yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S II General] AndreiLux:
Uhh, I'm no audiophile in any sense, so the best I would describe it as before it would sound as if there was a piece of paper between in the sound and it was muffled, now it's more "vibrant" and sounds "heavier", also seems more clear when it's quiet. As I said I'm no audio expert in no means, but the improvement is there.
[Galaxy S II General] arkadius41:
Is it louder as well now ?
[Galaxy S II General] AndreiLux:
I can't tell, never used the higher volumes on my in-ear earphones.
[Galaxy S II General] arkadius41:
Could you do me a favour and post the link to this one which gave you the best in your opinion result ?
[Galaxy S II General] fluidz:
Neutron player with a increase in the highs using the built in eq gave me remarkable results vs poweramp.
[Galaxy S II General] vnvman:
Omg man, that's totally true, it sounds better now. The cpu noise has also decreased significantly :D
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
CM7 + Stock player + Dsp manager = a very acceptable sound for me. Again depends on headphones used but sounds decent to me. But I usually listen to hip hop, rnb, dance and high tempo music.
[Galaxy S II General] vnvman:
Yeah it's also a matter of what you listen to i guess. Personally i can stand playing industrial/ebm on this phone, but the typical sound of country/blues is really messed up imho. Acoustic guitars sound fake and horrible to my ears, my old Desire was a much better performer :(
[Galaxy S II General] Prankey:
I have tested without Voodoo as well and it still sounds WAY TOO CLEANER as compared to SGS2. Major difference between Voodoo and non Voodoo sound is the volume levels and THD+N. Volume on SGS2 is high enough, however issue is with terrible IMD, THD and Noise which makes it one of the WORST sounding one.

There is NO similarity between I9003 and I9000, you should have done your HOME WORK before posting such absurd comment as before! I9003 is NOT SGS1! Voodoo sound doesn't do any equalization, it just keep the original Samsung FFT eq intact though and boosts digital volume levels to max, supports oversampling and DRC and use of a more tuned clock source to reduce possible jitters on SGS1. So unless you use I9000 with Voodoo, you will never be able to IMAGINE what you are missing!

As of now you could use HDMI output to a HDMI capable AVR. I am unaware of any HDMI to SPDIF or HDMI supported external DAC. However, as expected digital output through HDMI is not affected by this terrible sound issue. Though personally, again Voodoo Sound on SGS1 still sounds much cleaner to me even when using Analog output there.

So can we get digital audio when ICS comes? I am always game for taking digital audio as much as possible as it eliminate analog conversion losses significantly even if we use a good DAC at the source.
[Galaxy S II General] gattari:
I don't have sg1 but I have iPod touch with line out hardware to bypass the amp section.

Well, sg2 sound better than iPod touch + line out

I don't think the sg1 is much better than iPod touch + line out hardware.

I only use my ttvj amp to lissening my

music with sg2 or iPod touch.

I am curious now to listen by an SG1 but I'm sceptic at same time.

THD and Noise reduced by voodoo soft? Mmm.... digital volume boost to max mmmmm.....

What are you using to listen?

Men if you are right the sg1 is a stellar piece of hardware to listen music, perhaps I will bougth a used one.

Pardon my poor English, I don't like Google translate.

Ciao
[Galaxy S II General] Gaff_l:
Thanks fluidz for this great tip about Neutron MP :) ... and NO THANKS also :(!

You've ruined my listening pleasure!

Before Neutron I was quite happy with PowerAmp, especially the new V2 beta.

Neutron blew it's socks off. You're absolutely right. Chalk and cheese in clarity, depth, volume, airiness of the music. How do they do that????

BUT... its a seriously flaky app. F/C'd several times and then crashed the phone so that when it rebooted the external SD card was corrupted and I lost 28GB music. Well, not lost forever, but had to reformat the sd card and I'm now in the middle of the lengthy process of re-deciding which of 800GB music is going to fit into 32GB!

But here's the rub... I'm sucked in to Neutron MP! How can I go back to PowerAmp after this. I just tried a sneak peak with some newly downloaded music files and sure enough, the difference between the two is still there... big time. So, do I continue to spend hours putting more music on the sd card and risk another (possibly even worse) crash, or do I pretend I never heard the difference and move on?

