yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] maverick1103:
Sound quality

Hi all,

I have just brought a Samsung Galaxy S3, I'm in process of selling my HTC One X, now I love this phone but only let down is sound output quality via headphone jack.

Now I have searched this thread already, but some of stuff you guys are talking about is hard for me to comprehend :confused:

I use Spotify a lot, I find it simple and I play it through my cars stereo, now the HTC One X with beats enabled gave me a pretty decent sound quality. Now with my S3 the sound seems low I have to crank my volume up +5 etc to meet the One X, I have flashed DSP Manager via CWM and I've had a tinker around with that but only the treble seems to enhance, my bass is just so poor!

Can any point me in the right direction here please.

Thanks :)
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
I would suggest extweaks and siyah kernel if you want a volume/bass boost :)!
[Galaxy S III General] maverick1103:
Hi thanks for the reply, so I have to flash my kernel to siyah kernal to get bass boost?? What are the disadvantages with siyah kernel though, can I remain on stock though??

Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
Well there are a lot of advantages (such as getting rid of the crackling issue) and boosting the volume.

There aren't any disadvantages from what I'm aware of.
[Galaxy S III General] maverick1103:
Ok, do I just flash the siyah kernel via Odin as normal?? Plus will it work with stock ROM??

Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] knights.JayTana:
the current build which is 1.3.8a has one serious bug... the notification sound is freakingly high when your listening your music through headphone... Though itll be fix in the next build the 1.3.9... Better turn your phone in silent mode when you're listening music with headphone... other than that, its all good...
[Galaxy S III General] knights.JayTana:
as long as rooted, it fine with stock. Odin, easiest way..
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
in ODIN via PDA, and yes on stock it will work.

Just be warned, fi you want to return to stock kernel, I'd suggest reflashing the rom again.

FYI: that's not really a bug, just "scoobydoosound" at work ;)!

Although I know what you mean, I was one of the first to report it :p
[Galaxy S III General] knights.JayTana:
yahh, credit should be yours...
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
lol nah man - Gok's the man! Fingers crossed for a fix!

I would guess it has something to do with the overall sound being linked/tied into the notification sound. Whereas normally that "sound boost" shouldn't have any effect on notification/system etc sounds.
[Galaxy S III General] maverick1103:
Thank you both, I will flash to this kernel and post my thoughts back.

Cheers :good:
[Galaxy S III General] knights.JayTana:
Nothing to worry in the next build...

-Updated busybox to v1.20.2

-fixed mic problems

-added notification sound/phone ring clamping while listening to music on headphones

-added NextTweaks (my own /res/uci.sh frontend) to kernel.

-added JB support (thanks to droidphile for finding the problem that I could not see)

source: http://www.gokhanmoral.com/
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
sweeeet!
[Galaxy S III General] krishs3:
Yes u've to flash siyah kernel in order to get the bass boost and also headphones volume raise tweak.

Siyah kernel is from Gokhan moral and supposed to be king of kernels :). please thoroughly read siyah kernel section and then flash it mate.

check it out here

all the best mate

cheers
[Galaxy S III General] rlorange:
Still no voodoo sound from supercurio?
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
I gave up asking...dunno what happened to him.

I guess he got pissed off and gave up or something? I don't know
[Galaxy S III General] rlorange:
Threw a tantrum did he? Lol!
[Galaxy S III General] ficklecycler:
When I last checked on twitter, he was saying that he's going to work on display expert first, THEN voodoo. Sounds like he's stalling to me.
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
why would anyone do that...anyway - I'm quite happy with my S3 (sound quality wise), crackle free on Siyah kernel 1.3.8a so far
[Galaxy S III General] @home:
No problems here with sound, crackling & the like - Install Poweramp use some decent earphones & use flac, not mp3, Yuk, & job sorted. Not in any rush voodoo.
[Galaxy S III General] zikarus:
Damn - Neutron Neon 64 bit player together with SiyahKernel 139a and direct DAC enabled is pure awesomeness soundwise. The best sound I got from any Galaxy to date including my S1 with voodoo. Nevertheless looking forward to what Supercurio will deliver somewhen...

By the way - since this is the sound thread: most of the time I listen with my Ultrasone HFI 15G on ear headphones. Don't like my Shure iem that much... All kinds of music mostly Alternative / Indie Rock, electronic stuff but Jazz and Classic too...

