yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
If you want the USB audio enabled via official firmware/kernel, please vote (aka star) here:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24614

Star: Vote for this issue and get email change notifications

Star: Starred by 3056 users
[Galaxy S II General] randy.turker:
Good analisis,
[Galaxy S II General] infind:
@Supercurio

Please forgive my ignorance but... why is Louder not compatible with the T-Mobile variant of the SGS2?

I understand that the processor is different but isn't the yamaha dac the same across the board?
[Galaxy S II General] danba:
Apparently, the USB audio is enabled on Cyanogen modded Samsung Galaxy S2:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/604479/good-news-about-android-phone-supports-digital-audio-output
[Galaxy S II General] TheSniperFan:
This is so awesome!
[Galaxy S II General] varunkumars:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Mini-B-...745?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0d23e4a1

MIcro USB-TO Mini USB cable. I bought it from this seller in ebay. You can trust him.
[Galaxy S II General] TheSniperFan:
I would, but I'm in Germany. Need to find one here.
[Galaxy S II General] vesceram:
I cant belive that SGS2 have so bad audio quality. I have listen chinese mp3 for 10$, phones, cowen, iriver, ipod but I never and I say never heard so bad audio than this Samsung flagship. I respect people who trying to solve problem with apps but I can tell you there something very wrong with audio of this device.

What disappointment. :(
[Galaxy S II General] celsior360:
This a wonderful thread, thx
[Galaxy S II General] xEraseRx:
I wonder whether the S3 or galaxy nexus have better audio quality.

Coming from a good ol' Nokia, the new gadget blindness wore of pretty quickly as I realized how much the audio, a feature I use daily, ducks in comparison.

The S2 has its strengths, but audio is not one of them.

I do not plan to update anytime soon, but when I eventually will, I will think twice before grabbing another Samsung.
[Galaxy S II General] celsior360:
You are right about the quality of S2, the audio part is quite bad. I don't know if the Sony GX will have a good DAC like the S3, still waiting for it to come out and gsm arena can do a thorough comparison between the two. Heard the moto rasa jazz also got good music quality, is that true? Sorry to get a little away from the topic.

Cheers
[Galaxy S II General] elmo198:
no suprise there. Thx god i didnt buy my GS2 for playing muic or i would of shot myself ages ago. I still use my trusty ipod. The dsp is so much better on my sennheiser IE8 earphones soundstage comes to life. Pluging in the flagship IE8 onto the phone only make me cry how bad the audio chip is on the GS2. Lucky i only needed a phone, not a music player nor a mini laptop.

On that note i dont buy a phone base on how nice it take photos or how nice for movies/music or how well i can do wordprocessing.
[Galaxy S II General] Arcus76:
Sound

I guess I should write here.

When official JB came out, the sound quality improved and became much better. Sound on SGS2 becomes not so bad, as in the beginning.

But still there is a question : is it able to work with external DACs? With official JB on board?
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
No biggie, I re-read the document as well and am as confused as you guys.

All I know, is that there's a lot I don't know ^^

So lets be pragmatic, not speculate too much and use real infos we have.
[Galaxy S II General] blackstar84:
Yeah...but the press release..it was written already when the yamaha chip based S2s where in production...this does also strongly suggest...we can expect Wolfson based S2s...yes but I guess the one who live will see...
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
@blackstar

You posted in another forum that up till now you heard only negative stuff about the Yamaha dac. Believe me, I too will be very disappointed if the audio quality won´t match the GS. But until now there hasn´t been any proper proof that this is the case. There are people who really like the sound. So just relax and wait till we know for sure.
[Galaxy S II General] skaif:
hey supercurio, im not too sure what this yamaha/wolfson malarky is about but i have a sgs2 which is rooted, any way to find out what hardware is in it? or anything u need, ill do my best to help! :)
[Galaxy S II General] -jen94ek-:
Sound is just for fun

Hi

I have to say sound out is crappy was excepting more may a samsung chip from samsung MP3 players.

But nothing at all is going out of my sgs2.

I just bloody ordinary flat stereo and the fake 5.1 you can call it 124.8 does't metter at all.

So don't spen money for expensive headphones even if you have one already is not goona help you here.

Has Iphone same chip as a ipod??
[Galaxy S II General] Funkym0nkey:
Sorry, but quality of headphones always matter. Always always always regardless how the sound output it.

