[Q] MP3 sound quality issue - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

It could just be my phone, but has anyone noticed their music sounding like it have really really small breaks in the sound, almost like the music is crackling? I've even found this when listening to my Sirius Satellite Radio app.
Though I may have found a fix, at least for the music. Originally my music was 320bit and i had just copied a few songs to my GN. When I started to listen to the music i would get crackling like sound or where the music would have almost a stuttering factor. Well i was getting annoyed enough with the crackling I almost went back to my MP3 player. Though I decided to try it one last time but i wanted my entire playlist. Now my playlist was about 200 songs and across many directories so I wasn't going to try search the whole thing for individual songs. Using winamp I copied them all into one directory, unfortunately when Winamp does this it converts them all back down to wav files so I had to reconvert them.
My software for converting back to MP3 is older and only able to convert up to 256bit. I was thinking it was going to be just as annoying, but low and behold my music plays without a glitch, or crackle or break or what ever.
It's almost like the phone can't handle the higher quality of music. Now again this could just be me so I thought I would ask. Unfortunately my Sirius Satellite Radio app still crackles.
Anyone else find this?

also if u have used an app like volume+ to increase your speaker volume, or modify your volume that could be the issue

Good thought, though i never actually got around to installing the app so we can eliminate that as a cause.

Oh no, lossy to lossy transcoding! Those poor files.
I haven't had any issues playing 320kbps MP3 CBR or MP3 V0. If anything they sound better than on my old iPhone 3GS, especially with DSPManager.
Do they play without any distortion on your PC? Are you using the same headphones?
Perhaps playing around with the equaliser settings in DSPManager would improve the output.

Have had the same problem but only with one album so far, it is 320bit but I also have other albums at 320bits that play ok. Strangely the problem doesn't occur if the screen is on!

Give me to this weekend and let me hoot the phone up to my input on my PC maybe i can let you all hear what I hear.

rajathiraja said:
I agree with first answer..........
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Click to collapse
I would agree too if I had actually installed volume+

I don't think it's to do with the bit rate as such but the encoder, or at least the encoding settings, that you used. Almost all my mp3 are in 320 kbps, CBR and VBR, and they all play fine.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

the phone seems to clip a lot when the volume is at the top two levels. sounds bad. setting it to 3rd highest level or less makes it sound normal and smooth

Not sure if they fixed this with 4.0.3 yet, but it's a known issue that any SAMPLE RATE (not bit rate) other than 44.1KHz can cause stuttering when the phone is in screen-off low power mode. Some EQs that cause the cpu to work have been known to fix it. Also changing the buffer size in PowerAmp has also I think. There are a few threads about it. I have recreated it with another persons 48KHz sample rate mp3. All mine are 44.1KHz and I've never had a problem with any of them, they all sound fantastic.
Sent from my GSM Galaxy Nexus on TMoUS using Tapatalk

