Database Info

Buzzing/Humming Sound

Hey All -
I ran a quick search and didn't find this problem. I wanted to document it for posterity.
My phone makes a buzzing sound. I've seen it in every ROM I've tried so far (seems to be a hardware problem).
The sound is faint, is unaffected by media volume, and goes away when wifi is turned off. The phone appears to shut off the sound hardware when sound hasn't been played for a while in order to save battery. This makes the buzzing stop. But if a notification comes in, or there is a quiet part of a song, you can totally hear it.
It exists regardless of the ROM I have installed.
The sound is like what you'd hear in an older computer with something called crosstalk. Back in the day, (and to an extent still), various components in the hardware would generate EMI and would affect the sound quality in sound cards. For example, I had an Adlib card that would buzz a little every time the hard drive would read/write to disk.
This sounds just like that.
Anyway... just vote in the poll/comment if you're having this problem. Please post to the thread if you have a solution. I'm not expecting much though. I'm pretty sure I'd basically need a new phone for this to go away.

I get a very slight buzzing in my phones, completely unaffected by wifi. Only happens with my CX300 in-ears, any open earphones i havn't heard any noticable buzzing (though have no tried any type of headphones yet). Using Voodoo sound, lowering the amplifier dB gain and putting the media volume up reduces it a touch.
I grabbed a pair of iphone earphones and the nexus s earphones to test it with some more types, no noticeable buzzing. Also, both their sound quality is appalling in comparison to cheap sennheisers.

Yeah, that's different than me. It sounds like your CX300s might be dying.
I've got some Klipsch S4i ear buds and Bose QC3s that both have the same problem. Its loud and clear enough though that I'm sure I could hear it with cheaper headphones.
I can turn the volume all the way to zero and still hear it. When I turn it up, it doesn't make it louder though, which is "nice".
I've been all over the voodoo sound settings and nothing helps.

That's a shame, your phone probably suffers a noticeable case of leakage between the components. Could this possibly be classified as a defect and be fixed/replaced under warranty?
Also, my CX300s have no hiss on a higher quality dac and it was noticeably louder on my old nokia. I guess they're just more sensitive, they are only 16 ohm after all. No drama for me

It might qualify as a defect. I'd have to bug Samsung I guess. I could see Samsung just telling me to deal with it. It doesn't make a lot of business sense to replace a $500 phone because the headphones hiss when wifi is enabled.
It would sure make me a lot happier about buying Samsung stuff in the future though.
That's really weird about your headphones. Unless the audio quality on the CX300s is far superior over the iphone/nexus s ones, I would expect them all to behave the same way. Even then, it would be very subtle. Maybe the Nexus S doesn't ground the headphone jack very well for your headphones?

You could give them a call/email and see how it works out, but you'll probably be left without a phone for a few weeks if you send it so probably not worth it for you either.
Definitely far superior in comparison, but not nearly superior earphones Possibly a grounding issue, could even be just an unlucky set of Sennheisers that i got and have always been like this. They are out and about anyway, take a good beating and have been rock solid. Hopefully soon i'll be getting a decent pair of headphones for home use, funds allowing.

My laptop does the same thing, I'm thinking it is just interference with the headphones and your phone. might also be a lose wire or something in the phone or headphones :/

I know that this is old tread, but I had the same problem and solution might help someone.
In my case, the source of the buzz was charger (poor power supply filtering in cheap switching sources). I bought some cheap car charger/dock, and whenever I plugged my phone into it I would get lots of buzzing noise. Of course, I used it every time when in car, so I did not notice correlation for a while.
Using better charger solved my problem.
If by any chance you are charging your phone while you listening to music and getting lots of buzz, try disconnecting power cable to phone and see if there is noticeable difference. If there is, you found your problem.

Thanks for letting us know grejigl. Although not the source of my particular (non) issue, i can see it helping out someone else down the road.

I'm running on battery power when it happens to me. I'm pretty sure its caused by something related to WiFi because as soon as I shut WiFi off, the buzzing is gone.