There is daylight difference between some cheap headphones and some decent ones, let alone the expensive audiophile grade headphones.

SGS2 output is balanced and neutral. its not Bass and Treble heavy as original SGS or some other phones. If you appreciate music, you will never ever touch 5.1 emulation.

This phone deserves minimum Brainwavz M1 / NE 700 quality headphones. Even NE6/7 dont do it justice.
[Galaxy S II General] blackstar84:
I was going to buy the DT 1350 for this phone...but with this Yamaha chip it seem meaningless...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aahpv0_DDFE
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
pretty much

you can't expect these phones to be able to drive a hd800...
[Galaxy S II General] dazzer1975:
yep, you've been round head-fi too long lol

honestly mate, that place is lethal, every new release pretty much is the next big thing according to that site, they are one huge advertising and marketing machine.

Best thing i did was get outta there, was better a few years back.
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
haha

that site is worse than this one in terms of upgrades. I had a few sennheiser cans, two denon cans, three grado, few more audio techica cans. This is before we get into receivers/amps etc

edit: I forgot the buds and iems... worse than the cans that i've owned
[Galaxy S II General] jarsiv:
Phone calls quality is poor. It will auto enable that noise filter and after that my voice is very dark and not clear. If I disable that voice is clear but choppy... (KDD)
[Galaxy S II General] kradcliffe:
The sound output through headphones is pretty similar to the GS. I have tried 3 trusted sets and it's very good.

All it needs is a volume boost like the Voodoo mod to power some of the more hungry cans.

P.S. Don't use that ****ty built in music player, Poweramp and Mixzing are far better and also have independent EQ.

Keith
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
Do you actually own the phone? If not, please stop moaning.
[Galaxy S II General] BarryH_GEG:
Instead of the subjective commentary, it would be great if someone who has the tools and skills could actually analyze the phone's output. This is also a discussion of the phones audio capabilities, not the loudness on voice calls over headphones for which there are already three threads open.
[Galaxy S II General] forgetmyname:
Agreed. I love loosing the dynamic range in my ears.... pah.
[Galaxy S II General] RogerPodacter:
did gsmarena do their review of the SGS2 yet? i thought they usually do some technical audio analysis on every phone they review.
[Galaxy S II General] -jen94ek-:
Just saying the sound out is poor!buy any mp3 from samsung like Galaxy Wifi 4 or 5 or Samsung Q3 even bloody old T10 is 100% better sound than SQS2 on its own!

Headphones are headphones good or poor.But for someone who whats to listen music OFCOURSE withou 5.1 emulation SGS2 is NOT a good choice!

AND YOU DONT HAVE POWER to RUN any studio headphones so AMPL AMPL!!!if you want sound!
[Galaxy S II General] BlueScreenJunky:
Could you please elaborate ? What headphones did you test the SGS2 with ? what software did you use ? What music did you listen to ? and in what areas did you think it was lacking ?

I quickly compared it to my Sansa Clip (which is supposed to be one of the very best DAPs), listening to Metallica - The Unforgiven (FLAC, with PowerAmp) on a pair of Sennheiser CX95, and I didn't notice a difference... Or actually I think I did notice a small differencs, they didn't sound exactly the same, but there's no way I could say for sure that one is better than the other.

I'll have to test more tomorrow, but unfortunately I don't have any amp and the only earphones I have are the CX95 (which are pretty average), and the HD600 (which are quite good but I'm pretty sure neither the Clip nor the SGS2 will be able to drive them since they're 300Ω).
[Galaxy S II General] omersak:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-review-597p8.php

Seems like the potential is there for it to at least match the original Galaxy S, save for the high IMD noise, and it seems like they might be messing with the EQ again for low impedance headphones.

I'm sure supercurio and an implementation of voodoo sound would make for quite a kickass portable source! I'm so buying this
[Galaxy S II General] Toss3:
The sound quality is really bad compared to the SGS with Voodoo sound, but there's still hope now that supercurio will be joining us soon..
[Galaxy S II General] fallenguru:
So it's the perfect phone except for mediocre audio. Just my luck. Why couldn't it have been the camera for once, I pretty much wouldn't use that anyway? (Apologies to any phone camera lovers.)

That means it's either Voodoo or a separate mp3 player or another phone ... argh :(
[Galaxy S II General] blackstar84:
Maybe there is hope if you use an external headphone amplifier ?

