No support for higher bitrate on LDAC? - Google Pixel 3 Questions & Answers

Been using the Pixel 3 as my daily driver for a while now, but just recently came an interesting piece. Apparently, the Pixel 3 doesn't support LDAC at Optimum Audio Quality (more details here - https://themrphone.com/article/google-pixel-3-xl-doesnt-support-ldac-at-optimum-audio-quality/)
I was planning on buying a high-end set of Bluetooth headphones, in fact, was considering the same ones used in the link above. Can anyone else confirm this?

varounmirchi said:
Been using the Pixel 3 as my daily driver for a while now, but just recently came an interesting piece. Apparently, the Pixel 3 doesn't support LDAC at Optimum Audio Quality (more details here - https://themrphone.com/article/google-pixel-3-xl-doesnt-support-ldac-at-optimum-audio-quality/)
I was planning on buying a high-end set of Bluetooth headphones, in fact, was considering the same ones used in the link above. Can anyone else confirm this?
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Working fine for me with both LDAC (detected and used automatically) and "Optimised For Audio Quality" (switched from default "Best Effort" in Developer Settings)
Pixel 3 (non XL) with Sony MDR-1000X (gen 1 of the headphones in your linked article) and Google Play Music.
Granted GPM isn't a Hi-Res source, but it's playing fine! There was a momentary drop in audio for a split second on changing bit rate but it resumes with no issue!

I had this same issue with my Audeze Mobius--the Pixel 2 allowed me to set the rate to 990, but the Pixel 3 would do as described in the link. Seems like a software bug, I doubt it actually isn't capable of using the full rate

I can't say, I'm much of an audiophile or anything but I do like to play with settings for what sounds best with what I have. On my Galaxy s8 running oreo and my previous s5 running aospx/oreo I could change the developer Bluetooth settings on the fly and notice the difference instantly (avrcp/bt_codec/sample_rate/bit_rate/ldac_codec).
If I do it on the pixel 3, the Bluetooth just falls out, connection wise it stops but still shows it's connected, app wise I can't close and reload the app. I have to turn the Bluetooth off or reset it completely sometimes.
It's kind of a bummer, being a brand new phone and all, I noticed the absolute volume disable didn't seem like a difference either.
I hope they resolve it.

Update: disabling bluetooth a2dp hardware offload let me freely change all those settings while in use with out locking anything up. What that necessarily does or the effect of changing the settings and how well they actually change??? I can't answer with any rational or testworthy explanation as my audio products are oem Bluetooth radios in vehicles.

Related

Bluetooth audio skips

I'm on 8.1 dp2 in hopes of a fix but it doesn't seem to have helped. My Bluetooth audio skips once every song or two and it's super frustrating while in my car. I've tried disabling WiFi and Bluetooth scanning and adjusting the codec options but nothing seems to work? Anyone else with this issue or a solution? I just received wireless earbuds so I'll test those to make sure it's not my stereo but my s8 had worked fine...
Ok say my new ear buds are Bluetooth 5 and I haven't noticed a single skip yet. My stereo is only 3 so maybe that has something to do with it? As far as I can find however there are no current bt5 stereos so I'm not sure what the issue or solution would be...
Enable the developer options. You can choose between sound quality and connective stability. You can also lower the sampling rate to 44100kHz. In a word, reduce the data transferring rate. I think these might help.
I did all of that and have tried all the options
slyr114 said:
I did all of that and have tried all the options
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I have had this problem cropping up on various Toyota forums with the root cause being the automotive entertainment systems. It appears that most newer systems are still based on 2008/9 technologies which only have a limited ability to buffer the B/T audio. I'm not suggesting that this is your car but I thought it is worth mentioning.
Ive got a Sony stereo I put in myself haha it's relatively new