GT I 9300 tapatalking...
[Galaxy S III General] tsangwc:
Could you tell me what does DAC direct do?
[Galaxy S III General] hefonthefjords:
So, interesting development here.

Was speaking today to one of the other sound techs at the venue i work in. He also works at wolfson in edinburgh.

Turns out this chip was one of the projects he worked on and he was telling me that in the initial design brief for this chip USB DAC was part of the spec. Apparently its designed to be capable of this but towards the end of the project they scrapped the feature because they didnt think it would be any use.

This basically means that the hardware capability is there but the software for the feature was never implemented.

Im gonna link him to this thread and hopefully if he has time he can give us some more detailed info on the chip and what other possibilities it holds.
[Galaxy S III General] varunkumars:
Thanks that's good info. Is it possible for us to implement via software, i mean add driver may be ??? For the moment if it is voodoo capable and if the audio is clean that is enough. Because nobody wants to carry another device along but always it is a nice to have feature. For galaxy S2 it is a must have feature given the crappy sound.
[Galaxy S III General] tolis626:
Still,if you intend to hook your phone up to a high-end audio system,you won't do it via a 3.5mm jack,trust me.Not that with decent audio hardware it'll be bad,but it won't be good either.Especially in the case of the S2 for example,which makes a nearly 4000€ setup sound like cheap computer speakers,USB DAC support would be bliss.And I don't think the S3 will be THAT good that it will allow for anything better than expensive headphones.I could be wrong though.
[Galaxy S III General] Caladbolg:
Looks like I'mma be waiting on my SIII vs E4GLTE debate til I get info on if Sprint's variant will be untouched here and in the processor department..

Those specs are wonderful compared to the One X. :/
[Galaxy S III General] Toss3:
The sound quality of the SGS3 is going to be loads better than the SGS2's, as the latter had some design flaws as supercurio explained in the review of the SGS2 on Anandtech. Doubt samsung would make the same mistake twice.
[Galaxy S III General] tylerdurdin:
This is fine but sound specs hardly say anything about what a listener feels is quality sound. Some say quality is based on perfect reproduction of a sound....others believe it is based on how well a sound is enhanced. Samsung is and has always been terrible in sound....I have had a Galaxy s1 captivate and Vibrant, S2, my wife has a Note.....all of which are the crappiest sounding devices I have ever attached a headset to....my iPod touch blows them away....painful to admit but true.....and all including my iPod were bested my my dinosaur HTC HD2....sound quality is amazing...I have found this similar sound in all HTC devices....I will not speculate on the OneX because I don't really know. I will say if samsung is not dealing something great at this point we can expect the same old low quality... unless a dev whips something up.....but as for the general public they will just get another crap sounding Samsung.

killing is my business, And business is good.
[Galaxy S III General] tolis626:
I don't need confirmation that the S2's sound is crap,I hear well enough. :p

My point was that even the S2 is bearable with some decent headphones(in fact I bought a pair of AKG K514-MKII and they sound remarkably better than anything I've used with my S2,even than much more expensive gear).Large speakers,amplifiers etc are another story.If the S3 is to surprise me anywhere,it'll be its behavior with big stuff. ;)

Well,HTC's sound was never that good.It was never bad either.It just was...ordinary,nothing too special(Although I have to admit that the Desire HD with SRS was kinda nice to hear metal music with).If I know HTC well enough,they must have been using the Snapdragon's standard audio chip(if there is one,I never did much research on this),just like they used standard ISPs all this time(Hence their terribly mediocre cameras until now).If they continue this habit to this day,I doubt the Tegra 3's sound will be anything spectacular.I can be wrong,but still,I'm curious to see a real comparison in sound quality.Anandtech anyone? ;)
[Galaxy S III General] Nash123:
Hopefully sound is better or on par with sgs1 :-) The reported facts sound promising.
[Galaxy S III General] Toss3:
Had the HD2 as well and the sound quality absolutely sucked.
[Galaxy S III General] bala_gamer:
with almost a year with my s2, i havent noted anything bad in sound quality with poweramp(i do hear some music :p). voodoo sound was one among the strongest reason for me to switch to s2 but it didnt happened. so hearing a much better music than s2 will be great and it simply adds to the excitement.
[Galaxy S III General] wwwwww22:
I tell you, with great tube amp, average phone can sound very nice.