I am thinking about that or buying the Sansa Clip+ mp3player..

We need more tests ?
[Galaxy S II General] -Juff-:
Finally! Was waiting for the GSMArena review for sooo long...

Okay, what do we have?

A perfect audio output via no resistance line-out. Pretty nice, nothing more to add.

So let's talk about the output when headphones are attached (compared to the original SGS): lower volume, a (kinda) "messed up" frequency range, more noise distortion, ~ equal dnymaic range & noise level and a slightly better stereo crosstalk (hope this is right).

What does that mean for me? Well... The noise distortion may be annoying, but I guess it's not _the_ deal breaker. Lower volume output may be a problem for some guys, but I _never_ listened to max. volume when using the SGS (with voodoo not even close to it). The better stereo crosstalk is nice ofc, but that's not _the_ dealbreaker neither. So let's talk about the "messed up" frequency range. Looks like Samsung (or Yamaha, whatever) built in a bass equaliser (look at the GSM pics). This is even good for me. :D Even though I'm a fan of good and "correct" audio quality, I still prefer a bassy audio output over all those low bass output handsets because I listen to bassy music a lot.

In fact none of those parameters is a disaster for me and I think that this phone can still be a pretty good portable audio source. Lookin for a good offer now. ;)
[Galaxy S II General] omersak:
Definitely voodoo. If Supercurio can pull it off then it'll fix all audio problems and i'm confident that it'll make the SGS2 at least 90% of what SGS + Voodoo is. I mean, it's not as if it's audio quality is bad and beyond the point of saving - at least it isn't a lost cause like this is:

http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_optimus_black_p970-review-596p6.php

Yes, in understand that it wont be as good as the original and yes, i would definitely much rather they stuck with the WM8994 dac instead of the yahama junk - but if voodoo can make it 90% as technically proficient as the SGS, isn't a bad trade-off considering all else the device is capable of.

Right? :( :(

*bashes head on keyboard*

TL;DR

Supercurio, our lives depend on you!
[Galaxy S II General] RogerPodacter:
you say you never listened to volume close to max on the SGS, even without voodoo, because the volume output was acceptable. the SGS2 seems much lower so you WILL be needing to listen at max volume just to have it match the proper volume level of the SGS.

my question is does the source code release contain the audio files that can be modified? i looked all thru the source but cannot locate the proper audio.c file that would need to be edited.

on the nexus one is was easy, change a few values in the mahi-mahi-board.c or audio.c file, compile the kernel and flash it to your phone.

but where in the SGS2 source are these equivalent files? just for a quick fix if we could bump up the volume output for now, until a proper voodoo comes along, then most of us would be satisfied for now.
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Based on GSMArena measurements, it seems if I do some audio hacks for Galaxy S II, I'll call it.. "audio hacks" but not Voodoo sound.

IMD+Noise levels measured here are anything but good, its far worse than the stock Galaxy S badly configured.

http://supercurio.project-voodoo.org/audio/voodoo-sound/Nexus-S-Voodoo-sound-DAC-direct.htm

And the HP amp measured, looks .. really bad.

You can forget about the shape of the frequency response, its a GSMArena measurement procedure flaw, not an equalizer or something (i'll confirm that later)

I'll make other measurements and listening tests after receiving mine in a about a week but. this Yamaha audio hardware seems it's just not playing in the same league as Wolfson's.
[Galaxy S II General] omersak:
We'll just have to be patient and wait and see, i guess.

It may not be horribly bad at the moment but it's sad that the optimus 2x, even with its unoptimized wolfson drivers has, at stock, better SQ than the SGS2. A testament to how good that DAC is i guess. Damn you, samsung.

I guess it's time for the original SGS and SNS + voodoo sound to gain cult status as the cellphones with the best ever audio quality, past present and future.

HTC has always had **** audio quality, but i was watching the recent teaser video of the HTC Sensation, and they were advertising it to have, due to its chip, "Hi-fi sound quality". Might be something of mild interest, i don't know
[Galaxy S II General] RogerPodacter:
Have you been able to find the source code to boost headset volume? Just to ignore quality for a second, can the Max volume level at least be increased?
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
Damn, I hope there´s still a silver lining. I too can live with a good or mediocre camera but music is most important to me.