Developer options Bluetooth settings don't stick

I've been experimenting with the Bluetooth options in developer options, but every time I change them, they change back to the default settings.
Has anyone any help on how to make them stick?
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app
I've experienced this as well. I believe by design, you must first have an audio device paired and connected before changing these settings, and even then, when doing so, the BT device must be capable of such settings. As an example, when my BT headphones are connected, I can set the DEV option to a lower than 24 bits "per sample" but not higher. All the settings here depend on the hardware in use and whether it is capable of the setting. ->Then when disconnected, the dev options return to their default settings. -But they should return when re-connected.
-hope this helps to at least get the discussion ball rolling.
oryanh said:
I've experienced this as well. I believe by design, you must first have an audio device paired and connected before changing these settings, and even then, when doing so, the BT device must be capable of such settings. As an example, when my BT headphones are connected, I can set the DEV option to a lower than 24 bits "per sample" but not higher. All the settings here depend on the hardware in use and whether it is capable of the setting. ->Then when disconnected, the dev options return to their default settings. -But they should return when re-connected.
-hope this helps to at least get the discussion ball rolling.
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^ The above is definitely not true. At least not for everyone. I have a galaxy note 9 and I've tried connecting headphones as well as a pair of edifier speakers. Nothing except AVRCP version sticks, and that sticks whether I have a bluetooth device connected or not. Everything else does not stick, even though both devices are of course capable of aptX and 48khz and 24b/s. In fact the speakers are intended for 48khz 24b/s, it causes audio stuttering if I have anything else. No matter what I do, everything just defaults to SBC, 44.1khz, 16b/s. It's clearly broken and has been for like 3 versions of android OS lol. Every android phone I've ever had has had this problem too. So clearly it has nothing to do with the hardware you're connected to, since all the devices I've connected are intended for aptX, 48khz, 24b/s. And I don't think it has anything to do with the phone's hardware either, since I used to use an essential phone which is advertised as being intended for aptX HD use with the "TIDAL" app. They gave me a 3 month free trial to this service and said it output high fidelity audio via aptX HD. But no, the essential phone's bluetooth developer options behaved in exactly the same way. I've tried a lot of other things as well, so I'm pretty sure this UI element is either just fundamentally broken, or is intentionally locked from the user, presumably for some patronizing reason

Is it possible to build a custom android 11 system App Update APK.

So I've been beating myself up trying to accomplish this, using every everything from JaDx to APK editor Pro and getting nowhere. Okay here's what I'm trying to accomplish I had an LG Phoenix 5 and it... well it no longer functions. it was just a cheap $40 phone BUT it had a fully loaded Bluetooth Developer menu section that had every option available and never had grayed out dot, even the HD audio option. It didn't matter what I paired it to (high or low end devices) it always worked. I could always make Bluetooth speakers sound better than anybody. So now I have a Motorola G Pure it's still a cheap device but still cost more than the Phoenix. It has almost no Bluetooth option that are sound quality related available just grayed out dots even on devices I know the option work on. so I set out to mesh together the Bluetooth controller apps from both devices and well its not going to well.
it could be a hardware limitation... but I've been seeing a lot of companies claiming hardware limits when they really just don't want you using something a certain way (I.e.Windows 11) or the fact that the control app (uncompressed) is 3x smaller than the Phoenix 5's was.
any insight or advice help would be awesome.
try this app :
Wavelet: headphone specific EQ - Apps on Google Play
Headphone specific equalization with lots of customizability
play.google.com
made by the dev of viper4android, runs with adb, might be a solution