I love my Fisher x-202-b
[Galaxy S III General] Beowulf_pt:
Sgs1 sounded great. Sgs2 not so. Probably the s3 will not have the nice Wolfson DAC.
[Galaxy S III General] Mopral:
S3 will have wolfson DAC
[Galaxy S III General] stierney:
Sgs I was super music player. Sgs ii is damn awful compared. Yeah there are tweaks out there but its bad. Sgs III back to a wolfson chip so that should cement my decision to upgrade.

If anyone thinks the sgs ii is good they should buy a decent set of cans and listen to the same flac file on the phone and then on its older brother ;)
[Galaxy S III General] tylerdurdin:
Funny I have the both, and think they both suck equally.:p

killing is my business, And business is good.
[Galaxy S III General] stierney:
I'll admit the sgs I wasn't up to iPhone standards but with voodoo tweaks it wasn't far off and it was a hell of a lot more versatile with regards to flexibility on playing file types and organizing music.

Still. I have high hopes for the III.
[Galaxy S III General] tylerdurdin:
Agree completely on those points...

killing is my business, And business is good.
[Galaxy S III General] varunkumars:
I just pulled the below from Mobile-review.Check this out guys. See the Extended Equalizer. Glad i pre-ordered mine already.

In terms of music SGS3 is a giant leap forward for the market. Firstly, it has a formidable sound volume margin and you will probably never listen to your music on max. The player has got about 20 equalizers with tons of parameters to adjust. And in the whole, S3 sounds very nice.

The player also has filters that determine what you see in the player menu. S3 is the first Samsung device to get the Music Square: visually it is a square with different ‘moods’ and years displayed on its sides. You select the moods and the years you wish and you get a suggested playlist. Sony Ericsson had a similar feature called Sense but it required PC sync while S3 does all the analysis itself. It is a great little feature but not a big deal.

http://mobile-review.com/review/samsung-galaxy-s3-fl-en.shtml#4

Special thanks to 'MrMvp' for sharing the review.
[Galaxy S III General] dragonesdenano:
So all music producers use Samsung ???sound and music? I dont think so, loud volumen and equalizer means nothing, every single ear is different, but best audio is mine, Dr dre beast audio. I m not saying Samsung isnt good quality, but go a try it with pro headphone ... I m a musican...and producer

Enviado desde mi HTC One X usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] WhiteHartMart:
How can you say every ear is different then state one solution (beats audio) is best??

For me personally I hate the beats audio sound as I prefer a more neutral sound signature.

As far as I'm concerned if Samsung have got things right with the DAC and headphone out then it'll give us the chance to use a range of decent headphones to suit our preferences.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Xparent ICS Blue Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] KennyLegend:
Me too man.

3 weeks ago I bought a set of Soundmagic E30's for €40. Great fit, comfort and clarity... All better than the stock Samsung S3 earphones. But... I found the bass to be a little stronger in the Samsung units.

So... Without spending too much money, I did a little research and bought a set of Klipsch S4A for €70 (same as S4i but with full Android compatibility when using the Klipsch app).

My initial impressions are they def have more bass than the Soundmagic e30's, but somehow don't seem to have the same clarity, maybe even slightly muffled in comparison.

They fit surprisingly more comfortable than the e30's so that's good.

So after reading a bit more, I read that "burn in" greatly improves this particular set of IEM's..

So I'm gonna give that a try. Already done about 8 hrs today of a mix of white and pink noise, music etc at medium volume.

I'd like to hear TotallydubbedHD's take on this burn in thing. I have good expectations.

One advantage with voodoo sound I can think of off hand is recording. Thinking back to my Galaxy S days voodoo sound greatly improved the recording quality, especially anything loud or with bass.

With regard to sound quality though, I'm not sure how much better it can get with Siyah 1.3.9b.
[Galaxy S III General] zikarus:
Bypass the analogue channel mixer and redirect the signal directly to the output...

