[Galaxy S II Android Development] mcpdigital:
S2 Audio

Just want to share some things about ICS/JB ROMs and Galaxy S2 Audio. Maybe it can be of some help.

Things I found about Audio enhancements:

1- It seems that not every Galaxy S2 have the same exact Audio component. (do not remember the source, probably XDA Apps and Themes)

2- Awesome Beats, DSP Manager, Equalizer or inside players enhancements are very conflicting with each other. There are some enhancements packages available like Ac!d that have various components installed to try to get the audio better. The true is that Galaxy S2 after Ginger Bread had never sound well. If you hear distortions even at low volumes, you are not alone, it is a known problem. It happens after some time using the audio or when a notification beep or phone rings. After that only a reboot will help.

3- Most of these enhancements don't help much, some of them can make it worst or buggy. The majority of them will give you some FCs as the updates becomes available. And the thing gets nasty when the S2 starts the distortion by itself, then all the enhancements make it more distorted.

4- Even after removing all DSPs, some players that have them inside have the same problems.

5- Other conclusion of mine and other users (outside forum) is that sound is much worst with high bit encoding 328Kbps than lower ones. 128Kbps is usually better. Some blame CPU frequency interference with the audio circuit (too small)

6- Sometimes using the enhancements make the sound worst: Example: listen to the music with everything off, then turn bass boost on but without any level, it will reduce the bass, now try to turn the bass up, it will go back to the same as off and then at higher points will start to distort. I tested with 4 earphones that I have, and the effect was the same.

The compression is pretty much the same, when I turn it on it will somehow reduce the overall quality when zeroed, then go up it will start to present in the sound but higher will make the sound lifeless.

Now with the volume, if you turn your volume up, it will reach 50% and no matter what it won't get any louder, even when you push it to max. If you go to extweaks and increase pre-amp it will become louder at lower volumes, but will not give you more decibels after some point, so the max seems the same.

The same thing happens with equalizer, as soon as you turn it on, the sound get worst until you start correcting. At the end, the best option with equalizer was to lower down everything below the flat and correct your frequencies from flat to down, never up, (other forum discussion) otherwise distortions come back again. Kind of useless if you know what I mean.

7- Try playing some of your music from the sounds or ringtones menu. It is much better than through the players and standalone headphone output.

8- Everything that I said depends heavily in the impedance of your earphones, so I'm sure some users with lower impedance ones may strongly disagree with this situation.

Players tested:

Poweramp Full, Google Player, ZPlayer, Xenoamp, Apollo

External DSPs tested:

DSP Manager CM, Ac!d package, Awesome Beats, Equalizer

Headphones tested:

iPhone, Galaxy S2 standard, Pioneer Headphone with bass duct, Moto Milestone earphone and GamerPro 1 HeadPhone

My conclusion: remove every enhancement and use a player like Xenoamp that has 100 step volume and enhancements and thats the best I could get. Is it distortion free ? No way. After some time there comes the distortion.

Tried original Samsung ICS and some JB ROMs always with Siyah Kernel.

I think after sometime we loose the reference by always using audio enhancers.

Would like to hear your perceptions about that because I'm far from happy with S2 audio and those DSPs cause lots of problems around the board.

Just a note, I tested in my home audio and car audio with the same results.

MCP