Out of all my devices that I have and have used my Surface Pro has the most quiet external speakers of them all.
Try to play a Netflix movie or show and have anything else going on around you and you won't even be able to hear it.
It's great with head phones on but I use this all the time for watching shows and movies while working out. Its so quiet I have to use headphones when I am on the treadmill or I cannot hear it playing while the treadmill is on.
I hope Microsoft addresses this on the next model.
Love my Surface Pro, it is by far the best device I have used so I can easily live with the sound issue.
If your are thinking about buying it, stop reading this, go to a store or order from their site and get one NOW.
I own a network technology company and handle IT support for a lot of companies and I can do everything on this (using it to type right now) that I could do with a full blown PC setup. I have also owned every tablet, laptop, and device that has ever come out so trust me when I say it is great.
This unit has replaced my Lenovo Yoga 13, and my Samsung Ativ 500 and 700 with no issues. I have also had every Samsung and Asus tablet and this is a bad boy. This also includes the Tab and Note series.
Hey not sure if this will help you but it works well on things that are low volume at the source.
Go to your sound settings in the control panel, go to speaker properties, then enhancements, then enable "Loudness Equalization" and click settings and set the "Release Time" to shortest.
This might actually make your videos sound worse through headphones but when using the external speakers it normalizes the volume so that extremely low sounds are louder and extremely loud sounds are softer.
Also this might not work well with applications that have built-in sound normalization like MPC-HC so you might want to only enable it when you're watching netflix or youtube or other flash based media that doesn't have built in normalization.
IMO the sound's loud enough, louder than all my tablets and my old dell laptop. But definitely softer than my brother's MSI gaming laptop.
RT is the same. Bummer, but oh well. I use a Belkin bluetooth receiver with my old computer speakers, works GREAT! :good:
C-Lang said:
RT is the same. Bummer, but oh well. I use a Belkin bluetooth receiver with my old computer speakers, works GREAT! :good:
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Hmm, sounds like a good idea for me actually. Might have to invest in one.
dinan said:
Hey not sure if this will help you but it works well on things that are low volume at the source.
Go to your sound settings in the control panel, go to speaker properties, then enhancements, then enable "Loudness Equalization" and click settings and set the "Release Time" to shortest.
This might actually make your videos sound worse through headphones but when using the external speakers it normalizes the volume so that extremely low sounds are louder and extremely loud sounds are softer.
Also this might not work well with applications that have built-in sound normalization like MPC-HC so you might want to only enable it when you're watching netflix or youtube or other flash based media that doesn't have built in normalization.
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You sir.. where do I send beer money.. My Surface is finally louder than a mute mouse.. YAY
For what it's worth, if you have an original Surface Pro or the Pro 2, you may be able to use Ears (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1463948377/ears-for-the-surface-tablets). They're not on sale yet (and the Kickstarter project has ended) but they should be available for purchase after the KS backers receive theirs.
I don't know if the Surface Pro 3 will be supported though.
You ROCK!!! Thank you so much!
Thank you so much! You have no idea how much grief that has caused. That is something that has driven me crazy since the day I got my Surface! Now I love my Surface
The same would go for the (new) Microsoft Surface Pro 3 as well. The sound is truly NOT loud enough at its max volume and "loudness" setting.
Solution:
- Get a portable USB headphone DAC amp like the FiiO E18 or something comparable for your SP3 and/or phone/mp3 player that's smaller if a smaller size is your forte.
FYI:
I always use my Shure SE846 IEM's for earphones with my SP3 and phone... as they will blow your mind to smithereens. At $1000 retail, I expected nonetheless and I was highly pleased when I upgraded from the Shure SE215 earphones to these professional-grade IEM's. Before buying my SE846's, I read at www.head-fi.org that these IEM's NEED an external amp I bought the Fiio E18 Kunlun. After listening to the same songs WITH the FiiO USB DAC amp... I was truly dumbfounded. At times, when using my SP3 with the Fii0 amp I have to turn the volume down at the start of some songs because it gives me a headache from some of the songs being a little bit too bass heavy. So to whoever reads this... pass along the info to everyone you know with tablets, home theater systems (with separate receivers), laptops, desktops, and ALL versions of the Microsoft Surface tablets that you WILL NEED an external USB amp! DAC amps are technically better but a regular USB-powered or external portable built-in rechargeable earphone amp will work. The FiiO E18 gives me like 16 hours of hi-fi music when fully charged too.