If this doesn´t turn out well enough, you can still hope that the Wolfson is in the new NFC models and that they´ll be available in Europe. Fingers crossed.
[Galaxy S II General] DocRambone:
The low out put on sgs 2 for some users is strange (with headphones ..).

I use Eliot's musicmod v1.6 on both sgs 2 and sgs 1 (with voodoo sound)

And the sgs 2 has way higher max volume. So try another music player....
[Galaxy S II General] manuvaidya:
+1,

i am sure samsung will not let us down in the music department. & moreover, yamaha is far superior as a DAC compared to wolfson. if anyone wants a clarification, i am here to give reference link, they can check by themselves...

sure, we must find a way to maximise this Yamaha YMU818B DAC, which is yet to be explored about its capabilities... since its a 2nd genereation chip which means new one for mobile phones, i am pretty much confident that SGS2 rocks in terms of music just like in all other aspects....

only time will tell us how & when ;)
[Galaxy S II General] peh6088:
The current sq of this bad boy is really incomparable to my ipod when I listen to it using my UE TF10.

Supercurio, please do something about this. I'll definitely buy it when it's out!
[Galaxy S II General] -Juff-:
I think you will get a ****load of money/donations if there is voodoo (meaning optimized) sound for the SGS II one day, so... do it, supercurio! :D

Even I myself as a "poor" student will definitely donate something like 10€ for some serious progress.

Still don't get why Samsung made this mistake... This was supposed to be the perfect phone. =(
[Galaxy S II General] fallenguru:
By all means, then, post your link.
[Galaxy S II General] BlueScreenJunky:
Probably because most people (myself included) can't hear the difference between a decent DAC and a very good one. Or because they don't want their phones to compete with their DAPs.

Yeah well, maybe it wouldn't have been so successful if samsung had advertised the SGS2 as "an average phone" ;-)
[Galaxy S II General] blackstar84:
It is simple, it all depends on what headphones you will use.

Obviously the phone is made for using cheaper headphones...

with plastic audio.. In all honesty I have given up hope...

And if you increase and maximize audio beyond it's capacity it will only lead to more distortion.
[Galaxy S II General] manuvaidya:
i didnt get a proper link where it specifically says that YMU818B which is a yamaha product used in SGS2 beats wolfson used in SGS....

but yamaha uses Burr Brown which is a high end DAC, where as wolfson is a recently introduced DAC compared to yamaha & its quality is on par with yamaha burr brown DACs...

different models of yamaha have different features & wolfson definitely is a good DAC, i am not saying it as bad, but yamaha is not at all inferior to wolfson i said.

moreover, yamaha is superior & well experienced in AVR & DAC since long time.

but wolfson has recently entered tha market to compete with yamaha. this much i can say it for sure & its well discussed in several standard AVforums...

one more thing, music is highly subjective, one person's preference may not be the same for another one.

so lets wait & watch for a proper hardware review from the experts from both SGS & SGS2. maybe supercurio is collecting all the data required to compare & research any new hacks possible for this SGS2...;)
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
Don't forget that a lot of the folks may be comparing voodoo sgs1 volume level against the sgs2. I'm actually doing the same because i've never had an instance where i didn't use the voodoo mod on my sgs1
[Galaxy S II General] fallenguru:
Just out of interest, what's "plastic audio"?

Well ... why d'you say so, then? The rest of your post doesn't bring anything new to the table, either. If you have info, out with it.

Also, I think we are beyond the "What's in it?" stage now. Ultimately, only the output counts and that hinges on a lot more than just the DAC component of the audio chip. As it stands, the audio quality is sub-par. There's nothing subjective about that. (OTOH, some people prefer sound that is objectively worse, so YMMV.)

Well, one gets used to anything. I even listen to music on my Samsung i5700 sometimes and that cracks and pops, never mind hisses, with abandon. I don't suppose there's an easy way to port Voodoo, is there? ;-)

And what's the deal about the volume? Is "loud" just a roundabout way of saying "will drive higher impedance cans" or is everyone around here a little deaf? :D
[Galaxy S II General] dazzer1975:
THIS

the dac is just one piece of the story, the signal route, the headphone amp all play their part, infact, the headphone amp is the most important I would say, even with a top drawer dac, if the headphone out is pants then the sound will be.

and it seems the measurements on the head out is pants.

