features, also not sure if it can play video.
I have noticed the low volume speakers "noise" with Dolby on when watching movies using almost any player - VLC, BS, MX and more. If I go above 30-40% volume it seems to disappear, but more like you don't hear it and it stays. I say "noise" but it is like a hissing/ss-ing sound added to sole frequences only, i.e. speech only or single instruments. When more frequencies get in, you don't hear it. Weird these don't exist at all with the Snapdragon amplifier, i.e. when Dolby is off.
https://community.zteusa.com/thread/12853, here is a similar thread in the ZTE USA community. I believe it has something to do with the Axon's own amp or its software and happens at low volume only. There was a thread in Reddit exactly about what I am reporting but I can't find it now.
If you go to your phone's Music\Settings\Dolby Atmos app, then move all sliders up you will notice that it significantly increases the overall volume when Dolby is on. So it's not low, if you change it, it boosts up the volume by at least 30%. On another note, the Axon's mic recording quality is quite poor/muffled, even compared to the old Note 3, hopefully they will improve it at least a bit by some future update.
I bought the A7 exclusively for its audio capabilities so am disappointed that I have to report insufficiencies in this exact area.
Does your Dolby Atmos set itself to Movie only if you exit the Music app? Are there any drops in sound when it's on and you do something in the background?
There are two DACs. "AKM AK4961 DSP CODEC, which can be considered the primary chipset for Hi-Fi audio playback and recording. The AKM AK4490EN DAC is an independent Hi-Fi audio sampler". So AK4961 works in standard mode and AK4490EN in Super mode. ADC is only in AK4961.
You can consider rooting your device and install ViperFX or the whole A.R.I.S.E. sound system. That will solve all the problems with sound output. However the sound recording filtering is surprising, leaving only the vocal spectrum is not normal. There should be a setting somewhere.
I have the Chinese A2017 model running Oreo & have just noticed this hissing sound which can be heard at lower volumes when I keep speakers close to my ear. I don't hear any hissing sound using headphones. I wonder if it's always been there or it's a hardware/software issue. I'm probably gonna hard reset the phone to see if it goes away. Anyone could fix it?
Hi All,
Just wanted to share my experience with Viper. I tried A.R.I.S.E on supermanRom 2.4 and found samsung adapt sound to be much cleaner and superior to VIPER on my sennheiser earphones. All Viper did was just amp the sound with the AGC turned on and make it sound like i am inside a boombox. I tried turning off the AGC, still i feel samsung adapt sound to be more punchy and cleaner. What is your experience? I've read all this hype on Viper, but all to realize its just a hype.
You results will vary based on what settings you use, choosing too many may lead to overprocecing. You may want to look at profiles for viper. For me a.r.i.s.e deuteronomy 2.4 works great. Also, did you try any other options, agc is meant to amp the sound.
coolbuy said:
Hi All,
Just wanted to share my experience with Viper. I tried A.R.I.S.E on supermanRom 2.4 and found samsung adapt sound to be much cleaner and superior to VIPER on my sennheiser earphones. All Viper did was just amp the sound with the AGC turned on and make it sound like i am inside a boombox. I tried turning off the AGC, still i feel samsung adapt sound to be more punchy and cleaner. What is your experience? I've read all this hype on Viper, but all to realize its just a hype.
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I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think it depends on the headphones being used. Personally I find I get the best sound with viper and a custom IRS. The best sound I ever got out of the aux port on a Samsung phone with the Wolfson chip requires faux sound; I find it is the only way to increase the gain without crackling. Realistically I would be fine without any audio modifications if I could increase the gain through faux sound.
donkeykongking said:
I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think it depends on the headphones being used. Personally I find I get the best sound with viper and a custom IRS. The best sound I ever got out of the aux port on a Samsung phone with the Wolfson chip requires faux sound; I find it is the only way to increase the gain without crackling. Realistically I would be fine without any audio modifications if I could increase the gain through faux sound.
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Surely using the volume mod is enough?
I found a lot of sound mods simply raised the noise floor of my headphones and increased background hiss regardless. Ears got used to it after a while but I am happy using my RHA MA 750i and M50x without Viper or ARISE. I hear no additional noise when using the sound mod that increases volume from the headphone jack.
Galactus said:
Surely using the volume mod is enough?
I found a lot of sound mods simply raised the noise floor of my headphones and increased background hiss regardless. Ears got used to it after a while but I am happy using my RHA MA 750i and M50x without Viper or ARISE. I hear no additional noise when using the sound mod that increases volume from the headphone jack.
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It's not that the volume mod is "enough". I always found that volume mods which modify the mixer values push the gain to a point that causes it to crackle at certain decible levels. Whenever I modified the EQ after boosting the volume with faux sound I could get clear bass and treble at high volumes without a crackling sound. Is it because faux sound worked at a kernel level? Therefore actually boosting the amount of power outputted through the headphone jack, whereas mixer value changes attempted to reach a certain decibel level with stock power output?
I would like to add that I am not unappreciative of all the work developers have put into audio development for our phone. Without Zubi's sound mod the audio on the s7 edge would be pathetic IMO.
donkeykongking said:
It's not that the volume mod is "enough". I always found that volume mods which modify the mixer values push the gain to a point that causes it to crackle at certain decible levels. Whenever I modified the EQ after boosting the volume with faux sound I could get clear bass and treble at high volumes without a crackling sound. Is it because faux sound worked at a kernel level? Therefore actually boosting the amount of power outputted through the headphone jack, whereas mixer value changes attempted to reach a certain decibel level with stock power output?
I would like to add that I am not unappreciative of all the work developers have put into audio development for our phone. Without Zubi's sound mod the audio on the s7 edge would be pathetic IMO.
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It is possible that it is due to the kernel, but with zubi's sound mod I get no noticeable distortion on bass or crackling highs, even on my modded Piston 2 that is very sibilant. Volume levels are also way above what I would need, so I am just a bit surprised that you have to crank the volume up so much that EQ boosts are actually causing this. Power hungry cans, I can imagine causing this but if you are talking about IEMS then yeah I am surprised lol
I use one of the DFX-Hiphop-modern with the AudioPhile4 pofile, and both the sound in my car and in mu headphones are insane!
My car has Bowers & Wilkins with 27 speakers. It plays like hell has burnt over with my S7 and Bluetooth connection
Yes the stock ROM sound is punchier and cleaner than what viper has to offer.. I removed viper after thorough testing..
Hello everyone, does anyone have experience with these impedance adapters? Do they successfully remove the hissing sound on the headphone jack?
Ifi Audio - IEMatch
Ifi Audio - Ear Buddy
Ultimate Ears - Buffer Jack
DUNU Impedance Adapters
Background: Headphones with higher impedance seem to experience less or no hissing (above 45-60 ohms). If you do not want to buy a new pair of headphones, in principle you can purchase an adapter that increases the impedance. Before I do so (they cost from $5-50 depending on the model), I wonder if anyone has had positive experience with this.
Hello,
I have the Creative EP630 in ear headphones. The hissing sound using the plain headphones is really unbearable (even clearly hearable on normal volume).
Thats why I bought the EarBuddy adapter. With the adapter the hissing is almost completely gone. I can still hear it very little when there is absolute silence, but it is definitalety at a lower or equal level compared to other smarthphones (and not anoying). The rest of the sound doesn't seem to be affected, except that it is at a lower volume (however I'm not an audiophile).
I would also recommend using to use the MI Sound Enhancer (Settings >> Sound >> Headphones & Audio Effects). For me the "General In-Ear" profile improves the sound a little bit more.