Curse you, fluidz, for mad dog! I can't move on... I must live in fear (albeit surrounded by sublime music).
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Take the risk, neutron > poweramp, despite its 90s interface the dev knows that sound is important.

I've not had any crashes on mine.
[Galaxy S II General] avddreamr:
What about neutron is actually better about power amp.... or rather how can it compensate for the more or less terrible sound of the GS2.

I was quite happy with my epic 4g with voodoo sound, it sounded so good that I had a hard time telling the difference between it and my xonar stx on ultimate ears triple fi 10 pro, but on on my akg k701's... the difference in imaging/spaciousness was readily apparent.. but the point was.. I never really felt like I lacked sound quality on the go with the epic 4g...

The S2... is f*cking terrible... when I heard the audio was not as good.. I didn't expect it to be well.. so noticable. There is significantly less bass, and more importantly... less clarity. And yes you can eq more bass, but the bass is distorted...

So how can neutron increase the clarity... what do settings should I use?

Right now.. it looks a bit cooler than power amp, but it has less eq bands, but the appearance meshes better with my "neon blue" theme. I don't think that the problems that i'm experiencing can be eq'd away, but man i would love to be proven wrong.

@supercurio: Is there any hope of fixing the sound? B/c the spec sheet on the one audio codec that I can find on yamaha's site.. isn't that bad.. it should be livable. Is it something that you can even investigate? If so... maybe we can set up a bounty for you.. I'm sure alot of people will donate.

Because I'm honestly considering switching to an iphone 4s... b/c the quality makes my 400 dollars iems sound like stock 5 dollar buds, or at least not much better than the stock headphones on the original epic 4g (galaxy s).

And here I thought my biggest annoyance would be the massive screen and low ppi.
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
Your experience with the bass distorting is probably down to clipping. Make sure your global volume is maxed and try to keep the eq so that attenuates the frequencies you don't want rather than amplify the ones you do. Increase the preamp until your volume is where you want it and that should be fine. people must remember mobiles aren't designed to run big headphones with high impedances, all phones will struggle here.
[Galaxy S II General] vnvman:
I feel you mate, every time i listen to some music my ears cry. Last week in a moment of rage i was about to swap this phone for a friend's Sensation due to that...in the end i had a change of heart, but man that was a close call...
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Again it really does depend on what you listen to for the music I listen to I find it acceptable I only use phone to listen to music when out and about, for serious listening I've got my tab with voodoo, and mp3 players.

In neutron enable dither, set some crossfeed and such. I like it for its gapless playback.

PowerAmp is good but volume too low for me compared to other players.
[Galaxy S II General] ecce:
Nothing help

Hope you know this :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4686/samsung-galaxy-s-2-international-review-the-best-redefined/13

You can se the true.

It's better with Neutron>PowerAMP>Nothing but not as good as cheapest Samsung MP3 Player for 20£

So since May 2011 We are talking about missing quality of sound.Nothing has been done already!

Enjoy.
[Galaxy S II General] rothshek:
I just want to know Galaxy S II to 2.3.5 of Gingerbread, improvements in the sound quality ???? really ???
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
I am just hoping that ice cream sandwich support USB DACs. That'll bypass the weak Yamaha chip on the phone.
[Galaxy S II General] cobhc:
+1 My Fiio E7 is ready and waiting :D
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
In the Misc Internals you can see "USB Audio DAC (digital-to-audio converter with USB input and stereo outputs) should also be supported". So is this the USB audio DAC support ?? So it looks like ICS supports it. So if galaxy s2 is updated to ICS it might also support. What do you say guys ??

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/20/behind-the-glass-a-detailed-tour-inside-the-samsung-galaxy-nexu/
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
Yeah, we're getting it in ICS. Let's hope that ICS comes to SGSII quickly, be it via official firmware or CM7 :)
[Galaxy S II General] FirstNoobToBrickHisPhone:
What is USB audio DAC support?

Will I have to plug my headphones with a USB jack in the USB port to get good audio quality from now on?

Jeez the audio sucks I don't know how Samsung thought this was appropiate to release with a sound card like that.
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
The USB DAC we're talking about there is actually what you call an external soundcard.

Instead of your SGSII's audio chip converting the digital data into the sound you hear, you can connect your phone to the DAC via USB and offload the sound processing to the dedicated device. This feature will only be available in ICS.

