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Post here if you have speaker issues.

Being as some people already bought the phone at Costcos and AT&T's release is tomorrow, I wanted to start a thread for people having speaker issues.
If anyone has read my thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=949878 You will notice I and a few others who recently got an Inspire early have noticed very tinny call quality in the earpiece and speaker phone, and very low speaker volume on the rear external speaker to the point where you can bearly hear it ring or hear the notification tones.
So of anyone else is experiencing either of these, please post in here.
I have a report filed with our local HTC rep and she passed it up the chain. So we'll see if it goes anywhere.

just sounds weird when using pandora

Mine has excellent in-call volume, thru ear speaker. External speaker a little weak.

Boo boo speaker
Speaker is garbage. Phone speaker is phone, but the rear one sucks.

My n1 doesn't have very good speakers. Its not faulty though, just not very good. Ive heard its a problem with htc. Regarding the inspire, are we talking about defective or just poor quality?

So far its been ok. Call Quality has been good and loud enough but the speaker volume is weak compared to my iphone 4.

Very low ringtones and notifications, even with volume turned all the way up...

Does anyone know how the volume compares to the Aria? Because it's damn quite, especially if you ever set the phone down face-up, covering the back speaker...
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App

See this thread for a possible fix: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773449
Ill be trying a few things myself, hopefully not run into a boot loop in the process. hahaha

Anyone able to compare the earpiece volume to the Captivate and Aria? I thought Aria was way too low and Captivate is about right... don't want to switch to a phone with lower call volume.

simulatordos said:
Anyone able to compare the earpiece volume to the Captivate and Aria? I thought Aria was way too low and Captivate is about right... don't want to switch to a phone with lower call volume.
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The captivate is definately louder. Not as loud as an iPhone, but louder than the Inspire.
Also the captivate doesn't have that tinny sound like the Inspire does in the earpiece.

Well we sold out of Inspire's today, as did a a few other stores that I know of.
So far we have been getting good reviews of the phone in general, but many people are complaining of the low external speaker volume. I can see this is going to be a big issue with a lot of people.
I've had a few people comment on the tinny trebly sounding earpiece and speakerphone, but it appears that different people have various tolerences when it comes to sound pitch.
For people wanted to compare it to the Captivate, I would have the say the Captivate definately has better sound quality and the external speaker is a tad louder, but still not on par with the iPhone. So it just seems the Inspire although better in "almost" every way from the Captivate, is definately a step lower as far as the speakers.
I'll keep everyone informed when I hear some more back from our HTC rep. I'm hoping this can just be corrected with the software update.

this phone is AMAZING, but i agree with you choco,
the speaker is pretty much useless...its tinny, and the volume is too low. That being said,
the in ear speaker is one of the best i have used. It seems like the loud speaker, battery, and front facing camera is how HTC managed to keep this one at $100
Edit:
We nearly sold out of them as well today...people are responding very well to this phone, much better than they did with the captivate.

I bought it. I must say, I think its a little louder in call than the captivate. I think the external speaker is ok, so my feeling is that theres a production line issue here.

Speaker Issue
The speaker for notifications and ringtones is horrible. I can barely hear it when I get a call. Im thinking about returning it. Whats the point of a phone if you cant hear when someone is calling. (other than that it is a decent phone, I will test battery life tommorrow)

simulatordos said:
I bought it. I must say, I think its a little louder in call than the captivate. I think the external speaker is ok, so my feeling is that theres a production line issue here.
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Either that or varying parts. My incall speaker sounds fine. The external speaker is....well just crap. Luckily, I don't use the phone's external speaker for much anyway.

Coming from a Captivate
I bought the phone yesterday, and well I haven't had extensive use of it yet both the external and the earpiece volume are fine to me...no problem with ringer volume.
I will agree that the sound is a bit tinny.

picked mine up yesterday and the rear speaker is a bit quite for notifications. the earpiece sounded a little tinny on the first call i made with it, but i'm thinking it might have been the fact that it was to a buddy of mine on a cm7 nightly and using speaker phone. i didn't notice the tinny sound on any of the subsequent phone calls, so either i got used to it and it doesn't bother me any more or it was his phone not mine

This thread should be rename to post here if u think the speaker level is too damn low. Its not a problem when all the phone are the same. Hopefully it is fixable with a software update.

