yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
Hi Sorrow,

next to making calls, of course, music is the most important feature on a mobile phone for me. When I bought the GS2, I came from the GS. And there´s a difference in sound. I can´t express myself good enough to get the message across, but in one sentence, the GS2 sounds flat compared to the GS. Because of that, I went back to the GS and am now waiting for the next best thing.

I never had an Ipod so I can´t compare. If i were you, I would order one at Amazon.de and see for yourself. The returning policy of Amazon is brilliant. You won´t have any problems.

Gruß!
[Galaxy S II General] zoobzone:
I've only ever heard the hiss once, that was when I had Kies Air on, trying to upload a bunch of files onto the phone.
[Galaxy S II General] Sorrow1994:
Thanks for your feedback ;)

have you compared the SGS2 to SGS1 stock or with vodoo sound enabled?

BTW: as I'm not really an "audiophile", the CX300's are good enough for me, to listen my music while im in the train! At home I'm am usin klipsch s4's (Also very cheap, but good enough, for me) and i can clearly notice the difference between my iPod, the Desire, and my Laptop...

EDIT: As you sayd, you hardly can tell the difference between your xonar d2x, the SGS and the SGS2, i'm asuming, that it doesn't sound THAT bad, right?

EDIT: btw: is actually any one "Happy" with the (stock) sound the SGS2's Yamaha DAC?

Thanks, greets
[Galaxy S II General] Major_Sarcasm:
Happier now that I'm using PowerAmp. Sounds way better.
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
It's not that bad. I think folks were expecting a whole lot more because of the voodoo enhancements of the original sgs

I honestly believe that stock for stock, it sounds as good as my captivate if not better. Also with phonak iem, details were amazing. I'm going to locate some more complex music to listen to but i'm completely happy with the combination
[Galaxy S II General] aurelm:
voodoo sound enabled.

to answer you question. No, i'm not happy because I know it's lower quality than sgs1 :). But still cannot tel the difference.

like I said for the cx300 range of headphones there should be no issues.

but speaking of. when I first tried the sound there was indeed something wrong with it. after that I also switched to poweramp which is the best player imho. but I removed the stock music player and playerpro so I cannot compare anymore.
[Galaxy S II General] Kai026:
I would like to know is there any line-out available for Galaxy S II?

Thanks
[Galaxy S II General] lavkesh:
Sold my Galaxy S II yesterday with heavy heart just because I couldn't live with the Audio quality. With lower quality headphones like CX300, its pretty hard to make out any difference in quality with my other phone, the iPhone 3GS. But my UE Triple.FI Pro's laid bare whatever was wrong with SGS II's sound quality.

There were other things which I felt were wrong too. I didn't like the all plastic build so much so that I was afraid of putting it in my jeans front pocket, lest it breaks into two. In the pursuit for ultimate thin ness Samsung for sure have compromised on heat dissipation. A great phone, probably the best Android phone, but lacks the overall refinement that Apple gives you with the iPhone. I am back to my good old iPhone 3GS but I miss the Galaxy S II.
[Galaxy S II General] Sorrow1994:
HI,

was the sound "worse" or did it sound just "different" than your iphone?

btw: what music player are u used on the GS2? stock?
[Galaxy S II General] lavkesh:
It did sound worse. My iPhone 3GS had better separation of instruments and better soundstage (wide, SGS II was very narrow). The problem aggravated itself at higher volumes. iPhone 3GS is hardly audiophile quality but SGS II was worse.

I was using the stock player (normal,custom equilizers). With 'music clarity' option selected the sound got loud but quality suffered even more.
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
Phonak iem brought a lot of instrument separation even with the stock player
[Galaxy S II General] noobdeagle:
hmmm by the sounds of this i guess ill be holding onto cowon standalone players for a while longer, i heard the issue with sound lies with software so there might be improvements in the future once development really takes off.
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
It seems that it is not a software but a hardware problem.
[Galaxy S II General] Kendoji:
The sound from the standard player was lifeless, but I am now getting results good enough for me to use the phone as my daily player. I'm running PowerAmp with some EQ tweaks, mostly FLAC files, output through my FiiO E7 to either my Denon D2000s or my Grado RS1i. It's good without the FiiO, but the amplification adds a little punch. I have no complaints about the sound. Which saves me getting a Cowon J3. For now. :)
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
I want to sell mine as well due to the sound quality. I don't really understand how stupid samsung are??? Only because of SAMOLED and Android i buy samsung. I was a symbian Nokia user in the past i never had any problems with all their. what ever is meant to work would work perfectly.