GT I 9300 tapatalking...
[Galaxy S III General] Senascript:
Great post, the S3 have a good loud sound, looks far great than my previous HTC Desire HD. About the mic, it performs very good, about 10db louder then my Desire HD.
[Galaxy S III General] tolis626:
Well,to tell the truth,I kinda hate IEMs.They just don't cut it for me.Not to mention that 8 out of 10 fall off my ears after a few minutes when I go to the gym,which is what I primarily use them for(I know,something is wrong with my ears,not the IEMs,but it's annoying anyway :p ).The only thing I like about IEMs is noise isolation-most of them make you deaf to anything else but the music they play.I have to admit,though,that some of them have surprisingly good quality for their price and size.The Klipsch S4i (Didn't know about the S4A) are a good example.

Anyway,big-ass headphones are my cup of tea.I like AKGs for example.I can get really decent cans for less than 100€.Same goes for Sennheisers,but I didn't have many of them in my life.I also like Denon headphones SQ-wise,but most of them are too expensive and fugly in my opinion.Finally,I was quite surprised by the Pioneer HDJ-500 that a friend of mine has.They lack a little clarity (albeit with no burn-in) but have punchy bass and are quite loud.But they are beautiful,especially in red.

TL;DR:I prefer using large headphones and looking like a UFO that using small IEMs that get to my nerves.Each to their own I guess. :p
[Galaxy S III General] studiominal:
New firmware released!

I just downloaded the latest firmware (I9300XXLG6) and as I expected, it perfectly fixed the random cracklings. Finally! :highfive:

So you guys don't need to root your device just to get away from this irritating noise any more. I don't see the new firmware on samsung-updates.com yet so I just downloaded it using Checkfus. Check it out guys :)

http://fus.nanzen.se/
[Galaxy S III General] KennyLegend:
I use mine mine mainly on nightshift in work so iem's suit better. Otherwise I'd have big cans too :D
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
for me burn in has always helped. It basically makes the earphone get used to your music.

There are many that will argue for and against me. I just go off my own experience :)

For the s4, give them time, their strengths lie in their mids. I'm surprised you're finding them muffled!
[Galaxy S III General] gavinfabl:
Agree. Latest new firmware removes crackle
[Galaxy S III General] omersak:
Will do some extended testing. Lets hope this isn't another XXLFB. Still, kudos for Samsung for actually doing something about it - shows they actually give a damn.
[Galaxy S III General] hinnn:
someone said we can use other earphone
[Galaxy S III General] strongylad28:
I always thought that I was fairly knowledgeable with audio , but this has blown me out of the water. Few questions and I'm sorry if they're stupid questions lol

1) What exactly does DAC do? I know it bypassed the analogue and goes straight to the output, but what does this mean?

2) I have a fiio e11 headphone amp that I use, now if I have the ex tweaks amplification up high I get distortion, where as if I drop it slightly and use the fiio too, it sounds better. Am I doing something wrong and don't need the fiio or will that always give better quality

3) I listen to lost of different music styles, anyone know of a good config for all music? I'm using monster beats pro with the fiio.

Also is someone could pm me knowing how I listen to music, with settings to tick/untick , then I'd love you forever.

Thanks guys
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
1 - A DAC basically by-passes the on-board audio, and uses its own audio chip to deliver you the goods. A DAC can be used via USB only (If I'm not mistaken) thus used on PCs and iPod (only) - There hasn't been much emphasis or capabilities of Android phones to be having DAC functionalities. The S3 + 4.1 JB will bring DACs basically to android. That said I rather use the on-board Wolfson chip with tweaks, like goks tweaks, rather than use an external DAC, like the E7.

2 - How much are you driving? In Extweaks, leave the volume at around 57. Then amp your FiiO up -> You should NOT be getting any sort of distortion in that respect

3 - Lol....no offence, but that might be the beats pros :p

For configuration - knowing the beats pros signature - I suggest giving it a boost in the mid section, so that you get more mids.

Beats are V shaped, and have a lot of mid-bass, over-the-top highs, and muffled mids.

As for your settings, in EXtweaks, just go into audio, and have almost all the things without a slider as enabled. Gimmedums for example, I leave disabled, as my ZO2 takes care of the bass like a baws.

Now on to the crackling issue guys - I've done a full wipe, will be testing when the FW finishes downloading.