How to increase volume without volume+ or rooting

For those looking to crank a bit more volume out of the stock setup, here is an easy way, that requires no additional apps or rooting (some apps claim to work without root, but other than Volume + they are a mixed bag, with varying degrees of performance. Some plain just don't work.
Start Google Play Music App. Begin playing something you know well. Choose the menu from the top right (3 stacked blocks), and select Equalizer. Either drop the selection down to "custom" or just start raising the bands. Raise them most or all the way to the top. A "bigger" sound can be achieved with a classic "V shape (boosting the low and high frequencies, and leaving the center, 1000hz at or below midway)
Oh, then hit the "On" switch in top left corner. You will be AMAZED at the difference in sound, if you toggle it off and on a bit while playing music.
This is technically not the loudest, that can be achieved by pegging all bands to the top, but the mid-frequencies tend to sound "tinny" or "Like a small or cheap speaker" to most folks ears. By reducing it, and boosting the bottom and top frequencies you get a nicely boosted sound, though somewhat colored (an audiophile is not likely to be wowed by this type of spectrum boost, but, depending on the source material most folks like this, as it's comparable to what a "loudness" button does, and with the Infinities VERY small speakers. Yes there are 2 in there, and they are stereo, though how Asus expected to get ANY separation or any type of "sound stage" through a 1.5" x .5 " grill remains a mystery, even if they did apply some delay, echo or reverb, which I do not believe they did.
Some swear by Volume+ and I had good experiences with it on my Prime, but when something in my setup caused both Volume+. Musicfx (the built in Equalizer I just described tuning) and settings to crash every time I used it, I decided to see what I could do without it. I am quite happy wiith the boost that musicfx provides

speakers problem
Hi.
I have a problem with my speakes, from few days. I don't know if was app that change the sound because now the sound is like an old radio. I changed the equalizer, but nothing happened.
Could you help me? Anyone have the same problem?

spaker off
dnoguera said:
Hi.
I have a problem with my speakes, from few days. I don't know if it was app that change the sound because now the sound is like an old radio. I changed the equalizer, but nothing happened.
Could you help me? Anyone have the same problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I discovered today that the problem was one speaker defected. At the end of the day this speaker off. Now my music is in mono.
Anyone knows how to turn on again this speaker, any solution??

dnoguera said:
Hi, I discovered today that the problem was one speaker defected. At the end of the day this speaker off. Now my music is in mono.
Anyone knows how to turn on again this speaker, any solution??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a feeling that you aren't speaking of the Asus TF700T Infinity.
Are you having a problem with plug-in speakers or bluetooth speakers?
The Infinity has but one single speaker.
Is the speaker inside the Infinity working?

one of my speakers turn off
Thats OK said:
Ive a feel that you aren't speaking of the Asus TF700T Infinity.
Are you having a problem with plug-in speakers or bluetooth speakers?
The Infinity has but one single speaker.
Is the speaker inside the Infinity working?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
Yes I'm talking about TF700T infinity
No problem with the plug in.
The TF700T has two speakers in the same place. One of them turn off.
I know that because my music sound in mono insted stereo.

dnoguera said:
Hi
Yes I'm talking about TF700T infinity
No problem with the plug in.
The TF700T has two speakers in the same place. One of them turn off.
I know that because my music sound in mono insted stereo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry,
Don't know what to tell you.
Sounds like a manufacturing defect.
Apologies to the OP for the thread hijack...

Thats OK said:
Sorry,
Don't know what to tell you.
Sounds like a manufacturing defect.
Apologies for the thread hijack Mr. SmartAs$Phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right buddy!
Any solution?