I bought this phone for a fortune and it wont sound ateast like its precedor sgs1. Hope less even with a software update. When we had gps problem with sgs1 there were developers atleast who tried to make it better but apparently there is no scope for development. I can't tell you how awful trance music sounds. There is treble and wide sound stage but bass forget about it.

Let me know if someone is willing to buy??
[Galaxy S II General] Kendoji:
Have you tried PowerAmp?
[Galaxy S II General] Razer(x):
Is there any suggested tweak for Poweramp? Your help would be really appreciated
[Galaxy S II General] Kendoji:
It really depends on the music you listen to, your headphones and of course your preferences. A good place to start is probably the 'rock' EQ pre-set.
[Galaxy S II General] Arkanius:
Here I was wondering why the hell I had no complaints about the sound quality

The Lineout frequency response is stellar like the Galaxy S.

The Headphone response... Not so much

(According to gsmarena.net)
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
I tried power amp and what not. Awful. It seems like i am the only with SQ problem.
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
I know UI is **** on this player but try neutron player. Best for SQ
[Galaxy S II General] kalpik:
Maybe give this a try? http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1122361
[Galaxy S II General] Kendoji:
That's where I first read about Power Amp, thanks for that! Though I've found that I get good sound without the extra equaliser app (I did try it).
[Galaxy S II General] Andy2.2:
Ordered the phone, hope when it arrives I'm not disappointed due to the audio :(

I'm not an audiophile as such, but I like my music to sound good
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
Clipping?

Perhaps some of the issues people are having here with sound quality is related to clipping? The only issue I have with the S2 is the output volume, it's rather low. But you have to be careful when pushing the preamp of apps like Poweramp or you will start clipping tracks resulting in a horrible clicking distorted sound, that's why Preamp defaults the preamp to a low level. ALWAYS maximise the global volume first and if this is not loud enough then tweak the preamp....not the other way around.

I have levelled all my music to 91dB using MP3Gain, this is not loud enough on the Sg2 so I do need to tweak the preamp a little but I still do not encounter any clipping. Another thing to consider is the impedance and sensitivity of your headphones, if you have high impedance of low sensitivity they will require more power to drive meaning you will push the preamp up and increase the chance of clipping.

I use Poweramp with quite sensitive earphones and am very happy with the sound. At home I use a Xonar DX > T-amp > Auvana Live's and I almost prefer the S2 sound at the moment.
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
Thanks man. I think it works fine now. I am consoled. Almost perfect.
[Galaxy S II General] aaronsoup:
I'm really at the end of my tether here, i've tried everything so far to get decent sound quality out of my SGS2 and have failed miserably.

I'm using 1 of 3 setups with varied luck: (apologies if I use the wrong words and am a little unclear, don't know a great deal about sound, just what sounds good to my ears)

1st (Preferred):

AKG k702, nothing else - Now I understand this is a little hopeful, but still, my iPhone4 managed to do this reasonably well. Sound is completely congested, and very quiet. A complete lack of bass and mid (Admittedly these headphones are so open they're not made for bass but i'm missing whole parts of songs at the moment).

2nd:

AKG k702 with portable amp - Much better in terms of volume, but everything is still a little congested, no depth and distance in music as a whole, but at least I everything is clear.

3rd:

Grado SR80, nothing else - Volume wise still a little low, everything sounds squashed, no depth, really lacking in bass and mids again. Tinny. Makes them sound like £20 Sonys.

Fixes attempted:

Ran Audiohack - slight boost in volume at the cost of lack of clarity, deleted.

Purchased Volume+ - Can boost volume significantly, but only seems to boost the treble.

Purchased Volume Boost - Same as Volume+.

Tried the EQ settings posted here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1122361 - General leveling is improved, everything is still congested, Grados & AKGs still pretty much unusable.

