yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S II General] YG007:
Coming from the Galaxy S1, Voodoo control was great!!

Even though the audio chip is not so great on the GSII, I hope that supercurio would just enable the AGC for the mic input for the SGSII. I miss that feature a lot, since I record in loud environments a lot and it was recording perfectly, without any distortion, on the SGS1.... and now that I don't have my Galaxy S1, I totally miss that feature...

Supercurio: What are the chances of just making that feature for the SGSII?

... or if there is any other app out there that does it?? (I've tried searching, and came up empty handed)
[Galaxy S II General] Prankey:
I bought them to somehow bypass the amp on the SGS II. However that doesn't seem to work as it looks like the amp is basically a digital amp which essentially boost the power it gets from the source and hence the input impedance is not high enough to shut the headphone amp on the phone :(

Hope Supercurio finds something least interesting on this phone (how about utilizing the twin mics to get stereo AV recording :)) and start developing Voodoo sound for this phone's chipset to somehow improve the quality from its current hopeless levels.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
As promised: here is my Galaxy S II detailed audio review :)

I wrote it as I'd like to read it for a long time on other websites.

And its part of an insane in-depth review from Anandtech team. Awesome guys.

As writing review is really something new for me I need your feedback & critic: don't hesitate to be harsh or contradict me. Its a first and I want to make better text time!
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
I just finished reading the article and it's very well written. One thing that i would have loved to see on the article was a comparison to the galaxy s with and without voodoo enhancement as a comparison
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Thanks. Yah I hesitated to use Galaxy S and +voodoo in comparison, but I didn't want to transform this article as an advertising material ;)

Why not Galaxy S but iPad as comparison in this article? Because stock Galaxy S DAC measurements are far from clean (becomes much better with Voodoo).

iPad/iPhone DAC stays one of the cleanest.

However Galaxy S will become a good fit when comparing phone with load, IE headphones attached because in those conditions headphone amp matters a lot compared to the DAC only.

Hopefully a future article :)
[Galaxy S II General] karan999:
Both Yamaha and Samsung should read your article !!!even im now desperately waiting to get the audio issue solved.i use Sony MDR V700 DJ headphones and the audio output from the GS2 is worst in my DJ headphones.no bass.no clearity.complete full on distortion.

Can u talk a bit about the app Audio Boost SGS2 ? i havent used it yet, but would like to know the functionality and is it really working as a remarkable improvement.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
I hope so too!

Its really terrible. All it does is applying a digital gain inside the chip, which inevitably leads to clipping and distortion especially with today heavily compressed audio.

By default the "Master" control is set to this:

alsa_amixer get 'Master' 80
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch penum
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 93
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 75 [81%] [0.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 75 [81%] [0.00dB] [on]

Anything higher than 0dB => clipping.
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
Supercurio,

Now that you're done with the article, any eta on the release of technical details regarding the note? I've been waiting for it since the original tweet LOL
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Oh right I forgot about it :D
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
no worries. I stopped f5'ing on your twitter page on friday :D
[Galaxy S II General] rocketpaul:
so any chance of a audio volume boost? as soon as a tweak settings with the equalizer app to increase the bass the volume gets so low.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
I'm working at the moment on a new project to allow easier programming of low level audio hacks for much more devices than those supported in Voodoo Sound.

I want Voodoo Sound to stay dedicated on audiophile-capable devices, but there's a high demand for other kind of boost or hacks.

I make no promise here, but its likely Galaxy S II headphone amp boost (analog!) may become one.
[Galaxy S II General] Prankey:
Thanks for confirming that we already have 0dB or more digital volume and unless something could be done on the analog amp to boost its power output without further distortion, nothing else could be done on this phone!!!
[Galaxy S II General] petsasj:
Supercurio, i read your article yesterday. I must say it's one the most detailed and yet understandable ones around.

I also came from a SGS1 with voodoo sound. What can i say? It's probably the best sounding piece of kit I've ever came across. Thank you for your work there.