Doesn't work globally (for me at least)
There's only one problem, from what I can see this only boosts sound via the app itself or perhaps music. I fired up a game to test this and the levels were the same as before.
The global solutions is to use the app: equilizer and do the same thing (I raise all sliders to the top). I used this on my HTC until I found a way to get volume+ to work on that.
Volume+ however, isn't compatible with JB but in any case there is a limit to how much you SHOULD risk bumping up your volume. I already get a little distortion using equilizer on the louder audio files I have, the limitation is going to be the speakers installed which can be damaged.
Unfortunately as with so many Android devices sound quality isn't a priority with manufacturers which amazes me particularly on both the HTC (targeted to audio users with a phone barely adequate in stand alone volume level / quality) and the TF700 which is a flagship tablet with price to match.

louiscar said:
There's only one problem, from what I can see this only boosts sound via the app itself or perhaps music. I fired up a game to test this and the levels were the same as before.
The global solutions is to use the app: equilizer and do the same thing (I raise all sliders to the top). I used this on my HTC until I found a way to get volume+ to work on that.
Volume+ however, isn't compatible with JB but in any case there is a limit to how much you SHOULD risk bumping up your volume. I already get a little distortion using equilizer on the louder audio files I have, the limitation is going to be the speakers installed which can be damaged.
Unfortunately as with so many Android devices sound quality isn't a priority with manufacturers which amazes me particularly on both the HTC (targeted to audio users with a phone barely adequate in stand alone volume level / quality) and the TF700 which is a flagship tablet with price to match.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oki doki
Thanks buddy!

You're welcome...or thank you again!

SmartAs$Phone said:
For those looking to crank a bit more volume impossible. stock setup, here is an easy way, that requires no additional apps or rooting (some apps claim to work without root, but other than Volume + they. tommixed bag, with varying degBluetooth
erformance. Some plain just don't work.
Start Google Play Music App. Begin playing something you know well. Choose the menu from the top right (3 stacked blocks), and select Equalizer. Either drop the selection down to "custom" or just start raising the bands. Raise them most or all the way to the top. A "bigger" sound can be achieved with a classic "V shape (boosting the low and high frequencies, and leaving the center, 1000hz at or below midway)
Oh, then hit the "On" switch in top left corner. You will be AMAZED at the difference in sound, if you toggle it off and on a bit while playing music.
This is technically not the loudest, that can be achieved by pegging all bands to the top, but the mid-frequencies tend to sound "tinny" or "Like a small or cheap speaker" to most folks ears. By reducing it, and boosting the bottom and top frequencies you get a nicely boosted sound, though somewhat colored (an audiophile is not likely to be wowed by this type of spectrum boost, but, depending on the source material most folks like this, as it's comparable to what a "loudness" button does, and with the Infinities VERY small speakers. Yes there are 2 in there, and they are stereo, though how Asus expected to get ANY separation or any type of "sound stage" through a 1.5" x .5 " grill remains a mystery, even if they did apply some delay, echo or reverb, which I do not believe they did.
Some swear by Volume+ and I had good experiences with it on my Prime, but when something in my setup caused both Volume+. Musicfx (the built in Equalizer I just described tuning) and settings to crash every time I used it, I decided to see what I could do without it. I am quite happy wiith the boost that musicfx provides
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trying to respond to this using the Infinity and Dolphin browser is almost impossible. No hitting spacebar twice to end a sentence. Messes everything up big time!! It has a real hard time dealing with the code i guess. Might be a good time to try another browser.

Low volume on Surface

I noticed that even though the volume is all the way up its still pretty low comparing previous tablets I owned .is Anyone experiencing the same issue or is my tablet defective ?? does anyone know know if there is a booster or a tweak that can make this tablet louder

Romcrazguy said:
I noticed that even though the volume is all the way up its still pretty low comparing previous tablets I owned .is Anyone experiencing the same issue or is my tablet defective ?? does anyone know know if there is a booster or a tweak that can make this tablet louder
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have you tried to go into Settings/Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/Sound/ double tap/click on speakers under playback, click on enhancement tab and then check the loudness equalization. This helped here.
cheers
here is the post with original instructions:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1970464
check point 14

Your tablet is not defective..I have the same issue and so do a lot of other people. There is a thread that remedies this issue somewhere on this forum, I think. Haven't attempted it yet.
Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express

derausgewanderte said:
have you tried to go into Settings/Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/Sound/ double tap/click on speakers under playback, click on enhancement tab and then check the loudness equalization. This helped here.
cheers
here is the post with original instructions:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1970464
check point 14
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those tweaks do help, but only a little. It also helps, a little, to have the kickstand out & the device standing up w/ the screen facing away from you (unless you're watching a movie, of course) - the speakers are angled back, so if the keyboard is folded behind the unit, it muffles them somewhat.
But even then, the speakers aren't loud enough to listen to, say, a podcast in a moving car, or music in a room that's not silent.
They're adequate for notifications and game sfx, but for actual media consumption I use external speakers or headphones, always.

