Galaxy s8+ Bluetooth audio quality issues - General Questions and Answers

Just switched from a Huawei Mate 9 to a Galaxy s8+ and noticed a bit of a difference in audio quality when streaming music from Google play music to my car over Bluetooth.
Even with play music set to stream the highest possible quality all the time, it still sounds compressed/noisy at higher volume. I thought it might be due to the phone's volume slider going past 100% but even with it turned down to half way and making the car do all the amplifying, it sounds the same. I looked in Samsung's audio settings and the equalizer/sounds profiles all look neutral.
The Bluetooth connection on this phone seems Rock solid and I love the ability to switch from one audio device to another straight from the notifications.
Just think I could be getting a little more from it in the audio quality department. Maybe I'm missing something...
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Related

Getting the most out of my phone as a media player

My i9000 is my source for tunes on the go, usually its synced to my handsfree box in my car and transmitted over the radio. Its much louder now, but when I used to run it with the aux cord, it was considerably more quiet than a cd playing for example.
The base android player suits my needs fine, but I'm wondering are there any advantages I stand to gain in playback quality/volume in switching to another player, winamp for example? If there was a mediamonkey player for android I'm sure I'd have it long ago but it currently doesn't exist, which I find somewhat surprising.
I'd just like some input on this and just playing music on my phone in general, thanks.
I recommed that you take a look at PowerAMP. I'm linking to the trial (it's fully functional for 2 weeks i think).
The next one is Player Pro. This one is also very good, and has an EQ and everything you'd like to have. PowerAMP has all these features too.
If you like the Zune interface you'll love Uber Music. It doesn't have all the fancy features, but it's easy to use and is quite unique.
codo27 said:
My i9000 is my source for tunes on the go, usually its synced to my handsfree box in my car and transmitted over the radio. Its much louder now, but when I used to run it with the aux cord, it was considerably more quiet than a cd playing for example.
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Click to collapse
Hi, I'm just guessing that you used the headphones out as aux? In that case you get a really poor audio out signal. Headphones voltages does not match those for signals very good. You can however get a headphones amp cheap to bolster the signal. I recommend a cmoy one, they are very cheap and have excellent sound capabilities. Mine is from jds-labs. Good luck
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
I have both power amp and player pro queued for my galaxy s, I dont mind paying $5 if theres a substantial increase, I like the fact that they download album art automatically. Like I said, the main thing I'm looking for is an increase in playback quality, so I'll see how both of these sound.
I've never heard of this headphone amp stuff before, I use the hands free box in my car now rather than aux, but I'll keep that in mind if I ever start using it the old way again.

[Q] Bluetooth Audio Streaming - Crackling

It seems that the Nexus 5 still has the annoying crackling sound that was introduced in 4.2. I was really hoping that they would have fixed this by now. I found this solution thread which is for the Galaxy Nexus but I'm not even sure if it would work on the Nexus 5. Can anyone else confirm that they are getting some crackling on the mid-tones when streaming through bluetooth. -Ryan
Introduced in 4.2? This **** has been the cornerstone of bluetooth music since it's inception. I've had crackling, low quality treble, overly compressed audio out of every bluetooth device I've ever used:
1. Several Android phones going all the way back to the HTC EVO 4G.
2. Macbooks.
3. iPads
4. aptX adapters
Simply put, bluetooth audio is terrible. If you expect anything more than bare minimum (usually good for voice), you shouldn't be using bluetooth.
I don't have any problem streaming over bluetooth. I have a bluetooth to aux jack adapter.
Sent from the jaws of my Hammerhead!
Interesting link you've posted. I've actually found that I'm getting a little bit cleaner sound with this phone compared to my Evo LTE. I'm using Google Music with Viper4Android sound mod. In my car I've always had an issue with the extreme high end frequencies crackling on "s" words or cymbals and using have to cut down drastically anything above 14k. I haven't had to do that since getting the phone on Friday. Still I'll probably fiddle with the file swaps as I'm always looking for better sound.
Edit: No go for me. Kept getting a music playback error.
I'm having the same problem after 4.2 update. I was using Galaxy Nexus back then. Now my new Nexus 5 is having the same problem. I'm now considering getting one of those bluetooth to aux adapter even though my car has bluetooth built-in =(

Anyone have Bluetooth distortion issues??