As most people that moved to the SGS II, I am also let down by the Yamaha chip. It's nowhere near the sound that was produced from the original Galaxy. And that's coming from a man that's almost deaf in my left ear :P.

My question is actually simple and perhaps silly to you. Is the Yamaha chip's performance underlying in the kernel code or is it just a big shortcome from the chip itself? Is there any possibility to see some improvement?
[Galaxy S II General] Zanr Zij:
@supercurio : maybe this link usefull for you

http://www.soomal.com/doc/20100002317.htm
[Galaxy S II General] okiru880:
Do we know whether higher gain (analog) could help in providing us with a "fuller" sound as opposed to the current "thin" digital sound?
[Galaxy S II General] J-Monty-L:
@supercurio

First of all a big "Respect" and thanks for the effort your spending to this

As a non-audio-guru i would like to ask if the 0dB-clipping border is a technical fact or if this is valid only for this case.

A few weeks ago i fiddled around with the amixer tool and it was quite interesting to see that there are many different control-channels involved in the headphone path.

As far i can remember there were :

"DIR#0" (same as master 0 to 93 - set to 83/0db)

"Headphone" (interrestingly only 0 to 31)

"HP-Gain" (just 0 to 3 - this seems to to be the chargepump 0/+1,5/+3/+4,5/+6dB)

and finaly the "Master"

What if two recordings (lets say one is recorded to 106dB max the other is recorded to only 90dB) then one of the mixers is set to +6dB. Will they both clip ?

Or same two recordings but one mixer (DIR0) is set to -6 and the other (Master) to +6dB ?

Does this only affect the "volume" or will the quality also change apart of clipping?

This stuff is just to confusing for me i think :)

Greets

J-Monty-L
[Galaxy S II General] noobdeagle:
Is anyone else using the miui rom if your not do it its alot louder and sound quality is significantly improved, confirmation bad sq is software based?

Swear with miui the sq with my q-jays is comparable to my cowon s9

EDIT: now that the initial WOW factor of just how much it is improved ive been doing some comparisons with the s9 id say the SGS2 is probably closer to an iphone now not quite cowon standards, classical music lacks some warmth in the high end, and the bass is not as punchy as good ol' machbass3, but def a big improvement over the stock sgs2 its actually enjoyable to listen to now.
[Galaxy S II General] SGS-II:
Nice post. Very insightful. :)
[Galaxy S II General] pixate:
great work but confirms the fears we all had about it.

I've been watching this thread with anticipation of a breakthrough leading to half usable audio playback from this device. Sadly it seems that Samsung have really undelivered in the audio department.

I've had to send my s2 back to CPW for repairs as it reboots constantly, and I've brought my old iphone 3gs out of retirement (The repair take two weeks and Carphone warehouse don't provide a spare while yours is in for repairs. Worth knowing when you choose where to buy yours from!)

Anyway having my old Iphone back up and running further reminds me of how far this s2 misses the mark on sound quality. Using the iphone via headphone jack to either my Naim rig at home or component system in the car is just leagues ahead of the galaxy s2. I bought the s2 based on the great reputation the original galaxy had, and feel really let down with the quality. No level of tinkering with eq makes this device a decent music player.

I even bought the genuine Samsung car dock kit (with the dedicated aux out on the back) hoping that it would resolve the limitations of the headphone output, but sadly that made things worse with hiss and electrical interference rendering the aux output completely unusable.

Samsung please take note: Next time you make a high end (£500) phone please make sure it has sound quality which reflects the high end purchase cost!
[Galaxy S II General] arkadius41:
Well, today i flashed new version of Batista 3.7.7 Final and ... am very impressed with sound, its much louder and has good clarity in comparison to the rest i've tried before (even on bt streaming !! - am using Jabra BT3030 and Nuforce700M ). There is DSP Manager included in the rom also and it works corectly. I dont know how he did manage this, but the fact is, now am really glad with the sound. :)
[Galaxy S II General] okiru880:
I hear ya buddy.. after being out of pocket for buying an expensive pair of IEMs to make the most of the crappy sound...(which didn't make much difference at all) I'm gonna have to shell out even more for a decent portable mp3/flac player when I fully expected Samsung to at least deliver an ok'ish music player whithin the S2!!