Worked for me +++++
dinan said:
Hey not sure if this will help you but it works well on things that are low volume at the source.
Go to your sound settings in the control panel, go to speaker properties, then enhancements, then enable "Loudness Equalization" and click settings and set the "Release Time" to shortest.
This might actually make your videos sound worse through headphones but when using the external speakers it normalizes the volume so that extremely low sounds are louder and extremely loud sounds are softer.
Also this might not work well with applications that have built-in sound normalization like MPC-HC so you might want to only enable it when you're watching netflix or youtube or other flash based media that doesn't have built in normalization.
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Followed your advice and cleared a myriad of sound issues. THANK YOU!
Related
Ive done a bit of searching here and havent found any posts with the information I'm looking for, they only had suggestions such as "i use these they sound good", not facts.
I'm looking for some bluetooth headphone suggestions along with the input sensitivity and bluetooth version as well as your opinions on satisfaction but mainly something that includes the input sensitivity of the different bluetooth headsets out there that people are using.
I am looking to move to a stereo bluetooth headset from my current bose in-ear headset and looking for something that will be the least disappointing in the move.
I use the Motorla S305 headphones. They are compatible fully with the music player (next, prev, stop, play, and etc) and all the phone options (dial, hang up, mute, and etc). The sound quality is great. They are pretty light weight and don't put too much pressure on your ears. I had them on for 4 hours straight with no issues.
I got a pair on amazon for $33.
I'm not sure what you mean by "input sensitivity." Are you talking about button pushing and what not? I haven't had any input or any mechanical complaints yet..
I just got the Sony Ericsson MW600 and it works really well. The nice thing about it is that I can use any wired earphones with it. It also includes an FM radio tuner.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
I've been using the Plantronics 903 BackBeat for about a week now and they're awesome.
I also have the Bose in-ear headphones and was pleased to find that the earpieces on the BackBeat are the same exact style as the Bose (but they're not interchangeable).
The BackBeat is nice and loud, and all the buttons work, as well. One thing that I really like is that you can press the main button on the right earpiece to pause your music and use the built-in microphone to pipe in sound from around you. This way, you don't have to remove the headset to hear things around you. I wear them in an office setting so this feature is really important and works awesome.
As you already know from the Bose, these eargels do a killer job of keeping your music in and other sounds out - I can listen to my music at whatever volume without disturbing others nearby, even in the elevator.
Battery life is decent - I make it through a full workday with no issues, and they charge via microUSB (not proprietary) so I can easily charge them off my laptop if necessary.
Not sure what specifics you're looking for, but I'd highly recommend the BackBeat.
thanks for the input guys
as far as the input sensitivity i was thinking about the ohms and decibal values that the headphones can push and what frequencies the phones are rated on producing
a friend at the office has the 903 backbeat and he was going to let me try them, i work in an office environment as well and think they might work, just need to hear them first. The only worry I have is I also want to take them to the gym with me and worry about that loopy in the back bouncing too much, which is why im also looking at the s9-hd headset but have no one to reference to try them out.
I have a Captivate from AT&T running 2.2 version I897UCJI6
I really need more sound out of this phone. Are there any hacks or downloads that can boost the volume up. On my Windows phone I have SRS Wow and it does a great job. I can hear my phone across the office. I want it for music without head phones. If anyone could help me out here I would really appreciate it. I am really not worried to much about battery drain, my phone is plugged in a lot. I am on the go a lot and speakers are not really handy. Can I do a hack on the sound. the speaker on the phone is OK, just no volume, I use the blue tooth in my car and speakers at home, but I am really looking to go outside these boundaries.
Get some speakers. PC 2.1 speakers, MP3 player speakers, bluetooth speakers, anything will work. Mine's connected to the PC line-in and sounds wonderful but also through the desk dock with a new kernel that adds USB audio-out support. It works great.
Galaxy Tuner in the Market. Voodoo sound and the Voodoo app make a big difference as well.
Does anyone know where to source such a beast?