I'm just about to go away on holiday, i'm seriously considering swapping back to the iPhone4. I prefer the SGS2 as a phone, but I'm all about convergence and if my phone can't at least accompany me to work it becomes somewhat useless.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for such large headphones? and if not, could you suggest a pair of similar headphones that you've had better luck with? I'm not set on using my AKGs, they've just been my preferred choice for the past few months. Imagine I could fetch around £150 for them so there's my budget.
[Galaxy S II General] Kendoji:
With those phones you definitely need to be using a portable headphone amp (the AKGs, not the Grados). I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but have you tried Power Amp and tweaked the EQ? I'm getting decent sound through my Grados and my Denons.
[Galaxy S II General] bendispo:
Does anyone know the status on USB hosting for the SGS II? Would it be possible to use an external USB dac/amp combo?
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
Mate SGS1 sounds better than iphone and plus dev community on sgs1 is great :) if you are interested in buying an sgs1, pm me :)
[Galaxy S II General] aaronsoup:
Yeah the link I posted was to a thread suggesting equaliser + poweramp may solve my issues, and they didn't... Thanks for the advice anyway

Don't know how to thank via xda app or you'd both get a thankyou.

Can someone recommended a slim profile rechargeable portable amp? I'm using a stainless steel handmade behemoth that's amazing but not very practical...
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
Yes. I was frustrated and went to the extent of selling the phone. I have tried Power Amp in the past but never changed the equalizer as supposed to. That was the mistake.

I set the equalizer(inside Power Amp) my self it took about 3 hours, flipping each song. Now bass is deep, and i have wide sound stage. You may also follow the link posted.That's exactly what i did. Trust me guys don't be depressed and throw away the phone. This definitely works. I use this with my Shure SE530. Sound is as good as SuperCurio's captivate. For me it sounds even better at times(i was using stock player in my captivate), no wonder its the power of PowerAmp.
[Galaxy S II General] rwj5279955:
With exhaustive tweaks, Power Amp does work wonders. It's definitely not as good as my Captivate with Voodoo sound, but it doesn't suck nearly as bad as stock music player.
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
As a SE420 owner i am jealous of your headphones :( haha
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
Depending on your budget I would say look at a Little Dot or Fiio if your on a tighter budget
[Galaxy S II General] p3t0r:
Can people please post screenshots of their power amp eqs?
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
I have this set to show only 6db in advanced settings so I don't crank it to far.
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
Try full amp with lowered EQ of all bands. I guarantee it helps with sq
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
Um i had an AKG 701 and it was hard to drive them properly even with portable amps. i wouldn't bring those cans anywhere near portable devices
[Galaxy S II General] NuckinFutz:
That does the same thing, the overall gain will be the same.
[Galaxy S II General] verygoodbrother:
Ultimate Ears Triple fi 10 Earphones

For you audiophiles, i've got a pari of brand new Ultimate Ears Triple fi 10 Earphones for sale. I already own a pair of audio-technica headphones so no need for this earphones. Selling for £190 but open to offers. Image below
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
looking for a SE535 :) Just love shure sound.
[Galaxy S II General] sandeep10:
I find that there is a large difference in SQ and it largely tends to depend on the earphones / headphone.

I have found no hiss, crackle, pops at all.

I find the supplied sammy earbuds the best sounding after setting the sound effect to music clarity in the stock player settings. Volume, bass, etc. excellent, 10 is maximum I can bear.

Tried another cheapo set of earphones, they sounded just ok, lacking bass and volume. I had to keep the volume at 10 or so for reasonable volume.

I tried another similar (as the supplied) looking Samsung earbuds (not listed as compatible with the SGS2) but ought to work anyway, were terrible with some frequencies muted/missing - first time I ever experienced this from earbuds).

My BT Nokia BH 103 while sounding great on the 5800, sound the worst on the SGS2. With BT, sound effects cannot be enabled. Bass / volume low.

I tried my usual line-out cable to aux-in the car stereo used by 5800. It did not work at all, where 5800 worked fine. I tried another cable, it worked fine, but again low bass / volume.

It appears that Samsung have tweaked some settings for their audio which seems to work best on their own hardware combinations and using any generic stuff results in poor SQ, low volume/bass.

I did try another player, but the stock music player with music clarity enabled sounded the best.
[Galaxy S II General] verygoodbrother:
Sorry i only have this UE on me. I've used the 535 before and they are pretty good.
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
I agree to this post as well. I tried out with my SE420 and didn't sound bad at all although it did lack abit of finishing. This is without PowerAMP, equalizer app etc. However, this may be because I tend to like neutral sound, as some complain there's no bass etc. As for the music clarity option, I find that it makes the sound too artificial and harsh but this is personal perference i guess.