And yeah, you'll need to plug your ear/headphones to the DAC instead of the phone for the better audio.
[Galaxy S II General] ecce:
Sound output when is docked

Hi just

what Audio output is use when is device in dock station.<<--external speaker

Is't it classic usb output so digital?

Is it just for FM radio?

thanks for amswer
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
Are you sure USB DAC is supported by ICS and not just by Galaxy Nexus. Some where i have doubt if it is a hardware thing. I believe phone's hardware also should support the possibility of external USB Audio DAC. Even though galaxy s2 is updated to ICS do you believe it can support external USB DAC.
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
The SGS 2 already have the hardware capability to support USB and this feature is more software than hardware actually.
[Galaxy S II General] FirstNoobToBrickHisPhone:
Those things are about as big as the phone itself.
[Galaxy S II General] rothshek:
anyone try rockbox for S2 ????
[Galaxy S II General] Loftus:
I thought the SGSII supported HDMI output from the USB port (MHL spec)? Surely the digital audio can be taken and fed to an external DAC....
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
Am not too sure about that. I had a look at the MHL cable and it seems to me that it's micro usb -> hdmi female. To extract audio out of that you'll need to extract the audio data from the hdmi stream. Not too sure how many devices will be needed to do that.

I personally will just wait for ICS for a plug-and-play solution for USB DACs.
[Galaxy S II General] nraudigy2:
super curio already tested 2.3.5 and unfortunately it's the same audio quality.

Here is the audio quality benchmark at gsmarena with iphone 4s. Galaxy S2 sounds bad with headphone attached. Frequency response and noise go to the roof with headphones.

http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_4s-review-665p5.php
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
In fairness it does with almost every phone except the iphone
[Galaxy S II General] fluidz:
Just purchased a sansa clip+ for 30pounds to find it knocks the socks off gs2s audio quality. What a let down. In my eyes this was deliberately done so s2 users would find a reason to upgrade in the future.
[Galaxy S II General] lgkahn:
Does anyone know about the audio on the tmobile gs ii. Is it the same chip and same poor audio it not?
[Galaxy S II General] jackleung:
Instead of USB DAC path, how about A2DP (I know there would be some loss due to limited BT bandwidth) ? Is the signal processing handled by GS2 or the A2DP receiver? I maybe incorrect, but I found the sound under my SE MW600 and JVC KD-BT1 are pretty good.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Yes Bluetooth skips complely the built-in DAC.

Unfortunately it doesn't qualify for High-Fi or Audiophile listening, as the compression codec used is quite primitive and lossy.
[Galaxy S II General] tolis626:
Well,I don't know about you guys,but today I got my pair of AKGs from repair(Yes,I didn't throw away 75 euros worth of headphones for a loose contact on the 3.5mm thingy) and,together with PowerAmp's equalizer stuff it sounds much more than acceptable.It still doesn't match my PS3 with my 2000 euros Vienna Acoustics speakers/1500 PrimaLuna RCU amplifier,but it is really good.At least on par with the Desire HD with SRS. :)

Btw,I'm using SiyahKernel which uses update3 sources(Better sound drivers?).
[Galaxy S II General] jackleung:
Thanks for the clarification. That's explain why I found music over BT (I know it's lossy and I am not audiophile anyway) sounds better than the 3.5mm jack on my JTC KD-BT1.
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
I've just got the updated power amp, they've implemented direct volume control, I won't go into it here but basically it's louder with less distortion with equalizer. Just get it and see what you think...I can confirm it is louder and it does seem punchier to me
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
I should learn how to do the frequency analysis tests to run a few tests of the Galaxy S2 but with the sound coming from the Lineout at the dock.

I swear it sounds good compared to the headphone jack. I have been using the headphone jack for the Lineout (In my car) while I was using CM7 and MIUI and when I got back to stock (And finally could use the dock) I was blown away by the difference.

Not sure if related to the 2.3.5 kernel "placebo" but it's something I should investigate later
[Galaxy S II General] on2a:
To me Miui sounds better than stock. At least out of my headphone out
[Galaxy S II General] yhrn:
What ROM are you on? I'm on Androidmeda 2.8.7 and for me sound is definitely not louder. Think it might be a tiny bit lower actually. As for quality I can't really hear any clear difference.
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
Standard kf3. Definitely louder for me, at max global volume I used to have pre amp set positive, it's now negative and giving same output.
[Galaxy S II General] betoNL:
Sorry for the question, but I dont even own a sgs2 and still enjoying music from mine sgs1....but...