Hey everyone,
Found out my company is ditching Sprint for Verizon which means I have to part with my beloved Nexus 5.
Anyway, from what I've been reading on here it seems like the M8 is really the only Verizon phone that can be rooted. I've had a few HTC phones over the years, including the M7, but they never seem to get along with my car's stereo. The phone part works fine but when I stream music via Bluetooth there is always a great deal of distortion in the high end. Especially on cymbal crashes. This makes it pretty much unlistenable. I'm curious if anyone has experienced anything like with with the M8? I've Googled it a few times and found threads about the One X and One M7 having this problem but have yet to see anything about the M8.
I don't stream to my car often, but on the handful of times I have, I didn't notice any sound issues. This was using Pandora and Google Music, on a Ford (2008 model).
sfreemanoh said:
I don't stream to my car often, but on the handful of times I have, I didn't notice any sound issues. This was using Pandora and Google Music, on a Ford (2008 model).
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the info!
Just got my jaybird x's today and guess what. Filled with static. I could not be more annoyed with this particular phone right now. Three defects in one model I mean come on. Speaker crackle. Screen is creased and looks like you're pressing down on a TV and now Bluetooth has static
Sent from Tapatalk on my one m8
I can't say for certain, but I imagine bluetooth audio issues would most likely be due to whatever is actually playing the music, not the phone. Bluetooth audio, in general, is terrible - unless you're using something like the HTC Stereoclip which does not use that same audio codec that just about everything else does. You could have lossless flac files on your phone, and 9/10 times it's gonna sound like crap over bluetooth, no matter what the music is being sent from.
I stream daily over Bluetooth and it sounds amazing. Vzw.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW
Just plugged mine into my aftermarket JVC GPS stereo on a my truck which gets only occasional use these days. Have to say I was somewhat blown away when I pushed some Comfortably Numb into the 5 speakers (Inc sub) and cranked up the volume. Most impressive...
The wife gets terrific sound from her N7 to some small bluetooth speakers we got last year and has no issues unless she's using TuneIn at which point it goes from OK to awful.
I say this to simply point out that the invariable rule of YMMV seems to hold sway here but I don't think the M8 has any generic systematic failure with bluetooth audio.
Sent by Tapatalk Pro running my rooted Big Red HTC One M8
wtoj34 said:
Just got my jaybird x's today and guess what. Filled with static. I could not be more annoyed with this particular phone right now. Three defects in one model I mean come on. Speaker crackle. Screen is creased and looks like you're pressing down on a TV and now Bluetooth has static
Sent from Tapatalk on my one m8
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Click to collapse
Hmmm... thats not what I want to hear.
brandogg said:
I can't say for certain, but I imagine bluetooth audio issues would most likely be due to whatever is actually playing the music, not the phone. Bluetooth audio, in general, is terrible - unless you're using something like the HTC Stereoclip which does not use that same audio codec that just about everything else does. You could have lossless flac files on your phone, and 9/10 times it's gonna sound like crap over bluetooth, no matter what the music is being sent from.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is true. But I'm talking hiss/distortion like a speaker is blown. I'm just streaming Spotify to my cars stereo and not expecting flawless audio but the issues I have with the M7 were unlistenable.
1ManWolfePack said:
I stream daily over Bluetooth and it sounds amazing. Vzw.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks!
Not Enough Coffee said:
Just plugged mine into my aftermarket JVC GPS stereo on a my truck which gets only occasional use these days. Have to say I was somewhat blown away when I pushed some Comfortably Numb into the 5 speakers (Inc sub) and cranked up the volume. Most impressive...
The wife gets terrific sound from her N7 to some small bluetooth speakers we got last year and has no issues unless she's using TuneIn at which point it goes from OK to awful.
I say this to simply point out that the invariable rule of YMMV seems to hold sway here but I don't think the M8 has any generic systematic failure with bluetooth audio.
Sent by Tapatalk Pro running my rooted Big Red HTC One M8
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Click to collapse
Thanks!
From what I understand, it has something to do with HTC setting the bitpool value too low. Which, in itself, might not be a big deal but it might just be a issue with that value combined with my car's stereo. I just don't want to lose root when I move to Verizon.
brandogg said:
I can't say for certain, but I imagine bluetooth audio issues would most likely be due to whatever is actually playing the music, not the phone. Bluetooth audio, in general, is terrible - unless you're using something like the HTC Stereoclip which does not use that same audio codec that just about everything else does. You could have lossless flac files on your phone, and 9/10 times it's gonna sound like crap over bluetooth, no matter what the music is being sent from.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe the stereo in your car just sucks? Streaming Pandora over BT in my car usually sounds great. I mean granted it's not as good as using headphones, but it sounds pretty damn good.