Related

music playback issues

I love the phone (got it launch day) puts my Mytouch 3G to shame. I love everything about this phone....... well except for one thing.
I am having a hell of a time with audio playback. 60% of the time i try to play back music on stock music player it tells me that the audio format is not supported on this device. using Winamp wasnt much of a help as it will just cycle through songs and freeze up.
resetting the phone helps sometimes but not everytime.
I also tried removing all the music from my phone and re-copying all the files. still an issue.
I've also noticed it acts up a lot more via bluetooth (i have a pair of rocketdog behind the ear headphones)
I'm stumped...
Any ideas? Anyone else getting this issue?
codec, song encoding comes to mind
also try with different amount of songs
i know on the old SGS if you had more than few hundreds of mp3 or mix format songs in it, it can drive it crazy
so try a couple hundreds, then work your way up, until you find the amount of files it can read before it becomes too much.
all this can be fixed once rooted, and installing better media players
winamp for android sucks by the way
you should try the ICE cream leaked media player from stock android, it's better
Curious why not just stream the music from ur pc?? google music is practically flawless
Seen a user in another thread had to format their card in this phone, then add music. Try that.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium
I tried this last night. didn't help much. I'm 99.98% sure it has something to do with my bluetooth headphones. Going to buy a new pair and see if it makes a difference...
prnkmonkie said:
I tried this last night. didn't help much. I'm 99.98% sure it has something to do with my bluetooth headphones. Going to buy a new pair and see if it makes a difference...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you get the sony ericsson mw600, you'll be amazed at their features. I love them and use them all the time and the battery lasts longer than the specs say. I can get 14hrs out of them.
Just picked up a new set of headphones.... does the exact same thing.... odd.... wondering if its just my phone or if this is a glitch...haven't seen anyone else report this.
Pandora and google music work great with my motorola s10-hd headset...
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk
I'll be getting my phone tues. I use sony dr-bt22 bluetooth headphones.... will report back.
I have this problem when steaming music over A2DP through stock Music app or Google Music. All 320kbps fixed rate MP3s. I've tried via my integrated car audio, computer, headphones... all same result when playing local media. Streaming via Rdio works completely fine. Playing local media without A2DP also works fine... Logcat reports some kind of permission related problem...
Weird, I play FLAC or 320s all day long on this thing and no "Format Unsupported" has come up on regular headset/aux cable or BT. I have however, had a problem with the music stopping when I get a notification..the time continues to move but no sound.
Just an update, my stereo BT headphones work fine

crackling when screen off...

yesterday sound was awesome screen on or off. i did the update this morning just for hah's. now my music crackles occasionally after screen goes off. anyway to uninstall update so i can verify?
i think i may have fixed my problem. google music was fine. in poweramp i unticked "high priority" in settings and the crackling seems to have disappeared. weird.
I had tried changing every setting and couldn't get it back to normal until I wiped the app data which solved the problem.
if anybody having problems with the crackling i mentioned above with poweramp go into settings in advanced and audio engine and tweak your audio buffer to huge or large. auto i guess doesn't allow a big enough buffer and creates the problems with sound. google music plays fine.
my regular sound notifications crackle when the screen is off...not even playing music.
I haven't seen this issue at all.
There are a few threads about this with more info. Definitely 48KHz sample rate mp3 don't work well when in low power mode (screen off), only 44.1KHz. Seems some people have found various ways of stopping it. One is turning on the eq in music, another the buffer size in power amp.
Google needs to root out the problem. I was hoping 4.0.2 or 4.0.3 would have a fix for everyone. I personally have not seen it happen outside of someone sending me a 48KHz sample rate mp3.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
I have an issue where offline Google Music flac files will suffer from this distortion when the screen is off. It happens to most of my flac files, and to none of my mp3 files.
aidman said:
I have an issue where offline Google Music flac files will suffer from this distortion when the screen is off. It happens to most of my flac files, and to none of my mp3 files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I experienced this problem even when playing Youtube vids... I am just testing it now.
Video and sound would crack and pop for brief periods seemingly at random when playing songs in various players - I thought at first that I had a bad wire in the headphones, but it happened without headphones as well.
I never had this problem before and I installed 4.1.1 update a few days ago.
I just uninstalled a media app (don't remember the name now haha - but it's similar to imedia share) and did a cold reboot (removed battery) and I have now been testing for 15 minutes, and so far no problems with MP3 players or Youtube.
Honestly - I think it may have been an app running in the background - so try uninstalling media apps and do a cold reboot.
I still LOVE this phone!