I want that Samsung Note badly, which got the same DAC of the sgs2.

so I took my AKG K430 headphone to a showroom to perform some comparison tests among the note, the galaxy s2, the new HTC Sensation XL and my own galaxy s1, hoping that somehow, the Yamaha DAC would be better implemented on the Note....and......

Eventhough the sound on the Note, felt a little better than the sgs2 AND the HTC, it's still waay worse than my sgs, even without Voodoo app (which I disabled for this test).

Compared to the sgs1, the bass on those 3 devices sounds poor, and, the treble, canny ( I mean it sounded like it was coming from an empty can...)

But...can you guys confirm that the Fiio amplifier can make a difference? And how/why?

Cause I have the Fiio and never used it (no need)

Supercurio? Someone?

Sorry for not been reading but I was away for ages and the Galaxy Note woke me :eek:

Tks

Ps. I think I will back to the showroom, this time armed with the Fiio:cool:
[Galaxy S II General] bv_abhi:
I got the Same Question in my mind

Some one please
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
The sound won't improve much if you are just using the amp capabilities of the fiio. The DAC capabilities(which will significantly improve the sound) can only be used after ice cream sandwich is released.
[Galaxy S II General] donmarkon:
How is ics related to dac?
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
It supports digital out via the usb port, meaning you can plug the sg2 into an external dac bypassing the onboard.

About the fiio question, it will make no difference
[Galaxy S II General] lambstone:
Links to the digital output please.
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
http://m.engadget.com/default/artic...sung-galaxy-nexu/&category=classic&postPage=1

read thru this link. There is a mention at the bottom.
[Galaxy S II General] betoNL:
@xpsg

So, what you are saying is that the 3 first quotes above make in fact no sense?

Anyway, I will be sound testing the sgs2 and the Note again but this time using the Fiio.....veery curious

..

---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------

As you see, I decided to do some thread reading..above another 2 interesting posts....but I still didnt find the reactions to them......

.
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
I know but these comments were before we discovered a bit more about the circuitry. Normally you have a dac plus an opamp but in this case it's all on one device, therefore I don't expect an amp to do anything other than boost the sound, not improve it but this is just my opinion. I built a Meier audio dac amp and it made no difference to me but it will when I can use the dac section. I'm interested to hear your findings when you try the fiio out
[Galaxy S II General] odevans:
I received my gsii today. I've been comparing the sound with my iphone, desire hd, and my pc. Using my shure se315 earphones, the gsii keeps up with the lot. In fact, music through my gsii sounds much more crisp. I don't get any system noise, either, yet I did with my desire hd and pc.
[Galaxy S II General] xpsg:
What I am trying to say is that if you take the analog output(generated by the yamaha) of the SGSII and pass it thru the Fiio's amp, it will have some improvement to the sound but it won't be as good as using the Fiio's DAC features on top of the AMP. The output of the yamaha isn't very clean, so any analog output you get will probably be not as good as the signal generated by a usb dac.

And yeah, the music player does make a difference, I've tried neutron player and it's really better than the CM7 music player.

Anyway, I apologise if my comments gave you a wrong impression :)
[Galaxy S II General] Logi_Ca1:
Unfortunately Neutron has the most god-awful user interface I have ever set my eyes on. It's as if a 5 year old kid made that thinking it will look cool.
[Galaxy S II General] rothshek:
the best music player for s2 is rockbox. even better than neutron. try it. ^_^
[Galaxy S II General] Gaff_l:
How do you get Rockbox? It doesn't seem to be in the Market and the Rockbox site seems to suggest a working port is not yet available for Android.
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Google rockbox for Android, you want the daily builds.
[Galaxy S II General] betoNL:
Well....I did perform more tests ... And was so satisfied with the Galaxy Note, that I decided to start a new thread on the Note forum, after posting over there for a while :

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1342647

Had to do something about all that negativity about the Yamaha dac over there

« »
[Galaxy S II General] jit_devil2:
the note and the s2 has the same dac right?

so technically if the hardware is same we can make corrections to the s2's codec implementations after the source for note is released and the devs get a chance to study them.

