Hi guys, I've always notice serious volume issues with the FM radio for the desire. I was hoping on 2.2 sense it would be resolved but sadly it has not.
Its really strange the music player volume is great at max volume its to loud if anything, yet on the FM radio at max volume I cant walk by a road and hear it clearly over the noise of just the passing cars.
I was sat on a but and trying to listen to the radio 1 this morning in the UK and I couldn't make out the speech over the noise of the engine. I ended up swapping to the music player be cause it was the same on all the radio stations.
So does any one know if its possible some how to mod the FM radio to increase its volume?
As far as I know the FM volume is tied to the signal strength.
So it means that if the signal is low and/or the antenna is bad the volume and quality is bad.
The Desire like most other phones use the 3.5mm jack cord as antenna.
I'm not sure if this will work... but try adding an extension cord to the headphone jack.
Or try moving the cord to a better position, like you adjust a old TV antenna for better reception.
Its strange though I've tried that with little effect, when I've been testing the signal indicators are always at max, and other radio's get very good reception in the area. So I don't think this really is a antenna issue.
It could just be my phone, I don't know if its a fault but if say I had the same song playing on the FM radio and then listened to the same song via the stock music player both with the volume set to max the volume of the stock player would be at least double that of the the FM radio.
I was wondering more if there was some form of amplification/gain mod possible. Just like how there were kernel mods to increase the volume of the standard media player. I tried these at the time and stock player was louder but the FM radio didn't change, so im guessing the FM radio application does not follow those gain settings. It may not be possible because I think what could be needed is modification of the FM radio binaries which I think are closed source.
Any solution to this issue? I am having the very same problem one year later on my Desire S.
belzebu' said:
Any solution to this issue? I am having the very same problem one year later on my Desire S.
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I've discovered that many of the Qualcomm SOCs contain a PGA (Programmable Gain Amplifier) on the Aux/Line In ports commonly used for FM analog audio.
Sometimes the default gain is too low, or too high for FM. One device was too loud on FM so I added a Volume Scale setting to my FM app. But that only reduces volume (from the FM chip) and can't be used to raise it.
There are some Ioctls or whatever on at least some devices that could be used to change the gain. So it's possible... I may look more deeply into this at some point.
Related
Ok, we have some smart people here at XDA-Developers so why has no one been able to come up with a hack for the low volume on many of these units? The SX-56 has really good volume in both the earpiece and the speakerphone but it seems all other HTC units do not!
When using the media player the volume on the speaker is adequate (not great); however the same speaker as a speakerphone can barely be heard unless one is in a quiet room. The earpiece volume is terrible in a noisy environment. If you compare this to almost any tiny phone it sucks to put it bluntly. Take my LG 4500, it is so loud that you have to turn it down (this is as it should be).
From what I have seen, changes in the ROM can effect the volume so this tells me that there has to be some value stored away in a .dll that limits the max volume. I have searched for a registry value but none seems to solve the problem. The same hardware used for Media player has to be used for everything else, i.e. amplifier and speaker for spearkerphone and just switched to earpiece when in normal phone mode. Thus the amplifier is capable.
Can someone identify the .dll used for audio? Is it different for the various models? Does one work better than another? Is there a hacked version that would work better than all of the others? Is it in the volume control .dll?
Anyone that can solve this problem will be a hero in my eyes and a true hacker in the best sense of the word. I have the new HP IPAQ HW6510 (also made by HTC) and it has some improvements in the version of Windows it has, such as the Bluetooth stack really seems to work well; however, since the unit supports Bluetooth 1.2 I'm not sure whether it would work with version 1.1 phones.
Thank you for any help you can provide. I searched the site first and found many other complaining but no solutions.
Doesn't anyone have a clue? Is there anyone that can explain the workings and which .dlls do what relative to audio? Surely there is some bright person that has been able to figure this out.
pda2k user here. NEVER had volume problems. lucky?
I have a pair of bluetooth headphones and a bluetooth receiver in my car.
Once i pair either one to my Touch Pro 2, i noticed that raising/lowering the volume on my HD2 does not affect the audio what so ever(unless i put it on mute).
The music sounds very loud and distorted, and i cant control the volume either way...Anyone else run into this issue? How can i solve it?
