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evolvedrom, qpst volume boost, poweramp

Not sure if this is where this goes or not, but since i have so few posts, i can onpy place it here. Just in case anyone else is having issues. My evolvedrom final rom kept breaking my alarm. Turns out anytime i uninstalled any app using the settings and manage applications portion to to so, it would break my alarm. just a little fyi. To get wicked volume, i used the qpst method to raise all volumes to 4 instead of the stock 2 setting. Throw in poweramp and, the sound is freaking LOUD!!! i love pandora but i just listen to it and add the artists it chooses to poweramp. same random music, only much louder than pandora... Rock on dudes!!!

[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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Click to collapse
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.

[Q] Music Player Q's

Question for those of you with this phone.
Are any of you using a 3rd party music player? I have Poweramp and I noticed that the sound for this is much lower on this device as opposed to the when I had the Galaxy S4. Even tweaking the EQ like I did on the S4 yields no results. Right now I am using Mortplayer Music since most of my music is in various folders not all by album. So far the sound is pretty good but it just strikes me as odd that these players are much lower than the Google Play Music app. I don't really care for that app, as it decides it wants to pull from the streaming library despite me saying local only... I don't remember having this issue on older versions...(maybe it's just me) but I was never really sold on this app anyway.
I also tried shuttle+ and Flipbeats with similar results...

chousue said:
Question for those of you with this phone.
Are any of you using a 3rd party music player? I have Poweramp and I noticed that the sound for this is much lower on this device as opposed to the when I had the Galaxy S4. Even tweaking the EQ like I did on the S4 yields no results. Right now I am using Mortplayer Music since most of my music is in various folders not all by album. So far the sound is pretty good but it just strikes me as odd that these players are much lower than the Google Play Music app. I don't really care for that app, as it decides it wants to pull from the streaming library despite me saying local only... I don't remember having this issue on older versions...(maybe it's just me) but I was never really sold on this app anyway.
I also tried shuttle+ and Flipbeats with similar results...
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It could be the sound processing in general that is the issue. I have noticed that the volume is softer in general than other phones I have had. Even in my house I have found that the volume has to be at least half to consistently hear notifications/phone calls, in or out of pocket.
When playing music using headphones or over Bluetooth, maybe using the various H/K processing could be lowering the volume. With it on and the volume maxed, I still have to turn up my aftermarket car radio's volume up more than I'd like to to hear the music (oftentimes podcasts) and especially taking a call over Bluetooth.

Pandora Problem - No sound for music, sound yet sound works for advertisements?

Hello!
My girlfriends 900T has this issue, while my 900P does not, we are running the same exact rom. So very odd problem indeed.
I have tried the following with no resolution:
http://help.pandora.com/customer/portal/articles/24288-trouble-streaming-pandora-on-android
I have not found many others with this issue, only could dig up 2 threads on the internet and both were unresolved. I've tried clearing cache/data uninstalling/reinstalling, trying different/older apk's, full no ad's apk's vs latest play store version.....high quality audio checked etc.
When i switch back to the home panel, the equalizer bars in the upper right hand corner are moving, as if sound is playing, but no sound comes out. Yet when the advertisements come on, PERFECT sound. Its SO annoying. Plugging in headphones do not help vs speaker, both have no sound.
Thanks for any suggestions.

did you ever get this fixed?

I'm having the same issue

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.