In case it's not clear, what I want is a cable with a 3.5mm jack on one end - which you plug into the phone - and a 3.5mm socket on the other end - into which you plug your own headphones. In the middle, a mic, call answer button, and music control buttons.
I would've thought such a thing would be trivial to find, but it's not. For me, anyway. No matter what I put into eBay I can't find one that says it'll work for Android / our phone - I can find ones for the iPhone, but I don't know if they'd work on the Doubleshot / Android.
Anyone? thanks! I do *not* want a full headset with its own earphones - I have much better ones of my own I want to use.
You could try searching up an aux cable + mic for cars (eg. that Griffin one)
and combine it with a 3.5mm stereo female to female adapter
I guess that would work...it'd be nice to have something a bit less cumbersome, though. Thanks for the idea though!
The video cable I use for tv-out is an iPod video cable - if that helps.
thanks, blue - the thing I'm worried about is the music controls; I don't think Android and iPhone use the same system for those. Note that Klipsch make two different versions of their s4 headset, one for iPhone and one for Android - if both used the same controls then presumably there'd be no reason to do that...
I would take a lok at the Motorola S805, its a big earmuff dj style bluetooth that has playback controls on it.
Via bluetooth I can confirm it can play, pause, volume, next track and previous track controls. It also has a 3.5mm stereo jack in case you dont want to deal with bluetooh, but I dont actually have a 3.5mm cable to test it out on.
AdamWill said:
thanks, blue - the thing I'm worried about is the music controls; I don't think Android and iPhone use the same system for those. Note that Klipsch make two different versions of their s4 headset, one for iPhone and one for Android - if both used the same controls then presumably there'd be no reason to do that...
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That's probably good thinking - i'll confess I have no clue how iOS handles anything. If you find out for sure one way or the other please let us know back here.
Good luck!
Elister: yeah, bt is one obvious option - I actually have a bt adapter, and bt music controls are standardized (it's one of the official bt profiles) so you can more or less rely on them working. But the drawbacks are that bt audio reduces quality somewhat, bt link is never as reliable as a cable, and you have extra battery drain on the phone and the bt adapter's battery to charge...just more fiddling around :/
On my tablet I always get a slight static hiss/background noise during and a couple seconds after the tablet plays any sound.
This seems very odd to me since it's not affected by how loud the volume is (as long as sound is on, not at 0).
I don't have this on any other outputs (HDMI/BT/USB OTG/build-in speakers, all fine)
Every headset/speaker I use outputs this from cheapo Samsung in-ears to a quite expensive 2.1 setup.
I'm used to having a bit of noise at the highest volume levels (which for ex. my Note 3 has) and consider this normal.
But this is very annoying, especially when navigating the UI as I always have to endure this hiss for a couple of seconds.
I'm not sure if it's a hard or software issue, since normally static hiss always occured to me on lower-end devices with higher volume, and if it were a software issue should it not also do this on all outputs (including digital).
I haven't come across anyone with a similar issue.
Yep, this happens for me as well on my LTE version. It also happened on the Nexus 7 2013. The noise is from interference from the other board components in close proximity to the audio chip.
jaredmorgs said:
Yep, this happens for me as well on my LTE version. It also happened on the Nexus 7 2013. The noise is from interference from the other board components in close proximity to the audio chip.
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Yes, I also have the LTE version.
Bleh, that's no fun and really annoying. I have never had anything from a reputable brand do this.
The next test would be to see if it does it through USB Audio or Bluetooth Audio. I have a Microsoft LifeChat 3000 headset that I have successfully connected to the tablet, which doesn't seem to have the hiss. It could be due to the impedance of the speakers of this headphone compared with my Shure SE425 IEMs that I notice it more. I also use Tri-flange tips on my IEMs which makes everything more pronounced.
jaredmorgs said:
The next test would be to see if it does it through USB Audio or Bluetooth Audio. I have a Microsoft LifeChat 3000 headset that I have successfully connected to the tablet, which doesn't seem to have the hiss. It could be due to the impedance of the speakers of this headphone compared with my Shure SE425 IEMs that I notice it more. I also use Tri-flange tips on my IEMs which makes everything more pronounced.