That's normal. You need to adjust the volume at the receiving end.
I have the exact same problem. Not sure why as when I pair up to my speakers, the phone tells me it cannot control the volume, yet it worked fine on my "Touch Pro" (the 1st one) and my Kaiser. Not looked for a solution, because its not much of an issue for me really.
Mesquire said:
That's normal. You need to adjust the volume at the receiving end.
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But the problem is that, the audio being streamed from the HD2 is so loud and distorted, that i have to turn it down(but i cant).
So even if i turn it down on the receiving end, the distortion is still there.
With my old samsung omnia, i was able to turn the music up or down from the phone...I dont understand why this isnt possible with the Touch Pro 2.
The music coming from my phone is unlistenable. The distortion ruins the audio. Which really sucks, because i spent $300 on a car reciever with bluetooth!
There has to be a solution! Come on XDA!
Try turning it down on the phone first? Or get a player that uses it's own volume control instead of the system volume (I believe Mort Player and Nitrogen will do this).
jason02 said:
But the problem is that, the audio being streamed from the HD2 is so loud and distorted, that i have to turn it down(but i cant).
So even if i turn it down on the receiving end, the distortion is still there.
With my old samsung omnia, i was able to turn the music up or down from the phone...I dont understand why this isnt possible with the Touch Pro 2.
The music coming from my phone is unlistenable. The distortion ruins the audio. Which really sucks, because i spent $300 on a car reciever with bluetooth!
There has to be a solution! Come on XDA!
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Same problem here!!!
No volume control at all on TP2, and volume of music cant be changed through the system volume control either
I have a bluetooth connection to my motorcycle intercom system. I had the same problem, sort of.
I installed Conduits Pocket Player, and use the equalizer to bring down the level of the Bluetooth. That worked well enough for what I needed to do.
I read somewhere else on the forum here that this issue is attributed to the Widcomm Buetooth stack on our phones. Whenever I connect my headset to my phone or my laptop, I receive a warning that the volume must be adjusted on the output device, and cannot be adjusted on the phone/computer. It may be related to the poor support for AVRCP.
Avatar28 said:
Try turning it down on the phone first? Or get a player that uses it's own volume control instead of the system volume (I believe Mort Player and Nitrogen will do this).
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ok, so it seems that this wincomm bluetooth stack or whatever SUCKS. You're right....I guess the only work around i guess is a player that doesnt use the system volume, like coreplayer.
Coreplayer is great for movies, but for playing mp3's i would prefer Slide 2 Play.
Havent tried nitrogen yet though.
Does a mp3 player exist that is similar to slide 2 play, but doesnt use the system volume of the phone?
I too am not able to use many of the bluetooth audio accessories such as my jabra headphones, desktop speakers and my indash audio system. None of which work as they did with my Kaiser. This was supposed to be an upgrade to my Tilt and it doesnt even support the OLD protocals that were common 2 years ago?? Im seriously considering switching to blackberry. Anyone intrested in a nearly new Tilt 2. Goodbye htc (high tech crap)
THis is a problem with the bluetooth stack, just email HTC so they can get a patch for this. or microsoft because they are the ones that control what stack it gets.
this Goes for the HD2 and others too
I am having a problem with the headphone output. When listening to anything bass heavy... such as house music, the bass is distorted. Its sounds almost as if the headphones I am using are blown. I know this is not the issue because I have tested several different pairs, all with the same result. I even experience this when I have the phone hooked up to my car stereo. Volume isn't an issue and everything else seems to sound fine... its just that bass notes and kick drums sound horrible.
I'm coming from a Vibrant which was a powerhouse with voodoo sound enabled.
I understand that the Yamaha dac in the SGSII is nowhere near as good as the Wolfson used in the SGS... but it shouldn't sound this bad?!?!
I have tried just about every audio/dsp app available to no avail.
Does anyone else have this issue?
Also... not sure if it matters but I am running Juggernaut v3.7
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
hmm I was going to suggest you get power amp and just turn down the overall level in the eq. that might help in troubleshooting where in the signal chain the distortion is coming from. If it remains distorted at low level i would assume it wsa a hardware problem.