EDIT:

FLASHED
[Galaxy S III General] Aimara:
haha ,lots of my complain emails must have gotten to them
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
I don't actually give any kudos to samsung, as they never got back to me, the people I spoke to me probably didn't even know what an S3 was, and more so, it took them over 2 months to come with the fix - crackling definitely shouldn't have been present at first listen (LE8)
[Galaxy S III General] gger123:
Hey guys,

Was at the uni library studying today whilst listening to some music and noticed the crackling issue while listening to a coldplay song. I'm currently running Siyah 1.39a, Checkrom v2

Any fixes?
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
I hate ignorant people...

But anyway - go into extweaks, and for your CPU state set it to IDLE ONLY...

OP -> Please put that in the OP for users.

Testing LG6 now
[Galaxy S III General] studiominal:
OK I typed this command using SSH connection through WiFi to figure out if Samsung have really fixed the radical problem.

cat /sys/module/cpuidle_exynos4/parameters/enable_mask

For those who don't remember, this command will return:

0: IDLE only

1: AFTR only

2: IDLE + LPA

3: AFTR + LPA

My result was 2, which means the system is running on IDLE + LPA. With deep sleep mechanism they've been implementing through stock S3 firmwares, I haven't noticed any cracklings on this firmware so far, so I guess Samsung didn't stick to the workaround we've found here, but really got rid of the problem actually.
[Galaxy S III General] Aimara:
true , wonder did they do any QC before releasing the s3 , samsung didnt reply you at all ? its quite good support here but quite troublesome since customer care support is only for each respective country ,even they didnt fix the problem ,still its good to feedback them that their products have minor problems
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
I love their products, don't get me wrong, but they are so much better, when devs, like on XDA work on them.

XDA>Samsung - development wise.

And yes I know, devs need the "initial work" done by samsung - but still, here, devs don't get paid a full time salary for it, and yet churn out some quite remarkable things, as hard or as simple as they might be.

And no - they never got back to me
[Galaxy S III General] nate247:
Just installed the latest update and crackle gone for me also. Noticed a slightly nicer looking Samsung stock keyboard as well.

Have only just got the phone in actual fact and am currently using a pair of Phonak PFE122's (notoriously hard to drive). And I just wondered what is the easiest way / best way (sorry to ask) to remove the EU volume cap on the UK / international version.

Music is just so so low and I'm no Rom / modding expert sadly. I don't want the volume to boost to the detriment of audio quality so would getting an external DAC be the safest way. Or would a new kernel on the phone be the best route. Not looking for my ears to be blown off, but a little louder would be great.

Thanks guys

Nathan :good:
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
two routes nathan:

External amp like the FiiO E5

or better:

Siyah kernel + volume boost (it's free to try), and is "built into" the phone
[Galaxy S III General] KennyLegend:
Ffs man have u read anything on here or have u had everything in life handed to u on a silver spoon ??
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
No idea how they have done it:

RESULT IS = 2

See attached pic:
[Galaxy S III General] studiominal:
Maybe some heavy kernel works by tech geeks? :D
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
haha no idea!

I see you changed your sig too :D!
[Galaxy S III General] studiominal:
Yeah I'm quite fast on things like this. :)

By the way, have you ever used a desk dock for SGS3? (I guess you have one 'cause you seem to review a whole lot of things) I saw it has a line-out connector attached to it so I was wondering if it really does the job. I mean, it slightly makes me doubt that it might not be a true line-out but just another connector for headphone-out. I know there's no big point in it, just wanted to know.
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
haha :p

No I haven't got it or bought it.

I'll look into reviewing samsung things a little later.

I got a few audio related things to review + some screen protectors & cases :D

But the cream of the crop (unconfirmed) is the possibility to review a boombox -> Now that, if confirmed will make me scream like a girl and run around the room in joy :p
[Galaxy S III General] studiominal:
Great. I should keep my eyes on your blog more often then!

My next step is to see whether parametric equalizer will be available on Voodoo Sound and actually test it!

Listening to music with my Senn HD 650s without cracklings is really enjoyable :)
[Galaxy S III General] TotallydubbedHD:
hehe yes!

Although that said: If you remember I didn't hear any crackling on "hotplug" scaling, but then after a day/reboot I heard it non-stop.

So I'm keeping my wits about by saying the LG6 FW MIGHT have fixed the issue.

I don't want to go, like before, and say: YAY this is fixed - then find out a day later it isn't :p

So a lot of testing on my behalf - and by the end of the day, if it hasn't occurred - I can safely say: It has been fixed.