[Q] Google music (v4.0.9) stutters when phone asleep

Hey guys,
Have searched a while, but found no solutions for this, so here goes.
Have stock Galaxy Nexus with ICS 4.0.1, build ITL41F, installed Google Music v4.0.9 (with online sync).
Music is synced with google's online music service (even though I'm in UK, worked-around US-only restriction), and plays nicely when the screen is on. Once I switch the screen off (press power button), one of two things happen:
- if sampling rate of a song is below 48,000 Hz -- everything continues as normal.
- if sampling rate is 48,000Hz and up -- every one/couple of seconds music stutters, and jerks. Feels like I'm listening to dusty ol' record!
The 48kHz part is my theory, compared a few mp3s that stutter and some that don't. This seems to happen irrespective of bps rate and other parameters (albeit haven't checked all).
Few people on the forum with similar symptoms (on other phones) suggested it has something to do with cpu throttle during sleep, and that by forcing it to higher frequencies during sleep this could be solved.
Installed setCPU (which required rooting) and forced phone to 1,200MHz in sleep as a trial, and the songs still were stuttering.
Anyone with a similar experience?
Prime suspect would be google_music.apk which is in beta i believe, and... well, i guess then I'm out. What do you guys think? Any idea what might be causing this?
This is my first android phone, so I'm not sure even how I'd go about submitting a bug, if that's indeed the beta version of music at fault here. Any pointers?
Ta,
Dan
omgrtm said:
Hey guys,
Have searched a while, but found no solutions for this, so here goes.
Have stock Galaxy Nexus with ICS 4.0.1, build ITL41F, installed Google Music v4.0.9 (with online sync).
Music is synced with google's online music service (even though I'm in UK, worked-around US-only restriction), and plays nicely when the screen is on. Once I switch the screen off (press power button), one of two things happen:
- if sampling rate of a song is below 48,000 Hz -- everything continues as normal.
- if sampling rate is 48,000Hz and up -- every one/couple of seconds music stutters, and jerks. Feels like I'm listening to dusty ol' record!
The 48kHz part is my theory, compared a few mp3s that stutter and some that don't. This seems to happen irrespective of bps rate and other parameters (albeit haven't checked all).
Few people on the forum with similar symptoms (on other phones) suggested it has something to do with cpu throttle during sleep, and that by forcing it to higher frequencies during sleep this could be solved.
Installed setCPU (which required rooting) and forced phone to 1,200MHz in sleep as a trial, and the songs still were stuttering.
Anyone with a similar experience?
Prime suspect would be google_music.apk which is in beta i believe, and... well, i guess then I'm out. What do you guys think? Any idea what might be causing this?
This is my first android phone, so I'm not sure even how I'd go about submitting a bug, if that's indeed the beta version of music at fault here. Any pointers?
Ta,
Dan
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Click to collapse
That, is weird - because I am facing this with Winamp so I've switched to Google Music to play my music.
Does anyone else face something similar?
Can you do me a favor and play something you know that stutters, and then try it over a bluetooth connection.
I'm curious if this is also related to the static I get when the screen is off and output is analog outputs - digital (bluetooth) works fine.
same here with poweramp... switched to googlemusic... now i have only stutters over the phone speaker..
Same thing happen to me with google music and pandora. Thought it was the connection.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
I get the same using the Music app (have WinAmp but doesn't seem to integrate with the lockscreen so don't use it) as soon as the screen goes off (either timeout or manual) you can hear the music slow down and start to stutter, tap the power button, screen comes on and music goes back to normal.
Have noticed it's not all songs, but have't looked into the differences between those that do and those that don't.
Are these locally stored songs that this is happening on? So far so good here but I have been streaming from the Google Music cloud.. I wonder if the CPU is struggling during the underclocked sleep condition with local files that are high bitrate...
Mine are local files, not tried from another source.
I've used both, streaming from Google cloud, and when songs are available offline in the music app -- still stuttering. Haven't tried any other method though.
As for trying to stream over Bluetooth, haven't got any speakers/earphones that could receive the stream at home. Going to try my luck with a local pcworld, if they let me.
I haven't had any problems with Google Music stuttering while the screen is off, but I have had it crash frequently while listening to music and multitasking. I experienced a similar problem with Rhapsody as well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1379600
Pyrotechnic said:
I get the same using the Music app (have WinAmp but doesn't seem to integrate with the lockscreen so don't use it) as soon as the screen goes off (either timeout or manual) you can hear the music slow down and start to stutter, tap the power button, screen comes on and music goes back to normal.
Have noticed it's not all songs, but have't looked into the differences between those that do and those that don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
totally true! thought my phone was a lemon at first.luckily i didnt return it.
yep having the same exact issue. on speaker its just fine. when i plug in headphones or aux to car stereo and screen goes off it stutters / skips or whatever you want to call it.
Turn the screen on and its fine. However doesnt happen to all music. This was streaming from google music for me.
I'm pretty positive you guys have same exact problem as many other people. So far no one has take my suggestion of playing those same songs that stutter, and play them over bluetooth. I bet you don't get any more stutters. I think it has to do with analog outputs vs digital. To output analog, the phone has to use the DAC (digital to analog converter). When it outputs over bluetooth, there is no conversion, and the music is in digital form and transmitted in digital form
If someone can try this I would appreciate it. And you'd be helping everyone find a common denominator in this problem.
Also be sure to star this bug on google code http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22444#c6
Can someone post an mp3 this is happening to them with? I have a ton of them and I have not seen this problem yet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
[hfm] said:
Can someone post an mp3 this is happening to them with? I have a ton of them and I have not seen this problem yet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't I PM you a link the other day? I thought it was to you. I didn't click the box to save it to my sent box so I can't just look it up :[
Circling back. I recreated the problem with luxferro's 48KHz mp3. Seems whatever happens on this phone to play mp3 with the screen off cannot handle that sample rate. Any 44.1KHz mp3 works fine.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
There was another thread like this. The current workaround is to enable the Equalizer for Google Music. You don't have to actually use it (leave it on default) but this solves the problem.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I guess with the eq on its forcing the CPU to get involved even when in low power mode. Unfortunately I believe that was causing other issues with crashing. Since I don't use 48KHz mp3 I'll leave it off.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
For poweramp try settings... Audio engine.. Advanced tweets and change the audio buffer size.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Having the EQ turned on seems to work, just set it to flat and turned the 3d effect down. Guess it'll use less extra battery than using a 'keep awake' app like I was doing.