Simply put, it's not too bad unless you are a REAL audiophile and well... get compatible headphones. :)
[Galaxy S II General] jay_993:
Since you are a new member, if you didn't know, there's a marketplace section under general in the forum list. :)

Also, I reckon SGS2 DAC is not good enough to run those UEs to it's maximum potential ;)
[Galaxy S II General] sandeep10:
The equaliser settings seem to work on BT, so I have tweaked those a bit and though volume is low, SQ seems acceptable (not outstanding as it was on the 5800) on the BH103. Of course I did have the 5800 tweaked as well. The SGS2 is more neutral, I think.

On the line out, sound effects seem to work, but not on BT :confused:

On the whole acceptable for now. I do hope it is a software thing and Samsung improves the audio quality through future firmware updates. But as others have posted, the audio hardware does seem a bit underwhelming too for a flagship phone.

Edit: Has anybody tried plugging their phone into a USB stereo car deck and using the car deck to play the mp3s as a disk drive?
[Galaxy S II General] barsk:
This is on my to-do-list. It will most probably need rooting the phone, a custom ROM with kernel module loading enabled and then the USB audio modules loaded, which is NOT part of the standard packaging (as I have understood it). They are part of the standard Linux kernel though so no magic is needed, just a different compiling of the ROM. The only thing that needs to be in place as I get it is those kernel modules, USB host mode and then it will play.

Android 3.1 has this already so it will "probably" be available to the SGS2 when Ice Cream Sandwich is available as an official upgrade. That might take some time though... :)

I am hoping to delve into the world of compiling Android kernels ASAP to get this to work. Keep your fingers crossed. It will take a number of weeks probably though, but If I succed I will post my findings here and in the developer subforum.
[Galaxy S II General] verygoodbrother:
I currently use a headphone amp with my headphones.
[Galaxy S II General] ajftl:
I'm glad I'm not the only one with volume need or better sound. ...that's one of the reasons I dumped HTC phones cause none of them satisfied my sound needs lol. Myabe with custom roms and of course power amp. ..anyway. I'm still using stock player and I think its great to be honest ..I found this Bluetooth stereo headset that it blew me away ...I owned couple of Bluetooth stereo headset in the pass and they were just so so. Altec Lansing was the best one that I tried until I found this one jay bird...

Great bass. Great volume ...sound is very flat. No crazy high or to much mid.... trust me. I love lot of bass and this babies have it...u won't be disappointed

... paid 90 I think at bestbuy
[Galaxy S II General] karthikv:
Hey, i am planning to buy Klipsch S4's for my GS2. Has the quality considerably improved??
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
My SGS2 is from the launch day and it sounded great with S4 and awesome with phonak. Out of curiosity, i took my motorola S9 bluetooth headset for a test drive and it sound as good as it can be without any pop or loss of bluetooth signal
[Galaxy S II General] noobdeagle:
Well I've been doing lots of testing as I've been trying to get the sgs2 to sound as close to my cowon s9 as possible and so far I've made some interesting discoveries

First headphone I own and tested with are as follows jays q-jays, etymotic hf5, er6i, and grado ps1000. All of which sound very nice clear and rich via the s9.

However on the sgs2 no matter what I do all sound dull and hollow on the sgs2 and overall unpleasant.

I recently however bought some senheiser cx500's so I don't damage my good pairs at work and these actually sound pretty good on the sgs2 but meh on the s9.

Personally I like balanced headphones and the cx500s are kinda bass heavy and as a result make the sgs2 sound bit richer and fills out the low end better

so from my experience if your buying for the sgs2 opt for something a little more bassy and less balanced this should also translate to cheaper earphones

As a side note plugging an amp into the sgs kinda helps to
[Galaxy S II General] ViggenZ:
So far I like audio quality very much (poweramp + eq + a-jays four). Also the fact it can play flac files was one of reasons ive purchased the phone, but... with the highest quality files it fails to play
[Galaxy S II General] slitch:
I own a Sennheiser HD25 and Klipsch S4's. The S4's sound great on the SGS2 with a pretty punchy bass. The HD25 lacks and sounds way beter on the SGS.