Question Bluetooth Issue with Pixel LDAC HQ

I have a P7P, Galaxy Watch 4 and Sony WF-1000XM4 LDAC iem. I'm noticing a LOT of stutter when I set the Codec Playback Quality to "Optimized for Audio Quality (990kbps/909kbps)".
The stuttering goes away and sound is perfect when I place the GW4 in sleep mode. This seems to only be an issue with Pixel 6 and up - has there been some low level change to bluetooth hardware/stack since Pixel 6? Is this a bandwidth issue?
This isn't an issue with other Android 13 phones from what I am hearing - this is close to a deal breaker for me unless there is some workaround/fix. Has anybody else noticed it? Would a custom kernel help?
Some discussion on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y859oi
Thanks,
plemen said:
I have a P7P, Galaxy Watch 4 and Sony WF-1000XM4 LDAC iem. I'm noticing a LOT of stutter when I set the Codec Playback Quality to "Optimized for Audio Quality (990kbps/909kbps)".
The stuttering goes away and sound is perfect when I place the GW4 in sleep mode. This seems to only be an issue with Pixel 6 and up - has there been some low level change to bluetooth hardware/stack since Pixel 6? Is this a bandwidth issue?
This isn't an issue with other Android 13 phones from what I am hearing - this is close to a deal breaker for me unless there is some workaround/fix. Has anybody else noticed it? Would a custom kernel help?
Some discussion on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y859oi
Thanks,
Click to expand...
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This is due to how LDAC works, it steals bandwidth from the BT data streams to carry that bitrate. It may be an issue with other devices, or other devices may have some QoS or something to that effect on the bluetooth side of things to prioritize the audio streams over data.
You could try a custom kernel in case it is some frequency capping or something on the device causing the issue.
DespairFactor said:
This is due to how LDAC works, it steals bandwidth from the BT data streams to carry that bitrate. It may be an issue with other devices, or other devices may have some QoS or something to that effect on the bluetooth side of things to prioritize the audio streams over data.
You could try a custom kernel in case it is some frequency capping or something on the device causing the issue.
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It doesn't seem to be an issue on earlier Pixels or other phones, just PIxel 6 and up. I'm not very familiar with the available custom kernels for P7P, reading up on them now.
Anybody have any suggestions on a stable kernel that could potentially address a possible frequency cap?
I solved this problem by turning off Ultra-Wideband (UWB) under connection preferences.
I presume bluetooth scanning is a part of this function, and makes sense if while scanning momentarily the available bandwidth is reduced.
This is not solving your problem but I play exclusively FLAC both 16 and 24 bit, have developer options switched on as well and have zero stutter or any other problems (that I've noticed). Strange that a lower quality format has these problems. It is not hi-res, typically has a smaller file size and is easier to decode after all.
blackspp said:
This is not solving your problem but I play exclusively FLAC both 16 and 24 bit, have developer options switched on as well and have zero stutter or any other problems (that I've noticed). Strange that a lower quality format has these problems. It is not hi-res, typically has a smaller file size and is easier to decode after all.
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Did the OP mention file types? I was under the impression the Reddit thread was a separate discussion not started by OP. I may have missed it though. My pedantic self would argue no Bluetooth audio is capable of true hi-res.
I believed this thread (and my issue) was to do with Bluetooth bandwidth, not directly the file type which obviously dictates the required bandwidth. The same issues persist for me whether it is a very high bit rate lossy format such as MP3 above 990kbps, or a lossless format such as FLAC. It was also irrespective of whether the hardware decode was handed off to the reciever or computed on the handset.
Anyway, for whatever reason having UWB off solved my particular issue. I primarily use lossless media codecs such as FLAC for reference.

Question Bluetooth interference in public places when other BT devices are around

Hi everyone,
I have paired my OP 9 with my Cambridge Audio Melomania Touch Bluetooth earphones as soon as I got the phone, about eight months ago.
The phone has received several updates and upgrades in the meantime, but an issue has surfaced recently, as the title indicates: when I'm in a public place and there are other BT devices around, the music playing from the phone into my earphones suffers interruptions and distorsions, as if the phone was trying to pair with those devices, or maybe the Melomania Touch, I don't know.
I'd tend to think it's the phone, because I've had those earphones for about two years now, and with my previous phones (Xiaomi/Poco, Samsung), I never had such an issue. Once paired, the devices would deliver a solid, steady sound, with the occasional hiccup if the phone was in my pant pocket and I turned my head in the opposite direction, but that was it.
With the OP 9, however, every time I'm on the bus or the tram, or even waiting at the bus stop and a car passes by, I hear an interruption in sound delivery and I know the car in question had BT enabled.
In the Bluetooth settings, I've unchecked the option to make my phone visible by other devices, and in the Developer options, I've limited the number of devices the phone should try to connect to to 2, the Melomania Touch (it used to be 3, the third device being a Sony WH-700 BT headset I have at home, but I cleared it from the list).
I don't see any other settings to play with to make this inconvenience go away, and the Melomania Touch app doesn't offer any option either. The earphones are set to deliver max performance (not Low Energy BT).
I'm counting on you guys on this one!
Have to tried to enable HD audio (AAC) from that device's Bluetooth settings?
shadabkiani said:
Have to tried to enable HD audio (AAC) from that device's Bluetooth settings?
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Hi and thanks for taking the time!
Yes, HD Audio is enabled, though I found it in the Developer options. BT options are pretty basic on this phone, if you ask me, but sound quality is really good, especially with those earphones.
UglyStuff said:
Hi and thanks for taking the time!
Yes, HD Audio is enabled, though I found it in the Developer options. BT options are pretty basic on this phone, if you ask me, but sound quality is really good, especially with those earphones.
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Hmm... I don't know what could be the issue then. Maybe someone else with more knowlege can give more suggestions...

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