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I did, My USB headset doesn't have this issue (plugged into the shield with a USB OTG cable), my 3.5 mm headphones and cheapo IEMs don't have the issue when plugged into a Sony SBH50 connected to the Shield (via Bluetooth), but they do have the issue when directly plugged into the Shield. Meh.
So that proves that it is the shielding on the 3.5mm jack.
Unfortunately, that's case closed. If it's any consolation, you get used to it after a while.
An update:
I tested with my PC's line-in input, and when I put it in any 24bit mode sound is crystal clear 24/7, I don't get any issues.
mic-in sounds garbage but that's to be expected (I can hear the tablet's internals cause distortion all the time.), it also doesn't always get detected by the tablet.
Is this of the lower impedance that the static noise gets filtered out? I'm not an audio expert.
Hey all, just looking for any input on a USB-C to Headphone adapter/DAC. Wanting something slim or inline for travel. Quite a few options on Amazon ranging from $5-$50, but looking to everyone here for any input with real life experiences. I prefer wired headphones/buds over Bluetooth when traveling.
Under $50 will be the Fiio KA1 or Periodic audio rhodium. If you only want Amazon.
There are lots more good/better options in Ali for under $50.
Thanks. Only looked briefly at Amazon, dont know why I didnt consider checking out Fiio. I have an older, bigger, DAC from them for my HD600's.
I have the ka3 I'm using on my PC and it's amazing.
slugger410ft said:
Hey all, just looking for any input on a USB-C to Headphone adapter/DAC. Wanting something slim or inline for travel. Quite a few options on Amazon ranging from $5-$50, but looking to everyone here for any input with real life experiences. I prefer wired headphones/buds over Bluetooth when traveling.
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Following as I've gone through 3 adapters and each works at first but then get loose in where it connects to the phone and the audio pauses.
mariojohn said:
Following as I've gone through 3 adapters and each works at first but then get loose in where it connects to the phone and the audio pauses.
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I ran into this on my 6t eventually and hand to put a new usb-c port in. I'm not a fan of an all-in-one port for this reason. But I also understand that a headphone jack can only get to be so small/thin...
Weird, never had an issue with any usb c port wearing out
Lots of people swear by the Apple USB C to 3.5mm adapter, and I can confirm it works great. People say that it's the best overall mobile (or even desktop) DAC until at least $100
Depends on the source and headphones (or speakers) you're playing through. The apple dongle won't be a bottleneck for low to mid quality source and phones but if you use high quality either I would get something nicer.
Apple does a great job with the low end chip in that dongle but there are much newer, better dac chips out there now.
Entry class USB DAC's (under $80 or so) usually adopt an interface chip communicating with the adaptive mode or the synchronous one defined in the USB audio standard. As in these modes an Android host controller sends audio sampling rate clock signals to the DAC, jitter generated at the host side affects the audio quality of the DAC tremendously.
Higher class DAC's communicate with the asynchronous mode (also defined in the standard) to a host controller, but they actually use a PLL to reduce jitter from the host not to stutter even in heavy jitter situations. As this result, they behave as the adaptive mode with a feedback loop to dynamically adjust the host side sampling clock signals while referring a DAC side clock in a real sense, so even with the asynchronous mode they are more or less affected by host side jitter.
You can see the mode of your USB DAC with root permission by opening "/proc/asound/card1/stream0" on your phone while playing music. See a word in parentheses at "Endpoint:" lines; "SYNC", "ADAPTIVE" or "ASYNC" means that your DAC uses "synchronous", "adaptive" or "asynchronous" mode to communicate to your phone, respectively.
If you like Magisk mod's for reducing jitter, see Audio Jitter Silencer and Audio Misc. Settings.
ctfrommn said:
Depends on the source and headphones (or speakers) you're playing through. The apple dongle won't be a bottleneck for low to mid quality source and phones but if you use high quality either I would get something nicer.
Apple does a great job with the low end chip in that dongle but there are much newer, better dac chips out there now.
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Well I got the FIIO KA1 as an early b'day present over Labor Day weekend. I usually just use buds for everyday listening, but my HD600's definitely sound better with this device. Buds sound better too. Definitely a better bass response, but not over done, and the highs are crisper as well. Not mad at all for the $50 and it's definitely portable.