Great earbuds for the money!
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
No amount of voodoo will get the SGS2 or SGS1 to the Cowon S9 level. Output level and the amount of adjustments available in Cowon players won't be matched

As for sound quality, if you're experiencing dull sound, it's most likely underamped.
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
Can you play it through the stock player?
[Galaxy S II General] noobdeagle:
Yep and this is why ill continue to carry a seccondary music device with me .....until cowon make a phone I guess :p
[Galaxy S II General] rudolf895:
Damn went through 30 pages reading all posts to see this :-\

Tapatalked from my super smooth, ultra fast samsung galaxy s2.
[Galaxy S II General] ViggenZ:
No. It crashes stock player.
[Galaxy S II General] Forsh:
Sound quality can only be as good as the weakest link in the chain. No way is it worth having playing audio with a 192khz sample rate through a Yamaha DAC! Its like putting comfy leather seats and soft suspension in a tractor.

You'd struggle to find a dedicated mp3 player that can tell the difference between a 192khz FLAC and a 44.1khz - especially with a pair of £40 earphones - people spend hundreds and hundreds so they can have a pair of earphones that show a resolution that large. You might even find that the Yamaha DAC is incapable of playing 192khz sample rate files as a hardware limitation.

Re-encode the FLAC files to 44.1, or even 48khz and that should play fine (definitely for 44.1khz). FLAC is a lossless format so you could decode to WAV, then encode to FLAC again at a lower sample rate with no audio quality loss.

On a side note how are the A-Jays four? I've got a pair of Sennheiser CX-400 Precision II earbuds for portable play, but i've heard a lot of good stuff about the A-Jays and I was thinking of upgrading.
[Galaxy S II General] ViggenZ:
Well, Im perfectly aware I wouldnt hear the difference between 44 and 192 samples on this device. Only purpose of that test was checking if it can actually play it. My usual flac files hardly ever go beyond 44kHz.

As for a-jays I bought them mostly for mic while keeping decent audio quality, so far I enjoy them but dont think it would be much of un upgrade from cx400. Ajays are great if you like 'U' curved sound characteristic.
[Galaxy S II General] shawn_pro:
Guys pls someone who has tested the stock earphone with Klipsch S4i give their opinion?

Is the volume level better than stock?

Is the Sound Quality better than the stock headphone?

Is the controls working for FF/REV for the Klipsch S4i?

Please guys, iam confused whether or not to buy Klipsch S4i as i have few options of headphone where i live. Thanks in advance.
[Galaxy S II General] goebish:
Hi,

I've been using an iPod Touch 1G --> line out via dock --> iBasso D10 amp --> Q-Jays iems everyday for 2 years and I just ordered a SGS2 to replace the iPod.

Do you think I'll be disapointed ?

I can see there's no line out on the SGS2, what would be a good volume level to send to my amp instead ?

I hope HoneyComb will support audio out via USB so I can use my D10 to its full extent with this device in the future :)
[Galaxy S II General] arkadius41:
Almost everyone here is disappointed with bad sound according to Yamaha chip, Supercurio is focused on Wolfson and it seems nobody wants to solve this hardware problem. Ive tried every software way to improve signal but without satisfaction. So, perhaps we should start special thread like CM7 donation and begg someone to make us happy with new drivers. I spent a lot of money for this device and really dont wanna give up.
[Galaxy S II General] ivanlmh:
Kinda felt that the volume of our SGS2 is very low..quality is also bad unless you have some kinda of equalizer
[Galaxy S II General] xan:
Ok seriously. WHAT THE **** SAMSUNG? sound quality is ridiculous, no there is NO QUALITY! My 15$ mp3 from ebay sounds 10 times better!

Im thinking what is better, throw the device away or just sell to someone with a smile on my face.

I know SGS has excellent sound quality, I knew sgs2 is worse, but I didnt expect it to be such POS!
[Galaxy S II General] kalpik:
Heh, I know what you mean!

Try this out: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1122361

Did wonders for me! :)
[Galaxy S II General] KaliKot:
I think its pretty decent using anything BUT the stock player

I can live with the SQ through some tweaking and Poweramp. It's better than most players still, and I would pick it over a Sansa Clip+ because of the enhancements I can do with it

You can try Kalpik's EQ as well