Hugely disappointed.
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
I have high (Wolfson)hopes for the Galaxy Prime.
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Will have to see what other products will have first like galaxy w etc
[Galaxy S II General] on2a:
SQ on Galaxy S2 MIUI > SQ on Galaxy S2 stock

That is all
[Galaxy S II General] cobhc:
Still not as good as it could be though, and still a long way away from how it should be volume wise. I listen a lot of older albums that aren't smashed to hell and back in the mastering process like most albums these days, and I have to really crank the volume to get them to a listen-able level.
[Galaxy S II General] mikereidis:
I'd be very interested in anything that could ease the use FM audio: enabling various analog (or digital) paths, and setting the gains on pre-amps.

ADC or direct digital for recording or DSP processing would be nice on any devices that could support it.

My FM app supports 16 different "Audio Methods" at present, and even that is not enough.

I think I can do the Galaxy S2 through ALSA, but I'm scratching my head over the Optimus 2X WM8994. I guess registers are accessible ?
[Galaxy S II General] Prankey:
Tried Alsa tweak as was available before Supercurio built Voodoo Sound? Should be there somewhere on SGS1 Dev section.
[Galaxy S II General] mikereidis:
Thanks for the pointer, but after 10 minutes of searches I can't find it in the SGS 1 dev section.

I tried a few alsa mixer and amixers in the past and found they use an ALSA library many phones don't have. So I built my own utility that uses the undocumented ALSA kernel api. It works OK within it's limits, but the ALSA support on many phones is very variable.
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
Something a bit OT:

Did Supercurio change his Twitter account? He didn´t tweet for a while which is a bit unusual.
[Galaxy S II General] rhsauer:
I would be very interested in any objective (or subjective) comparisons - or your general impressions - of the audio quality over headphone and bluetooth of 2.3.5 v. prior gingerbread builds.
[Galaxy S II General] Prankey:
Yes I also noticed "some" improvement in the headphones output as its more bearable now and sounds "normal" (IMD reduced?) in 2.3.5.

Never had issues on BT during my limited usage and it usually sounded better on my SE A2DP BT dongle with any headphone.
[Galaxy S II General] nraudigy2:
2.3.5 definitely sounds alot bettter on headphone than 2.3.4 and 2.3.3. Sound is a lot cleaner.
[Galaxy S II General] DestRen:
On 2.3.5 (KI3) SQ is much better
[Galaxy S II General] karendar:
Are we talking ROM or kernel? Because alot of custom ROMs still have old kernel source, but run ki3 modem and rom

Sent from my GT-I9100
[Galaxy S II General] AndreiLux:
Sound quality is sadly part of the kernel driver, we'll have to wait for Samsung to realease then next source code update for it to get into custom kernels.
[Galaxy S II General] Prankey:
Can you or someone reconfirm this? I thought the first time I upgraded it was very clean, however after switching to a custom ROM it got degraded, but felt it might be my perception.
[Galaxy S II General] bala_gamer:
Sound drivers are always a part of the core kernel, so as the display drivers etc. So if there is some optimizations in drivers, then an open source code are a must needed to incorporate those optimizations into some other kernels.
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
It's all part of the kernel

If you use a custom kernel you won't get the improvements

I asked supercurio to do a new reanalysis but he might have thought of it was placebo or was not very interested in it
[Galaxy S II General] hobsgrg:
There is a massive improvement so it's definitely not placebo, shame they didn't want to do a reanalysis as would be interested to see just how much better it is now objectively
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Agreed I think something had changed it sounds better to my ears already, hopefully future kernels can bring more updates. Just need Samsung to release the source code for this so devs can start implementation into custom kernels.
[Galaxy S II General] aceofclubs:
KI8 stock kernel/firmware does sound better to me but I still need to use equalizer to get a richer sound.

Dont think it will ever be as good as SGS1 and voodoo but it's good enough for my ears.