Simple hack
Romcrazguy said:
I noticed that even though the volume is all the way up its still pretty low comparing previous tablets I owned .is Anyone experiencing the same issue or is my tablet defective ?? does anyone know know if there is a booster or a tweak that can make this tablet louder
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My simple hack is to cup my hands on either side just behind the speakers. This will make the sound bounce off your hand and towards you instead of away from you and you get the full stereo experience.
Why oh why Panos did you go through the trouble of including stereo speakers (which none of the other tablets have) but have to screw up the loudness and the angling away of the speakers?

Headphone output is incredibly disappointing

The entire audio experience with anything plugged in to the headphone jack is really poor. I immediately noticed a difference in quality as compared to my old LG V10 (even without the Hi-Fi DAC on the V10 enabled). Everything sounded muddy, with a lack of treble. I messed around with the equalizer and got really strange results. Adding treble or bass actually lowered the volume significantly. I tried the "Adapt Sound" feature, and it helped slightly, but I've recently noticed what I consider the weirdest part of the experience. The last 2 clicks of volume (the highest two settings) have significantly less treble than anywhere else in the volume range. This was the source of the muddiness I had been experiencing (the amp is weak enough that the top two volume settings are what I would consider to be normal listening volume). If you listen carefully, you can actually hear certain parts of the sound (bass, vocals, treble, depending on the song) will stay at exactly the same volume while others will increase with the volume slider.
I don't know if this is a software thing (horrible EQ coding), or a hardware thing (the amp is so poor that they have to limit the overall power when you increase the treble or bass). Either way, I've never experienced this before in any other phone I've ever had.
I listen to a lot of music via headphones or aux cable on my phone, so this is a really disappointing discovery for me. Looks like I'll be bringing my headphone amp with me, even for use with headphones that really shouldn't need it (60 ohms). There is a range of volume where things sound acceptable, but it's crazy to me that I need an external device to control the volume because things get so crazy when I control it with the phone.

Then go back to the V10?

Brava27 said:
Then go back to the V10?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't posting this to bash the phone. There are lots of things I like better about the S7E than the V10. I just wanted to post this in case it was important to someone else deciding whether or not to choose this phone. It's not a deal breaker for me. In fact, I still haven't turned my V10 in (T-Mobile Jump on Demand), so I could easily still keep it. But I'm not going to.

Brava27 said:
Then go back to the V10?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Calm down, he's found an issue and is looking to see if anybody else is having the same issue. I see nothing wrong with that.
---------- Post added at 01:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 PM ----------
dodgeboy said:
The entire audio experience with anything plugged in to the headphone jack is really poor. I immediately noticed a difference in quality as compared to my old LG V10 (even without the Hi-Fi DAC on the V10 enabled). Everything sounded muddy, with a lack of treble. I messed around with the equalizer and got really strange results. Adding treble or bass actually lowered the volume significantly. I tried the "Adapt Sound" feature, and it helped slightly, but I've recently noticed what I consider the weirdest part of the experience. The last 2 clicks of volume (the highest two settings) have significantly less treble than anywhere else in the volume range. This was the source of the muddiness I had been experiencing (the amp is weak enough that the top two volume settings are what I would consider to be normal listening volume). If you listen carefully, you can actually hear certain parts of the sound (bass, vocals, treble, depending on the song) will stay at exactly the same volume while others will increase with the volume slider.
I don't know if this is a software thing (horrible EQ coding), or a hardware thing (the amp is so poor that they have to limit the overall power when you increase the treble or bass). Either way, I've never experienced this before in any other phone I've ever had.
I listen to a lot of music via headphones or aux cable on my phone, so this is a really disappointing discovery for me. Looks like I'll be bringing my headphone amp with me, even for use with headphones that really shouldn't need it (60 ohms). There is a range of volume where things sound acceptable, but it's crazy to me that I need an external device to control the volume because things get so crazy when I control it with the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not noticed this myself but I'm not as big with my music (through my headphones) as some people. I listen through my bluetooth speaker and rarely through headphones so when I do I wouldn't really notice anything like this.