Also, I streamed some more over this last weekend, and while the quality was still good, it did disconnect once for no apparent reason. And once it happened, I remembered that it happened a few weeks ago as well. Same thing, I was just driving along both times, and my BT just seemed to shut off. I turned BT back on, reconnected Sync (it's damned annoying how Sync never automatically reconnects), and it worked again for the rest of the weekend.
sfreemanoh said:
Maybe the stereo in your car just sucks? Streaming Pandora over BT in my car usually sounds great. I mean granted it's not as good as using headphones, but it sounds pretty damn good.
Also, I streamed some more over this last weekend, and while the quality was still good, it did disconnect once for no apparent reason. And once it happened, I remembered that it happened a few weeks ago as well. Same thing, I was just driving along both times, and my BT just seemed to shut off. I turned BT back on, reconnected Sync (it's damned annoying how Sync never automatically reconnects), and it worked again for the rest of the weekend.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the info.
I saw that an OTA for the M8 pushed out today (I think) that was supposed to fix some Bluetooth issues. I won't if the disconnects were addressed.
I'm M8 should be here on Monday. I really hope it works out OK. I don't want to send it back for an iPhone. :crying:
Another OTA? Has anyone else heard this? I am having a really rough time with bluetooth headset outgoing voice quality so some sort of fix would be awesome.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
If the phone volume is at max it will distort. When I turn the volume to max while streaming Bluetooth to my car stereo it sounds crackling and distorted. Turning volume down 2 clicks to about 85% on the phone fixes it
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
AustinML71 said:
Another OTA? Has anyone else heard this? I am having a really rough time with bluetooth headset outgoing voice quality so some sort of fix would be awesome.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Sorry, I should have checked the date. The thread is fromm the 18th. This is the one I was referring too.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2722817
Evocm7 said:
If the phone volume is at max it will distort. When I turn the volume to max while streaming Bluetooth to my car stereo it sounds crackling and distorted. Turning volume down 2 clicks to about 85% on the phone fixes it
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a volume thing. I've tried turning it down when I had the M7 and it sounded the same.
Evocm7 said:
If the phone volume is at max it will distort. When I turn the volume to max while streaming Bluetooth to my car stereo it sounds crackling and distorted. Turning volume down 2 clicks to about 85% on the phone fixes it
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, sorry, but it may just be your stereo. When Bluetooth streaming to my car I always have my phones media volume maxed and I control the listening volume via the car volume, and it sounds fine.
sfreemanoh said:
Again, sorry, but it may just be your stereo. When Bluetooth streaming to my car I always have my phones media volume maxed and I control the listening volume via the car volume, and it sounds fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have an aftermarket stereo? I've had 4 different head units on my car, all high end Sony and clarion and all had same thing with max volume all my previous 3 phones ( rezound, s4, and m8). Just curious if it's just aftermarket decks that have this issue which I really don't consider an issue. I prefer to have the volume lower on the source and let my deck and equalizer provide the output anyway.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
Evocm7 said:
Do you have an aftermarket stereo? I've had 4 different head units on my car, all high end Sony and clarion and all had same thing with max volume all my previous 3 phones ( rezound, s4, and m8). Just curious if it's just aftermarket decks that have this issue which I really don't consider an issue. I prefer to have the volume lower on the source and let my deck and equalizer provide the output anyway.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
No, it's a factory Ford stereo. If you know someone with a factory BT compatible stereo, maybe try pairing your phone to their car and see if streams with or without distortion?
I mean, it's possible your particular phone itself could be bad. I just don't think it's all M8's since I don't have a problem, and because I imagine we would have seen a lot more complaints.
For six months I have been playing music in my car with a one (M7) via Bluetooth, with very annoying vibrations that eventually damaged my car stereo. I just found out that if I launch the media app via the "HTC car" app, the volume is much louder and I don't have those vibrations anymore. By default the HTC car app in the M7 only includes the default "Music" app, but other media apps may be added.
Hope this may help for the M8 too.
By these vibrations detroyed my car stereo, and I had to change it. I am pretty annoyed that HTC doesn't mention this anywhere, and leaves it to the user to find out.