Im finding Bluetooth streaming ok too.
[Galaxy S II General] DestRen:
I'm talking about the stock firmware without any changes.
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
Totally

Everyone summon supercurio!
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
I never said that, I was in vacation.
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Welcome back mate. Hope you had a good holiday.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Is 2.3.5 KI3 supposed to sound better?

I ran a quick RMAA measurement: exact same numeric results in THD and IMD+Noise, with crappy graphs shapes as every previous measurement I ran before.

Also, I listen to the udial test and heard no change in the artifacts.

People hope so much for sound improvements that they're ready to believe and experience the placebo effect initiated by baseless rumors, that's crazy!
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
For some reason it does sound better not much but some improvement that's me testing with headphones, on KI3 kernel. I'd have to rollback to earlier firmware to see what it sounded like before but many users have stated sound has improved.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
one word: measurements!
[Galaxy S II General] jinx405:
welcome back!

i'm on the verge of flashing to a 2.3.5 ROM as well due to many people saying it sounds better, but if your results show that it's exactly the same as previous firmware... i might as well stick to my fiio e5 huh?

off topic: does anyone here know what DAC will the Galaxy Note & Tab 7.7 be using? i know its early days, but it doesnt hurt to ask now :)
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
Without a doubt must be my mind playing tricks on me lol.

I've experienced your great work with voodoo on my tab and want to praise you for that. I use that as my main player when at home as it sounds great.
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
Did you use the KI3 kernel?

I never said you dismissed it as placebo, I said you could have.

Didn't know you were in vacations :)

Welcome back

Too bad the measurements show exactly no improvements :(
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Yes the measurement I just ran for comparison is on 100% stock KI3
[Galaxy S II General] Currykiev:
This makes me smile. One of the "better" aspects to 2.3.5 is improved sound quality. I personally cannot hear any difference but then i'm no audiophile and don't think the sound quality is terrible on the SGS 2 anyhow.

Now someone with a bit of expertise comes along, runs a few tests and low and behold it appears there actually is no difference!

People want this phone to have top notch sound quality so badly.

I think it's time to let it go guys and girls. It seems this phone will always be average in the sound department. Appreciate it for everything else :)
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
The placebo was strong in that one then.

It's amazing really.

Oh well, thank you very much supercurio, sorry for bothering you :(
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
No pb.

Its interesting, like Currykiev it demonstrate how much customers care about audio quality, and I believe it's a good point.

As sound & music perception is subjective, its very easy to hear things changes existing when not or the opposite. Unfortunately a whole bunch of the "audiophile" industry is based on that.

However, It's just my measurement. I encourage everyone to make their own (technically valid) tests and build their own opinion.

IE it's never impossible I missed something.
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
For me audio quality should be A level priority for manufacturers.

Our devices are cellphones first then they are portable game machines, video players, etc etc

Call quality and audio media quality should be very important.

Let's hope Samsung improves the Yamaha chip or returns to the Wolfson ones
[Galaxy S II General] rothshek:
how about neutron music player with s2?
[Galaxy S II General] DestRen:
In KI3,KI8 bass became weaker, and the sound is better.

Those who are used to measure the sound does not appreciate the difference ears ;)
[Galaxy S II General] Chad_Petree:
I find it funny that people gives htc a hard time for their sound quality, but the sound in the galaxy s ii is quite low :(
[Galaxy S II General] DestRen:
Do not listen to the stock player ;)

Andless player lossless not quite bad plays.
[Galaxy S II General] Galactus:
Stock player with proper EQ is fine for me :D
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Perfect example of the typical audiophile bull****.

Based on nothing, assuming audio is something so special that scientific measurements and analysis cannot catch differences.

PS: If you get less bass, I suggest to insert your earplugs better :P

Because there's no way a (non-existing) driver "makes bass weaker"

If guess it would be fun to find the first message here in forums starting the "2.3.5 sounds better" rumor.

I doubt it will be backed up by anything tangible, other than once again the excitement of a new firmware.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Stock player without effect and Andless output the same signal for the same music files.