Yeah speaker sucks I mean look at it... they didn't even try

[Q] Speakers ... or speaker ?! :P

Hi gurus,
my N5 pumps quite a low volume from the speaker... In particular, looking at the screen, the bottom left grill gives a reasonable output while the right... really low volume. I was thinking about RMA when googling, I found an article which states that:
- there's no left and right speaker on N5, just one speaker
- left grill is for the speaker, while right one is for the microphone.
If so, then my N5 is absolutely "normal". Could anyone confirm that the left grill returns significantly a louder sound ?
Thanks in advance

Just tried what you describe same result my left speaker plays louder
Sent from my NeXus 5

KaylordTheuZ said:
Hi gurus,
my N5 pumps quite a low volume from the speaker... In particular, looking at the screen, the bottom left grill gives a reasonable output while the right... really low volume. I was thinking about RMA when googling, I found an article which states that:
- there's no left and right speaker on N5, just one speaker
- left grill is for the speaker, while right one is for the microphone.
If so, then my N5 is absolutely "normal". Could anyone confirm that the left grill returns significantly a louder sound ?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there's only 1 speaker.

Same as the G2.... one speaker only.

neugenusis said:
Same as the G2.... one speaker only.
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Zepius said:
there's only 1 speaker.
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So... I assume that different sound volume from the two grids should be considered normal... not a defect.

KaylordTheuZ said:
So... I assume that different sound volume from the two grids should be considered normal... not a defect.
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Click to collapse
correct. there are portholes in the speaker assembly. see below for a nice picture
http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...-5s-underpowered-speaker-a-little-more-oomph/

KaylordTheuZ said:
So... I assume that different sound volume from the two grids should be considered normal... not a defect.
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Click to collapse
There is only 1 speaker. Any sound you're perceiving from the other grill is purely leaked sound.
At this point, I thought everyone knew this. Mostly all phones on the market work this way: The G2, the iPhone line, etc...HTC One is one of the only phones that have multiple speakers.

Speakerphone (loudness, clarity)

Proper etiquette aside (hint: don't use speakerphone while doing your "business" in a public bathroom), rate this thread to express how you think the Xiaomi Mi 5's speakerphone performs. A higher rating indicates that you love it: it's loud and it's clear.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

it's loud, but on max volume there's a lot of distortion, contacted Xiaomi, they sayed that's normal (i don't think so, maybe faulty batch, mine's 64GB white one). Overall, loud, but not clear enough.

How is the sound quality through 3.5mm jack?

killbox said:
How is the sound quality through 3.5mm jack?
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Great and loud, loudest from all phones i had. Check gsmarena review for more details

Anybody tried to cover one of the speakerphone holes? I've tried mine, and sounds from the left ones are small compared to the right ones. I looked into the holes, and it seems that something covered the left holes from the inside. I've attached a picture of it.

vegasphinx said:
Anybody tried to cover one of the speakerphone holes? I've tried mine, and sounds from the left ones are small compared to the right ones. I looked into the holes, and it seems that something covered the left holes from the inside. I've attached a picture of it.
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Click to collapse
same for my phone, seems to be normal

vegasphinx said:
Anybody tried to cover one of the speakerphone holes? I've tried mine, and sounds from the left ones are small compared to the right ones. I looked into the holes, and it seems that something covered the left holes from the inside. I've attached a picture of it.
Click to expand...
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the left hole probably contains mic and no speaker and also for symmetry

loud and clear

loud and beautiful
Sent from my MI 5 using XDA-Developers mobile app

The speakerphone is very loud and clear, it's amazing to have the combination of both

In test the loudspeaker is quiet good
Source: G******A

vegasphinx said:
Anybody tried to cover one of the speakerphone holes? I've tried mine, and sounds from the left ones are small compared to the right ones. I looked into the holes, and it seems that something covered the left holes from the inside. I've attached a picture of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey mate,
That is not the speaker hole. That hole for the mic and this phone comes with the single speaker (just mono not like stereo).

Headphone
I have no problem with the speakerphone sound, but the headphone out could be a lot better, lots of background noise with sensitive in ear monitors. That said, other "flaships" like the LG G2 suffer from the same problem...

Which ROM are you using? Do you have VoLTE in your country?
I am using CM 13.0-20161211-NIGHTLY.
The speakerphone sound is pretty loud and clear, but my friends tell me my mic is pretty bad while I'm using the speakerphone.
I think my problem is ROM dependent rather than a hardware defect.
I am planning to revert to MIUI soon, I will keep you posted.