Poor Bluetooth audio quality

I just got the tmobile variant s6 and immediately went to test the Bluetooth audio stream on my 2015 gs350. I noticed a crackle in the audio. It is minimal but quite noticeable at high volume. This is disappointing as my Sony Z3 had excellent BT audio quality on my gs. Anyone else notice this?
neles86 said:
I just got the tmobile variant s6 and immediately went to test the Bluetooth audio stream on my 2015 gs350. I noticed a crackle in the audio. It is minimal but quite noticeable at high volume. This is disappointing as my Sony Z3 had excellent BT audio quality on my gs. Anyone else notice this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not seem to have that issue over my car's bluetooth. T-mobile also.
I'm getting good audio quality via my Sony SBH80 aptx BT headset. Perhaps you can play on the Sound Alive equalizer.
Just wanted to let you know that I am having this same problem. When streaming music in high quality from Google Play, the treble is all crackly and distorted. It's really disappointing. I'm going to do some testing today against my old m8 and using non-streaming music. But never had this issue before.
It's probably the fact you are streaming audio. Try some high quality downloaded music, like from Spotify. I've no issues at all.
I am also having the same issue with the Verizon version of the S6. It sounds terrible over my car Bluetooth when streaming but sounds good through my bluetooth Bose headphones. I didn't have any trouble with my car Bluetooth with my iPhone 6. I really hope Samsung gets this sorted out with a software update.
I too am having issues with streaming bluetooth. I think that my issue with it is amplified, because I normally listen to music only on my Magnavox Turntable, and the sound from that console is unbeatable by any electronic streaming or mini-speaker. My son bought me a bluetooth speaker for my birthday last year, which was very nice of him, but the sound just does not compare to the 1970's technology.
Maybe I'm just old.
Do you happen to have any bluetooth le devices, like a fitbit, attached at the same time? I tried disconnecting my garmin vivosmart and there's a dramatic improvement.
evanl81 said:
Just wanted to let you know that I am having this same problem. When streaming music in high quality from Google Play, the treble is all crackly and distorted. It's really disappointing. I'm going to do some testing today against my old m8 and using non-streaming music. But never had this issue before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Lowering the treble help a tiny bit but what's music without treble . I've tried disconnecting my pebble watch but no dice. I really don't want to go back to aux.
In my car, before I disconnected the Garmin, I found that adjusting the toggles in Play Music - edging the first dial two toward Treble and the other dial three toward Instrument helped a bit.
I noticed the crackling on treble as well. As evanl81 suggested, I disconnected my Moto 360 (switched it to airplane mode), toggled the phone's bluetooth to have a fresh connection to the car, and the crackling is gone by at least 90%!
Very disappointing. Didn't have this problem with my Nexus 5. I'd very much prefer to not have to disconnect my watch every time I get in the car
palmboy5 said:
I noticed the crackling on treble as well. As evanl81 suggested, I disconnected my Moto 360 (switched it to airplane mode), toggled the phone's bluetooth to have a fresh connection to the car, and the crackling is gone by at least 90%!
Very disappointing. Didn't have this problem with my Nexus 5. I'd very much prefer to not have to disconnect my watch every time I get in the car
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be a problem. I'm starting to think that we are wirelessly connected to too many things!!
So it looks like my pebble watch was the problem. Seems i can't have other BT devices connected while connected to my car. Once I put my pebble in airplane mode, then off/on the BT radio and all is good! Sucks but at least it's a workaround.