I've yet to listen myself, as the measurements are just one indicator, but ive lost expectation now... which may colour my experience.
[Galaxy S II General] ph00ny:
Nope. I live in nyc and i usually use music volume level to compensate for the ambient noise along with noise isolating iem
[Galaxy S II General] LondonGemini:
I have to say, I also find the output rather quiet from my phone.

I just read the review on GSM arena which shows the quality of the output isn't great.

Its such a shame that this phone doesn't have a line out like my iPhone so that we could use a little headphone amp to get around the quality and and volume issue.

Maybe some one will get a USB amp/dac like fifo one working
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
Nothing ends till the fat lady sings. Until Supercurio tests the device himself I still have hopes that it isn't as mediocre as it seems to be at the moment.
[Galaxy S II General] Asmo42:
I have a SGS2 ordered and as what I guess you would call an audiophile I've been following this thread with interest. I'm a little surprised by the reaction to the measurements in the gsm arena test though. They don't look that terrible to me?

Without the headphones it looks pretty much perfect. With the headphones it has a 1db peak in the low frequency range but I would hardly call that terrible, I doubt many would detect that in a blind test listening to music. And might even be a measurement error according to supercurio's reply. So that basically leaves the IMD+noise value which I'm not really familiar with and don't know where the threshold for being detectable is? Also a big question, those headphone's they're using to test with how hard are those to drive? Compared to an average or easy to drive pair of IEMs?

If the old SGS had such good sound it's of course a shame if it's worse in the S2 but it seems to me like maybe some are overreacting a bit?
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
If you don't see what's the issue with what show those measurements, from my twitter:

@JonoCoetzee If you want to compare to #GalaxyS with Voodoo sound: http://bit.ly/gSaz5u #GalaxySII Yamaha: http://bit.ly/mhnpbf

@JonoCoetzee With those links you can also compare With or Without Voodoo sound (also, Nexus S stock: http://bit.ly/lWWOJ7)

#GalaxySII 0.066% IMD+Noise on line-out + the non-flat frequency response btw 10kHz-22kHz are result of an issue/weakness (or measur. error)

Comparison scales: #WM8994 #VoodooSound: THD -82dB, IMD+Noise -78dB. Yamaha #GalaxySII: THD -87dB, IMD+Noise -64dB

@phlunkie What I can say right now is that any kind audio result: (noise, distortion, artifacts.) at line-out level at -64dB is a problem.

@phlunkie I wont say much about GSMarena measurements under load: they're not representative. I'll know more only once I have it in hands

http://twitter.com/#!/supercurio
[Galaxy S II General] cpu98:
Uhh...

That real load response should look like that because it is not tested with dummy load(like 16 ohm resistor).

With a real headphone, its response is also measured. That's why all gsmarena's loaded responses are look alike(bass peak + mountain like > 1kHz but scaled).

That IMD+N is somewhat higher when signal clips : it should be carefully level-matched with RTA in prior to RMAA. (Yamaha boost circuit turns on @ -6dB)

The real problem might be that response is more affected by headphones' reponse(impedance graph) + relatively high IMD+N('cause I originally ABXed to hear 0.1% Distortion)

And it squeaks quietly while skipping or pausing music maybe it affected rmaa score. Yeah it needs some touch.
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
And now in English ;)
[Galaxy S II General] supercurio:
Its the technical explanation of why and how GSMArena measurements "with headphones attached" is flawed.
[Galaxy S II General] Woodend:
Hi,

It´s confusing. Supercurio, is there a chance that the bad results of the GSM measurement aren´t as bad as they seem?

Merci
[Galaxy S II General] kradcliffe:
Well it sounds perfectly fine to me, just needs more volume.

Is there any way to do this from the hidden menu at the moment until a modified kernel is developed?

Keith
[Galaxy S II General] :
you seem to have more knowledge on this subject than other mere mortals like myself. would you care to explain it for the general mass?

cheers..
[Galaxy S II General] dk206:
Sorry to go off topic a little guys but after updating to latest firmware KE2 the sound quality can't get ANY worse. Listened to music totalling 1.5hours on the tube today and Omg there is absolutley no base whatsoever it is poorer than my 1st generation iPod Touch.
[Galaxy S II General] kersh:
Agree, it sounds pretty bad :/
[Galaxy S II General] RogerPodacter:
Please find the thread titled "volume codes" and let me know if the codes in that menu actually work. I'm curious about it.