Ive certainly not any problems with distortion as long as i keep good gain structure in my eq.
I have tried power amp. I also tried lowering all the levels down. Nothing works
I forgot to mention that the problem exists even at the lowest volume settings... quite fustrating
I really hope it isn't faulty hardware... not sure ill be able to get a replacement
Completely different hardware but I had this issue on my HD2 after either making the lower frequency settings too high with other DSP or equalizers or when I used root level volume boosters like Volume Hack+
Are you using a stock (non-flashed non-rooted) build? If not, you can try a nand backup and flash a fresh install of your ROM. Not installing anything and go back to the same songs to see if they distort.
The SGS2 can push a good amount of low frequency granted you have earphones/equipment that can pick up low frequency output. I use it in my cars and with my Sennheiser headphones with no real issues and great output. Even with max volume, no distortion.
The HD2 was capable of only so much before it distorted but I haven't been able to replicate the issue with my SGS2. But then again, I haven't installed DSP or any other 3rd party volume/equalizer apps.
Im running juggernaut 3.7 w/ bullet kernel. To be honest I didnt check what it sounded like prior to rooting and flashing the custom rom. I only installed the dsp apps to fix the problem.
A new release just came out so I will take your advice, wipe and start with a fresh install.
Hope it fixes the problem.... its really driving me nuts.
Have you tried a different ROM? If not, try CM7 Alpha v3. Theres nothing like CM's DSP Manager.
Make a NANDROID backup first, that way if the problem still persists, you can always easily switch back to your current ROM.
Hi. I have tried many different rom's and Kernel's on my gnexus. I have been able to adjust the headset volume, and speaker volume with different rom's (curently using Foxhound), but have never found a way to increase the bluetooth a2dp out volume. I have a bluetooth reciever on my amp at home, used to play music from my Nexus S with great volume (still does) but I have never been able to with Gnexus. Gnexus plays but with the amp all the way up it is still not loud at all. When I plug direct conection to Gnexus using rca's and the headphone jack it works fine. Has anyone had any success in this area and would be willing to share the experience?
Thanks.................
I tried to do a search for headphones over the speaker but didn't come up with anything, so...if a thread like this is already out there please point in right direction and delete then. Alrighty on to the question.
When you plug your earphones into the phone you get to listen to some radio(FM) but you also have the option to play the FM radio over the speaker itself, which is awesome. Now I want to know IF something like that is possible for youtube as well? I can't see anything that can enable me to choose the speaker itself(like with FM radio) and instead forces me to listen to it over the earphones.
Is there an option like that and if so, where?
Yes, I'm well aware that this might seem like a completely stupid question, but at any given time someone has to be the idiot that asks it :victory:
BerndM14 said:
I tried to do a search for headphones over the speaker but didn't come up with anything, so...if a thread like this is already out there please point in right direction and delete then. Alrighty on to the question.
When you plug your earphones into the phone you get to listen to some radio(FM) but you also have the option to play the FM radio over the speaker itself, which is awesome. Now I want to know IF something like that is possible for youtube as well? I can't see anything that can enable me to choose the speaker itself(like with FM radio) and instead forces me to listen to it over the earphones.
Is there an option like that and if so, where?
Yes, I'm well aware that this might seem like a completely stupid question, but at any given time someone has to be the idiot that asks it :victory:
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I don't understand why this option would need to exist. Headphones need to be plugged in for FM radio to work because they act as the antenna, which is why you get the option to use the speaker, alternatively. YouTube doesn't need an FM antenna, so just unplug your headphones if you want to use the speakers.
craig0r said:
I don't understand why this option would need to exist. Headphones need to be plugged in for FM radio to work because they act as the antenna, which is why you get the option to use the speaker, alternatively. YouTube doesn't need an FM antenna, so just unplug your headphones if you want to use the speakers.
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Because the audio is louder... Have you tried to listen to a radio station through FM on the speaker and then go and listen to a stream of it at full volume? Somehow it seems that the volume can go higher with the earphones plugged in than to have it NOT plugged in. Yet...It could perhaps be argued that the stream sounds less loud(regardless of the fact that the volume is maxed out) because it is indeed a stream and it might have some interference.