I got crackling and broken loudspeaker, tried to flash another ROM but the issue persisted :crying:

I flashed MIUI Global Stable ROM.
The speakerphone now works fine on phone calls.
I still got issues on Skype calls though (it occurs only on Skype).

i got htc one m8 now, and planning to upgrade to this phone, what do i need to expect about sound quality?

strikereg said:
I have no problem with the speakerphone sound, but the headphone out could be a lot better, lots of background noise with sensitive in ear monitors. That said, other "flaships" like the LG G2 suffer from the same problem...
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I'm afraid it's your headphones mate. The phone is very clear and proper tests (through GSMarena) show that it has the lowest distortion of any phone on the market (conparable to Sabre DACs), not to mention it's decently loud too, something phones like the G2 can't boast. That said, I didn't like the sound signature (how the output is shaped), so I replaced the audio driver with Viper4Android and disabled Xiaomi's driver altogether. I suggest you try that and see if that works for you?

xdadevet said:
I'm afraid it's your headphones mate. The phone is very clear and proper tests (through GSMarena) show that it has the lowest distortion of any phone on the market (conparable to Sabre DACs), not to mention it's decently loud too, something phones like the G2 can't boast. That said, I didn't like the sound signature (how the output is shaped), so I replaced the audio driver with Viper4Android and disabled Xiaomi's driver altogether. I suggest you try that and see if that works for you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In a way it really is the headphones, for being such good IEM
They cost more than the Xiaomi Mi5. Problem is, good IEM are generally very sensitive, so they need a good quality source, with no background noise.
Sorry but it the Mi5 really has bad sound quality. Way worse that any iPhone.
I've given up and went and bought an IPhone 7. No problems there, of course.

strikereg said:
In a way it really is the headphones, for being such good IEM
They cost more than the Xiaomi Mi5. Problem is, good IEM are generally very sensitive, so they need a good quality source, with no background noise.
Sorry but it the Mi5 really has bad sound quality. Way worse that any iPhone.
I've given up and went and bought an IPhone 7. No problems there, of course.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also prefer IEMs for their sound quality. Which ones do you use? Also, check out this website and run the tests, it's quite fun and revealing: http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php
See the attached screenshot. There shouldn't be an audible distortion difference between the Mi 5 and iPhone. And unlike the iPhone, you can actually change the audio driver to suit your preference.
Edit: Looking at the numbers you can see that the Mi 5 has quicker frequency response, lower noise level, higher dynamic range, less harmonic distortion, less intermodulation distortion, and less stereo crosstalk than an iPhone 6s. There is not a single thing you can measure where the iPhone does better yet you call the Mi 5 "way worse". I don't have an iPhone on me so I can't verify it myself, but output should be identical.

Bottom speaker not as loud as top one?

Has anyone noticed that the bottom speaker volume is lower than the top one (ear peace) when playing music? or is it only me?
I did not notice it before because I always use headsets but today I spilled some juice on it and washed it under the sink water after that I played some music just to see what's up and noticed this uneven volume coming out from both speakers. I will let it dry and see if it was the cause but has anyone else noticed that?
And if you are talking on the phone using speakers only bottom one works. Is it normal?

Yes they are different but I think it's intentional because not only is the volume different, but they each put out different kinds of sound if you notice.

omarfarrah said:
Yes they are different but I think it's intentional because not only is the volume different, but they each put out different kinds of sound if you notice.
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Yeah I did notice the output of the sound is different from each speaker. I already thought I have faulty unit and wanted to return it but now you saved my worry <3 Thank you.

I wouldn't say that it's intentional as if Sony wanted both speakers to be different. It's normal though and to be expected because the speakers aren't identical. The top speaker is of higher quality.

sunking101 said:
I wouldn't say that it's intentional as if Sony wanted both speakers to be different. It's normal though and to be expected because the speakers aren't identical. The top speaker is of higher quality.
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I just wanted to know if I am not the only one with such situation. As I mentioned before I did not notice it until I used it. Thank you for replying.

Question Earpiece/loudspeaker quality

Hi,
how is the loudspeaker quality for people who already own the phone?
For me the speakers are not that great. Especially the top one in the earpiece. Calls aren't that great and listening to voice messages or even videos and music is just ok.
I get scratching in the top one pretty early. It depends on the audio quality/source but sometimes it already scratches around 60% of max volume. Especially in calls and voice messages.

It sound very good. Less bass then my s21U, but still ok. Calls are very ok too.

So no scratching for you?
I have got an S20 here and it definitely has a better sound quality with less distortion/scratching...