i am totally a noob about dev related matters.but if betoNL's impression of the Note is right,hypothetically it's possible,right?

would love to hear from any experienced devs what they think bout this.
[Galaxy S II General] gattari:
Both phones may have the same DAC. This does not mean they have the same hardware, so performance may be different and independent from drivers.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 usando Tapatalk
[Galaxy S II General] :
http://rasher.dk/rockbox/android/
[Galaxy S II General] rhsauer:
Rockbox is terrific. Thanks for the tip and the link. I realize this is an early, early release of this app, but it is certainly the most configurable music player available for android. The sound is terrific - better than any other player I've tried - and I've tried them all. Can someone point me to a document that explains the various settings. (So far, I've left all but the most obvious settings alone - but the sound is really quite good.

A good test song (for me) is the Rihanna/Eminem song "Love the Way You Lie," which has complex sections involving cacophonous bass and treble heavy sections. Under the stock player, with any available equalizer setting (using DSP or Equalizer), those sections of the song tend to be a big sonic mess. With Rockbox, those sections resolve and are quite beautiful. Amazing improvement, really, even at the default settings.

Anyone else using Rockbox care to chime in with thoughts/impressions/knowledge? I'd really like to get a better idea of what makes this music player so good - and how I might be able to make it even better by tweaking the available setting options.

Also, if you download the Klipsch headset control program, you can use the headset buttons from an iPod/iPhone headset and they work quite well for pause/play, track forward/back and volume while using Rockbox. I'm very happy with this.
[Galaxy S II General] rothshek:
my rockbox sound setting:

bass : 0db

treble : 2db

balance : 0%

channel configuration : custom

stereo width : 130%

Crossfeed : yes ( other default)

Space 80 reverb : no

Equalizer : no

Dithering : yes

Surround : no

AntiAlias (Tube) : no

Timestretch : no

+compressor : threshold : -9db

makeup gain : auto

Ratio : 4:1

knee: soft

release time : 600ms
[Galaxy S II General] betoNL:
Talking bout sound...this Rockbox solution sounds like placebo to me :D

Or.... is Rockbox for sgs2 what Voodoo app is for the sgs1 ?

Can't wait to put my hands on the Galaxy Note and test Rockbox myself...
[Galaxy S II General] rhsauer:
Thanks rothshek! Is there a resource anywhere that explains those settings?
[Galaxy S II General] jangomango:
Amazing sound but whats the deal with the UI? Seriously crap.. Such a shame
[Galaxy S II General] rothshek:
you can go to officical rockbox for more information. this setting great for my combo music toys. (s2 / ibasso T5 amp / sennheiser ie8) :p
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
So the audio output on the Galaxy Note is excellent according to gsmarena. So can we say that the CPU noise problem is resolved in the upcoming devices???

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note_n7000-review-676p8.php
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
GSMArena.com demonstrated Galaxy Note output is the exact same as the Galaxy S II. (very same DAC bugs etc)

IMD+Noise is still as high, THD measurement still non representative because of additional distortions affecting calculations.

"headphone attached" results are different but that means... nothing as GSMArena methodology is invalid.

If the maximum output level of Galaxy Note is quieter than the Galaxy S II one, the distortions levels are automatically lower as well. This complete measurement can be ignored.
[Galaxy S II General] freek07:
Man, you made my day! I agree with what rhsauer says: with Rockbox there's more resolution, texture to the sound, everything from acoustic guitars to female voices to thrash metal riffs sound just clearer, more natural, less messy compared to the stock player, Poweramp, Neutron, or any other player I tried.

It's stock kernel XXKI4 (2.3.5) with Phonak Audeo IEMs, no equalizer or messing with Rockbox's settings. The Phonaks with black filters made the sound of SGSII quite bearable or even enjoyable before, and with Rockbox they just reached a whole new level.

I wonder what supercurio has to say about this, something just has to come up in measurements. Otherwise it means the quest for quality sound out of SGSII finally drove me crazy :)
[Galaxy S II General] betoNL:
Rockbox UI is so bad, is just ridiculous....cumbersome and anti-intuitive

And on the top of that, first time I needed reading glasses on my phone

I am glad I dont need it....

« »
[Galaxy S II General] bkraptor:
@supercurio: Have you been able to test this aspect?

Also has anyone figured out what changed with the new ROMs/kernels that convinced everyone the sound is better?