Are the DAC`s the same in both SD820 and Exynos variants? exynos have always had the Wolfson DAC in reasent galaxys which is awsome!

I think there are different DAC's. The Exynos uses one from the company that used to provide the Wolfson chip. So it could be the same/similar one or another model. I think so far nobody knows for sure. The SD820 uses a different DAC.

does everybody have the EQ in sound settings?

johanbiff said:
does everybody have the EQ in sound settings?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes but it sucks. If you raise the treble it will lower bass/mids etc. Really crappy EQ totally unusable for music lovers.
Though I find my Harman Kardon CL headphones sounds fine. Not as fine as in my Huawei Mate 8 perhaps but good enough.

dodgeboy said:
The entire audio experience with anything plugged in to the headphone jack is really poor. I immediately noticed a difference in quality as compared to my old LG V10 (even without the Hi-Fi DAC on the V10 enabled). Everything sounded muddy, with a lack of treble. I messed around with the equalizer and got really strange results. Adding treble or bass actually lowered the volume significantly. I tried the "Adapt Sound" feature, and it helped slightly, but I've recently noticed what I consider the weirdest part of the experience. The last 2 clicks of volume (the highest two settings) have significantly less treble than anywhere else in the volume range. This was the source of the muddiness I had been experiencing (the amp is weak enough that the top two volume settings are what I would consider to be normal listening volume). If you listen carefully, you can actually hear certain parts of the sound (bass, vocals, treble, depending on the song) will stay at exactly the same volume while others will increase with the volume slider.
I don't know if this is a software thing (horrible EQ coding), or a hardware thing (the amp is so poor that they have to limit the overall power when you increase the treble or bass). Either way, I've never experienced this before in any other phone I've ever had.
I listen to a lot of music via headphones or aux cable on my phone, so this is a really disappointing discovery for me. Looks like I'll be bringing my headphone amp with me, even for use with headphones that really shouldn't need it (60 ohms). There is a range of volume where things sound acceptable, but it's crazy to me that I need an external device to control the volume because things get so crazy when I control it with the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me guess, you are using a Snapdragon 820 variant ? The Qualcomm DAC (which is used on these devices) is being known for being average (at best, if not mediocre), every Samsung device sporting a Qualcomm chipset has been known to feature a poor DAC, it is sad that Qualcomm does not care much about improving its performances in the sound department. You would have had better luck with the Exynos variant of the S7 in that regard.

I thought this was just me. Glad to see others are noticing this as well. I agree that upping the EQ doesn't change the volume at all. Furthermore, adding bass doesn't isolate the bass, it just sounds like the entire song is played through a tube. Every adjustment seems to touch the entire sound profile as a whole rather than just targeting the specific frequencies shown in the equilizer.
I've gotten too used to AudioFX on my Oneplus One, where I could really crank the bass while keeping the clarity of the highs and mids.

dannejanne said:
Yes but it sucks. If you raise the treble it will lower bass/mids etc. Really crappy EQ totally unusable for music lovers.
Though I find my Harman Kardon CL headphones sounds fine. Not as fine as in my Huawei Mate 8 perhaps but good enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you use the presets or custom?

johanbiff said:
Do you use the presets or custom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't change anything I use stock neutral settings.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

I normally don't use Bluetooth audio but I did notice a huge decline in audio quality from my Galaxy Note 5. Bluetooth audio playing to my Denon x4100W on B&W CM6S2s and Hsu VTF3-Mk5 sub from my S7E is very flat, almost monotone. I would say the Galaxy Note 5 BT audio was acceptable. I'll need to do some more fiddling around with the S7E to see if I can improve the sound.

doggiedog said:
I normally don't use Bluetooth audio but I did notice a huge decline in audio quality from my Galaxy Note 5. Bluetooth audio playing to my Denon x4100W on B&W CM6S2s and Hsu VTF3-Mk5 sub from my S7E is very flat, almost monotone. I would say the Galaxy Note 5 BT audio was acceptable. I'll need to do some more fiddling around with the S7E to see if I can improve the sound.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just can't seem to get the EQ to change individual frequencies, it seems to move the whole soundstage. Tuning the bass has an effect on every frequencies, at least for me.