I was quite impressed. Especially in flex mode when both speakers face forward. Definitely one of the highlights of this phone if you ask me.

So no scratching when listening to voice mails on higher volumes? Just tried video and there the quality is fine. It is voices where my speaker struggles.

The sound Quality if better (subjectively) than my S21+, which I traded in. Less tinny and no distortion so far on loudspeaker call in flex mode.

So in my experience the speakers especially the one on the top is worst than the ones of the S20 which is sad.
One thing I noticed in addition to the bad sound quality is that the speaker grill of the earpiece doesn't cover the 3 holes completely. I am able to look through the holes. The grill only covers a part of the holes. Haven't seen this before. Can anybody confirm this or do I indeed have a faulty product?

I will try to describe this as best I can and you can decide if this is the same thing or if yours appears to be missing parts.
I have the three holes. Inside them, there is what looks like plastic coming from the top that covers about half of the opening. If I angle the phone to see into the gap, there is another cover under it.

twistedumbrella said:
I will try to describe this as best I can and you can decide if this is the same thing or if yours appears to be missing parts.
I have the three holes. Inside them, there is what looks like plastic coming from the top that covers about half of the opening. If I angle the phone to see into the gap, there is another cover under it.
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Click to collapse
Ok, I guess than it's supposed to be like that. Looks a bit weird to me.
How is the sound quality on your end? The quality itself is ok for me, what annoys me is the distortion I get pretty early around 60-70% of max volume depending on the audio. Especially calls, video calls and voice messages get distorted really quickly. Video and music mostly seem to be fine.

Cris7ianO said:
Ok, I guess than it's supposed to be like that. Looks a bit weird to me.
How is the sound quality on your end? The quality itself is ok for me, what annoys me is the distortion I get pretty early around 60-70% of max volume depending on the audio. Especially calls, video calls and voice messages get distorted really quickly. Video and music mostly seem to be fine.
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Haven't made any real calls yet, but everything else seemed normal. I should probably test that before the return period runs out. I'll let you know.

twistedumbrella said:
Haven't made any real calls yet, but everything else seemed normal. I should probably test that before the return period runs out. I'll let you know.
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Feedback is appreciated . Voice messages in Whatsapp for example, same for Whatsapp and Duo video calls and phone calls as well... Distortion and scratching in the upper range coming out of the earpiece/upper speaker.

I have to decide if I keep the device until Saturday. It would be great if a few more people who own the phone could give some feedback regarding the loudspeaker of the phone during voice and video calls and voice messages

Sounds defective. Just finished testing and it was not only clear, but loud. I know with previous phones, I couldn't hear a thing at any less than one step below the max volume. I had this one at half and it was just as loud. If you happened to start at max, it's possible a speaker blew out. The thing they never tell you is that they aren't truly meant to run at that volume for anything more than a minute or two.

twistedumbrella said:
Sounds defective. Just finished testing and it was not only clear, but loud. I know with previous phones, I couldn't hear a thing at any less than one step below the max volume. I had this one at half and it was just as loud. If you happened to start at max, it's possible a speaker blew out. The thing they never tell you is that they aren't truly meant to run at that volume for anything more than a minute or two.
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Thanks for the feedback. What confuses me is that I get the distortion only in calls or voice messages. No problems when listening to music or videos.

Cris7ianO said:
Thanks for the feedback. What confuses me is that I get the distortion only in calls or voice messages. No problems when listening to music or videos.
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I have heard rumors the speakers are separate between the two, but I'm not sure.
I know Samsung tends to send phones to be repaired over replaced, even when it just released last week. Hopefully they don't give you any trouble if you decide to flat out return it, though.

twistedumbrella said:
I have heard rumors the speakers are separate between the two, but I'm not sure.
I know Samsung tends to send phones to be repaired over replaced, even when it just released last week. Hopefully they don't give you any trouble if you decide to flat out return it, though.
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Yeah the service is ridiculous. I love Android and use it for years for various reasons. But these encounters with bad service drag my mind towards apple. I already contacted Samsung. They offered an exchange. But I have to send in my flip first. As this is currently my only phone due to sending my S20 in for the trade-in I will not be able to do that. I am using the phone with dual sim for private and business purposes. I will try to force Samsung to send me a new one prior to sending mine back. If they don't accept I will withdraw my order and get something else. The trade-in might get me into trouble as it seems. Will never purchase over Samsung directly again. Never had issues with Amazon or apple...