I'm trying to use AutoInput and Tasker to automate the disconnection and reconnection of my watch when connected to the car bluetooth right now, still working out the kinks though. :\ Endless little things and inconsistent behavior.
It would be fantastic if this gets fixed by Samsung at some point!
stureiney said:
That would be a problem. I'm starting to think that we are wirelessly connected to too many things!!
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Click to collapse
No, I have a Nexus 4 with 5.0 and now with 5.1 and its connect to LG g watch, a parrot ck3100 and auki bluetooth reciber and the quality is perfect. With S6 I only connected to my LG g watch and auki and the audio quiality is a ****.
i don't know about bad audio quality for bt but i get audio cut outs and choppiness when using my jaybird bluebuds. it gets really annoying. i noticed it happens in wide open spaces too like when i'm outside but not near any walls or enclosed areas. if i'm indoors, it works perfectly fine. i remember reading about the way bt works and the signal needs to bounce off other surfaces or something like that in order to work properly. i had this same issue way back in my OG Droid days and there was a build.prop edit to boost the signal by giving bt higher priority.
anyone else have this problem? i'm on VZW variant btw.
other than this issue, bt audio sounds perfect. i also use Viper to give the audio volume a major boost.
I'm having the same issue on my car audio.
It was perfect with the Nexus 5, very disappointed to have this with the S6.
I just got my sg6 have a samsung gear live and bluebuds x I get crackling sounding high end, very annoying, coming from an HTC one m7 with the same setup and had zero problems, really hope they are able to fix this!
OK so I enabled the tube amp setting and nothing else, it seems to have made a huge difference. I can now listen to music without cringing. Hope this helps.
Ok, I made a few findings about the issue. I also have a moto 360 connected to the S6 and the crackling is so high that is imposible to hear music with a minimum of quality.So i tried with the watch off or in airplane mode and the crackling is still there but sometimes it dissapears after connect and disconnect the bt devices but not always. Now, the elephant in the room:
I have a Samsung Hs3000 bt stereo headset and the music quality is superb even with te moto 360 connected. The magic is that this particular device has aptx codec included. So if you have an aptx bt device the quality its going to be there. For no aptx devices i'm trying an experiment: i remember from the nexus 7 2013 and other android phones that bluetooth audio quality was bad since kitkat and the problem was bluetooth compression was too high. There are two files that control this behaviour: audio.a2dp.default.so and bluetooth.default.so. If we could edit this two files maybe we could fix this. If someone can help me and tell me what program can i use to edit this files on my computer i'll try to fix it myself.
Enviado desde mi SM-G920F mediante Tapatalk
Just wanted to follow up on this thread - I recently switched to the Note 5 (which I love) and also got a Huawei Watch. When the watch is connected to the phone and the phone is connected to bluetooth, the sound quality is really horrendous. So I'm guessing it's something with the BT smart implementation in Samsung phones or something? It's really annoying. I too tried to work out some stuff with AutoInput, but it's a huge pain. The only real workarounds are to put the watch in Airplane Mode or just disconnect through the Android Wear app. And unfortunately there are no shortcuts through AutoWear. Oh well.

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?
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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?
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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

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