There will be no difference in sound quality between both. However Andless supports more codecs and gapless, which is nice ;)
[Galaxy S II General] lgkahn:
Is it possible just to do the Mic fix you did in galaxy s voodoo, so at least I can record at concerts and have useable sound? Thanks
[Galaxy S II General] DestRen:
Quite differently, they reproduce lossless. In Andless their codecs to play flac, ape and more.

With regards to the sound I make a further adjustment in the service menu (especially Speech RX Volume), so I can notice that the bass does not reach the level that was produced for example by KG1.
[Galaxy S II General] KayDat:
I don't use ape so I can't vouch for that codec, but Samsung Music Player can play back flac just fine. Lossless is lossless, so the output is identical. And no offence, I'm pretty sure supercurio knows what he's talking about. I'm quite dumbfounded when people are contradicting and basically saying supercurio is outright wrong, when they have no evidence to back up their claims. That, and the fact that he's basically the man in terms of sound for Samsung Galaxy phones.
[Galaxy S II General] Toss3:
^This. While supercurio might not always be 100% right(no one is perfect), he sure as hell backs up his statements unlike some. I for one thought the audio quality had changed, but that is apparently not the case. What's more I'll take scientific measurements any day over some audiophile mumbo jumbo based on nothing. Thanks supercurio for clearing everything up.
[Galaxy S II General] AndreiLux:
Wait a minute, so you don't believe it or what? It takes 30 seconds to switch between kernels and notice the difference in sound, no change in anything else. Do it yourself.
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
Any idea on what audio chip(Wolfson or Yamaha) T-Mobile version of Galaxy s II is using. At least they upgraded this. I hope samsung won't do the same with their future Galaxy s III and Nexus prime.
[Galaxy S II General] Gaff_l:
Hmmm. My understanding is that research shows that A/B testing only works when done immediately back to back. In other words, one can't accurately distinguish between two sounds when listening to them 30 seconds apart. It needs to be immediately one after the other.
[Galaxy S II General] nikzDHD:
What you need is two sgs2s one with newest kernel one with an older than test straight away something which I can do as my sister got one as well. I will see over the weekend.
[Galaxy S II General] AndreiLux:
Sorry but for me and my average Sony earplugs it's so distinguishable when going between the two, that if it's a placebo, then I deserve to be shot in the head as I don't consider myself a properly functioning human being anymore.
[Galaxy S II General] okiru880:
There is definitely a difference in sound between Roms <KI3 and KI3>.

It's certainly not a placebo effect. Intratech has even stated this/

However, I'm finding it difficult to understand how/why the measurements made by Supercurio are exactly the same.
[Galaxy S II General] DestRen:
For example, I cite players who have completely different sounds:

Stock

Andless

MIUI

Meridian

PowerAMP

Check ;)
[Galaxy S II General] KayDat:
A media player is just a program that plays back what is basically a stream of ones and zeroes. With no presets, equalisers or filters, every media player should play back a media file identically. If not, then the media player is doing something in the background that you don't know about, and is either unknown to you or out of your control. It's like saying Crimson Editor (or Word, or Notepad ++ or whatever else is your preferred editor) can actually edit a text file better than plain old Notepad (by the pure fact that the program itself is "better" than Notepad). Sure, the former list of editors I mentioned all have additional features that may make editing easier (such as coloured syntax) or other features that the user may want to use (text formatting), but if all you want to do is edit a plain text file, they all do the same job.

Media player is the same. On bog standard settings with no filters and EQ effects, every media player will playback the music file the same. Additional features might be better user interface, music tag identification or gapless playback. These are digital files on a digital device for goodness sake, there's nothing magical going on behind the scenes, the media player is just reading back the ones and zeroes and sending it off to the next stage of the pipeline (audio driver? DAC? dunno whatever is next)

Edit: For those who thing they can't possibly be affected by placebo effect, think again. Placebo is very real, which is why in scientific studies/medical trials, they perform double blind tests. The mind can really play tricks on you. Not directly related to audio, but a (delicious) example of placebo: Serious Eats Food Lab post on free range vs cage laid eggs. Or another one, is Mexican coke really better?