I use Spotify, output over headphones is great. For some reason the same music sucks on Tidal, I have to crank the volume almost all the way instead of just halfway on Spotify so I'm rocking that instead. And with Tidal the quality isn't as good, I have no explanation.

jwhatts said:
I just can't seem to get the EQ to change individual frequencies, it seems to move the whole soundstage. Tuning the bass has an effect on every frequencies, at least for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Root + Viper4Android is the way to go if you want a proper EQ.

Yeah the sound isn't as good as I was hoping for but I can live with it.

Exynos S7 Edge here and after doing a quick comparison to my iPod Touch 5th Gen, comparing its audio quality and amp volume through my Bose AE headphones, they sound the same quality wise, but the iPod can go a slight but noticeably bit louder when both devices are at maximum volume. They sound the exact same to me quality wise when they are both at the same volume. I haven't done extensive testing though, just first impressions. I wouldn't be playing at maximum volume anyway though through headphones, even on the S7 Edge because its plenty loud enough for my needs.
It should be capable enough hooked up to a car stereo.

MDaveUK said:
Exynos S7 Edge here and after doing a quick comparison to my iPod Touch 5th Gen, comparing its audio quality and amp volume through my Bose AE headphones, they sound the same quality wise, but the iPod can go a slight but noticeably bit louder when both devices are at maximum volume. They sound the exact same to me quality wise when they are both at the same volume. I haven't done extensive testing though, just first impressions. I wouldn't be playing at maximum volume anyway though through headphones, even on the S7 Edge because its plenty loud enough for my needs.
It should be capable enough hooked up to a car stereo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah im on exynos as well and I have no complians, sounds like my old S6 with wolfson DAC but with more volume.

johanbiff said:
Are the DAC`s the same in both SD820 and Exynos variants? exynos have always had the Wolfson DAC in reasent galaxys which is awsome!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really curious about this piece of info. Can you back it up?
I'm a huge audio enthusiast and it's a nice thing to hear.
Btw, was the wolfson DAC also available in the Exynos S5? (900h) I currently own this, as well as the Exynos s7 (couldn't test the audio so far) and wouldn't mind pairing the Exynos s5 with a headphone AMP and turn it into a dedicated media player.
THanks

Broken top speaker on Low frequencies.

Howdy...
For quite some time i had the feeling Music doesn't sound quite right on max volume.
So today i made the Test and it seems as if my top speaker is broken.
I've recorded the whole test so you can hear it too (put the volume to the max...) and you know how i've tested to see if i'm the only one or if this might even be a common mistake on the XZ2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3rFUuC7sQ
Reproducing: Use any Frequency test Video or app or whatever. Set the Volume at Max.
You can hear the top speaker crickling/flattering between 250 and 1100hz. Everything above that is clear.
If you reduce the Volume below 50% it's also clear.
Anyone has a Similar issue or am i alone with a broken speaker?

As a musician, I can tell you that driving a pure sine wave through any speaker for any length of time will damage and distort it
That being said, alot of speakers don't handle any sound at full volume very well...even crystal speakers / drivers on phones, you do get signal/music drop out, distortion as certain instruments and signals vie for superiority within the sound space..
If the music is fine at about 95% of full... Then that's normal... if it like that at 85% or lower, could be a faulty unit..
These are very small crystal drivers... and will, if constantly ramped up full will become distorted over time, due to the sheer stress on them of constantly being vibrated all day long very fast.. this is why, on phones it's best to take the volume to about 90% max... because theyll sound rubbish above that...
If it's bothering you though friend, I would, just warranty or return it if you can
Hope that helps ?