Music/audio playback quality - stock phone

There have been a few threads about static, clicks, pops, etc... but nothing that really helped me figure out if i'm having a problem or not.
I have a stock GS3, purchased relatively early - 7/2 - from best buy.
I'm not happy with the audio playback quality, specifically when compared to other devices, like my iPod or old iPhone 4 that i had before this.
Either using the stock Samsung app, or using PowerAmp, which I've purchased... with all file formats... mostly FLAC, but also m4a, mp3...
Using any of the headphones i've tried... beyer dt1350, ety hf2, apple in-ear, etc... (not junk)...
The sound quality of music playback just doesn't seem "clear" to me... not any really blatantly loud static or distortion, although sometimes it is worse than others... occasional clicks, pops, etc. But mostly, just a lack of clarity... which could possibly be a constant mild static or distortion on the output.
Is anyone else experiencing it this way? Am i just being to sensitive to a different sound signature of this device vs apple's devices? I don't think so.
I'm 100% comfortable with the quality and integrity of my music files... i have a ton of them, and they play back fine on all of my other devices.
What else could it be, before i have to send it back to samsung and be w/o a phone for a week? best buy already won't exchange it for me, as i'm beyond my 30 day window.
help!
I know exactly what you mean, I'm very particular about my sound signature as well. I find using an equalizer to work wonders. But i have noticed that some equalizers dont work at all will the stock rom when listening to on device music with Google Play Music.
Have you tried using an equalizer or even installing Awesome Beats?
This is a development forum for custom OS and software... If you're completely stock, maybe you should take that up with Samsung or try some of the nice modded software...