But if the volume can actually go higher as a result of the earphones being plugged in, why can't we have the option then to have the volume louder if we so choose, by plugging in the earphones and maxing out the volume over the speaker? Like we do with FM...?
I take it though, from your response, that such a thing is not possible?
BerndM14 said:
Because the audio is louder... Have you tried to listen to a radio station through FM on the speaker and then go and listen to a stream of it at full volume? Somehow it seems that the volume can go higher with the earphones plugged in than to have it NOT plugged in. Yet...It could perhaps be argued that the stream sounds less loud(regardless of the fact that the volume is maxed out) because it is indeed a stream and it might have some interference.
But if the volume can actually go higher as a result of the earphones being plugged in, why can't we have the option then to have the volume louder if we so choose, by plugging in the earphones and maxing out the volume over the speaker? Like we do with FM...?
I take it though, from your response, that such a thing is not possible?
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Ahh, I think I'm starting to follow. There are a number of factors that are likely causing this differentiation, none of which have to do with having headphones plugged in.
A radio station's FM broadcast and internet broadcast are processed and compressed in different ways. FM compression is analog, while internet compression is digital, and there are crazy different algorithms, but both come down to fitting the "signal" or "data" into a particular bandwidth.
With FM, a station just throws the signal out in all directions, and while it's technically not comparable, there is less need for compression here, as with the internet broadcast, the more listeners there are, the more taxing it is, thus the digital signal is likely more compressed. This is probably more or less the reason for the discrepancy.
Also the streams could be normalized differently. Or any number of other variables. For all intents and purposes, the FM stream and internet stream are two completely different things.
I hope this helped!
(And no, as far as I know there's no option to do what you want, but even if there were, it wouldn't have the effect you're looking for )
Why would compression affect volume? It's not like you need more bits to go louder.
BenPope said:
Why would compression affect volume? It's not like you need more bits to go louder.
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FM audio doesn't have bits, for starters, it's analog radio waves. Functionally, an FM broadcast path is analog to analog to analog, where as a digital broadcast path is closer to "analog to digital to analog."
And from a technical standpoint, yes, more bits *does* equal louder. The more you compress digital audio, the more audio is being removed from the stream. MP3 compression (and probably M4A/AAC) remove the high-end and low-end frequencies:
In a compressionless, raw, audio file, a ton of bits are wasted on sound that is beyond the range of human hearing, and the range that speakers can produce. The point of digital audio compression is to eliminate the functionally "empty" bits, however the more compression there is, the more it starts removing what humans/speakers CAN process. As you approach high compression, mp3s will lose more and more sound, but even with mild compression, you're going to lose the crispness of the highs (like cymbals) and the lows (bass guitars/synths.) This will give it a muddy sound, and as there are less cymbals and bass guitars, the sound is technically quieter. In fact, if you were to compress an mp3 down to like 1Kbps, it's going to mostly sound like static. But I'm not aware of any audio tools that will let you go that low. Online radio stations typically broadcast at 64Kbps or 96Kbps. Which is crap. (Of course I haven't listened to online radio in years, it's probably better by now.) To put it another way, an FM transmission can broadcast at full strength, whether one person is listening or a million. With a digital broadcast, one million listeners will be far more taxing on bandwidth than just one person listening, so it's not cost-effective to broadcast with the same signal quality as FM. Of course FM is subject to radio interference, but that's not selective the way digital is. On FM you'll hear other noises on top of the signal, but as long as your signal is relatively decent, you're not losing much.
Without teaching a course on audio processing, basically:
More processing = more degradation.
More compression = more degradation
Analog is very different than digital for a multitude of reasons that I'm not going into.
EDIT: Also, FM does use compression, but it's a different type. Rather than removing audio based on pitch frequency as digital compression does, it uses dynamic compression, more akin to what a guitarist's compression pedal would do. It makes the quiet noises louder and the loud noises quieter, definitely makes quiet songs louder than if you were listening to an mp3, which doesn't do this type of compression.
ANOTHER EDIT: Unless the topic steers back towards mobile development, I won't indulge this thread anymore. XDA isn't for audio discussions (yes, I know I'm the one who took it off the rails in the first place.) If anyone is still confused as to why FM audio and digital audio sound different, you can PM me.