[Q] Audio Sputtering and Popping on Spotify, TuneIn

Hello all,
I love the audio quality on CM, however ever since using it on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, the audio on Spotify has constantly popped and stuttered and sputtered and whatever other word you want to use when playing through the headphone jack.
I feel like I've tried everything outside of switching ROMs. Tiny Kernel, Franco Kernel, CPU Governors, etc etc etc, doesn't matter.
I've also done search after search after search, and I feel like I'm completely alone in having this issue. I can't find anyone asking about this anymore, now that Spotify claims to have fixed it in an app release months ago (which makes me think it isn't necessarily Spotify's fault, but who knows).
I should mention that this does not happen with Pandora or Songza, for instance. Only Spotify and TuneIn.
Of course, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that both Pandora and Songza process the audio in some different way from Spotify and TuneIn, since normal use of CM's DSP Manager has no effect on those apps but does work on Spotify.
So, is there anyone else out there who has this issue with CM (or other ROMs)?? At this point I'm just hoping there are others out there who have had this problem just so it isn't an "only my phone" issue -- because those ones have no hope of being fixed.
I have the same problem, running stock 4.2.2 on my Galaxy Nexus. I think it's a device problem, not an app/background process problem.
I don't use TuneIn so I can't speak to the quality of its streams, but I have used Rdio, Slacker, Pandora and Google Play Music and they all play flawlessly.
ONLY Spotify plays audios with occasional snaps, crackles and pops, like a bowl of Rice Krispies. Some songs will play without a blip, some with a few, some with many. The songs are not interrupted...just marred by this defect. And it's never the same way twice with the same song.
It happens whether the song is streaming, or playing locally.
My guess is that the Nexus has difficulty playing Ogg Vorbis files, which is the format for Spotify streams and downloads. As far as I know, the other services I mentioned stream in AAC or MP3. While the Nexus supports Ogg Vorbis, it appears it does not support it very well. I'm going to test this theory by transcoding one of my Apple Lossless audio files to Ogg and then uploading it to the Nexus. My hunch is that it will demonstrate the same issues.
I guess we should consider ourselves lucky; before Jelly Bean the Nexus suffered from more dramatic playback problems. Do a Google search on "Music Stutters when playing long files and screen off: Galaxy Nexus" and read through it. There are a couple of posts that deal specifically with Ogg playback.
I've decided to live with it. I've been hopping from music service to music service trying to find the right one, and I always come back to Spotify. As long as the issue doesn't become more severe, I think I can re-program my brain to tolerate it.
Skyh said:
Hello all,
I love the audio quality on CM, however ever since using it on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, the audio on Spotify has constantly popped and stuttered and sputtered and whatever other word you want to use when playing through the headphone jack.
I feel like I've tried everything outside of switching ROMs. Tiny Kernel, Franco Kernel, CPU Governors, etc etc etc, doesn't matter.
I've also done search after search after search, and I feel like I'm completely alone in having this issue. I can't find anyone asking about this anymore, now that Spotify claims to have fixed it in an app release months ago (which makes me think it isn't necessarily Spotify's fault, but who knows).
I should mention that this does not happen with Pandora or Songza, for instance. Only Spotify and TuneIn.
Of course, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that both Pandora and Songza process the audio in some different way from Spotify and TuneIn, since normal use of CM's DSP Manager has no effect on those apps but does work on Spotify.
So, is there anyone else out there who has this issue with CM (or other ROMs)?? At this point I'm just hoping there are others out there who have had this problem just so it isn't an "only my phone" issue -- because those ones have no hope of being fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:02 AM ----------
My theory was incorrect. I used XLD to transcode Boston's "Hitch A Ride" from Apple Lossless to Ogg Vorbis (VBR, quality 4.0), then put the file on my phone. I used Winamp to play the file and it played beautifully.
So I'm thinking there's something specific with Spotify's encoding that the Nexus doesn't like.
What's odd is that I have run Spotify on other mobile devices and have never had an issue. That's why I have trouble putting the blame on them.
OP, after checking many Google leads, posts, etc. I believe--for Spotify anyway--I have found a way to stop (or at least greatly reduce) the Rice Krispies.
If you have Google Play Music on your phone, make sure it's fully updated and then launch it.
Within Play Music, go to Settings, then select Equalizer.
Turn the equalizer on, select the Normal preset, and move the Bass Boost and 3D Effect sliders all the way to the left to turn them off...unless you like them on.
Back out of Google Play Music to the home screen, then launch Spotify.
Go to Settings within Spotify, choose Audio Effects and verify the Equalizer is OFF in that app.
Using this combination of settings/conditions, I have heard just a couple of pops over a string of a half-dozen songs. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts.
I'm guessing that having the Google Play Music equalizer on, some additional processing is taking place that alleviates whatever is causing the popping to occur.
Good luck!

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