yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 5 General] rhd-android:
As a cautionary note for anyone thinking of doing this -

It works (as in it boosts volume), but at the expense of sound quality. I'm not quite an "audiophile", but I like my sound quality to be decent. I just did this procedure on my Nexus 5 (original hardware), and while the output is a bit louder, that gain is not worth the fairly substantial loss in fidelity, at least it in my mind.

Basically, what you're doing is creating a route for the sound to bounce out onto the back plate of the phone. That gives the impression of louder volume, but it's a noisy lossy basey sound that results. The listening experience is certainly not improved, even though I suppose it's louder. As another odd (and unpleasant) side effect, if you hold a modded phone while audio is playing, your fingers *feel* the vibrations, which (for reasons I can't really articulate well) becomes very unpleasant.

The best analogy I can give you, is that it's akin to those guys who drive around booming their car sub-woofers. Compared to a standard sound system, the booming sub-woofer is louder, but the quality of the sound and the listening experience is pretty poor. However, there's certainly no doubting the fact that LG dropped the ball in designing the sound system on this phone. I miss the S4's speaker.
[Nexus 5 General] britoso:
I attempted this today hoping to get some sound out of the other speaker outlet.

Something went wrong and now I have

no speaker sound at all

:eek:

I tried re-opening and tightening the 4 screws. did not help.

Here are the pictures of the holes I made.

I think maybe the speaker is not receiving power/signal.

Fixed! I had severed the connection inside the plastic!!!

I made like a dentist and patched the hole closest to a screw with aluminum foil. works! Attached a picture.

Observations:

1. I had an older speaker module MH_SKU_1_0817, only complaint was almost no sound if the one speaker grill was covered.

2. You can sever the speaker power/signal cable within the plastic if you are not careful. I recommend avoiding anything in the path of the cable from the board to the speaker. Outlined the extrapolated paths to avoid in red below. There may be a path going down, don't know without an x-ray or taking it apart.

3. Sound is definitely louder, a lot louder.

4. If the left speaker grill is blocked, sound now comes out of the other one, and its loud. However the quality is a little degraded (tinny/muffled). Overall an excellent mod.

5. The rear of the phone now vibrates with sound. Extra gaming/music feedback :good:

6. I also punched through the right-speaker-grille with a safety pin. They were not fully open earlier.

Thanks for the mod Adam.
[Nexus 5 General] ..Simo..:
I made the mod. I made 5 holes of about 3.5 mm. But they were too big and the sound had lost the bass tones. Then i plugged 3 of the 5 holes and now the sound is much improved. ;)

Sorry for bad english!
[Nexus 5 General] LRC1710:
Is there any possibility that you could screw the data signal by performing this mod? Strangely after I did this (which worked beautifuly btw thanks) im not getting H signal anywhere, im stuck in E almost all the time, I doubt this would be the reason but I wanna know if there's any possibility ? Like where is the module for the mobile data receiving? Thanks
[Nexus 5 General] LRC1710:
Bump.
[Nexus 5 General] farsight73:
Have anyone tried the N5 volume boost flasher zip ?

It's really do louder than stock volume after flashing the zip.

It's compatible to 4.4.1 and 4.4.2. And I'd been using this since last year with no side effect. but of course with louder and better sound..

Flash it with your favourite custom recover menu..
[Nexus 5 General] FunDionysus:
Likely already posted in this thread somewhere... a thread on boosting N5 audio output levels.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2532788
[Nexus 5 General] aveh:
Just wanted to share with you guys that I decided to follow the post above and remove the dust cover/filter at the bottom of the speaker. AND HOLY **** WHAT A HUUUUGE DIFFERENCE!!

To give you some background, my phone's speaker was so bad that I could not hear the Google Navigate voice on max volume while driving. All sounds regardless of the source software application was quiet, muffled, and extremely flat. I compared my Nexus 5 to a friend's newer Nexus 5 and it just sounded like 50% versus 100%..

But after removing that little piece of fabric my phone went from 50% to what feels like a solid 95%. Without having to drill any holes!

Just thought I'd share this experience in case anyone else wanted to try. Would love to hear if anyone else has tried this simple fix!
[Nexus 5 General] chaco81:
was it dirty at all with dust? i can see the dust making another layer making it sound even more muffled
[Nexus 5 General] ivanivezic:
I've never had any problems with my speakers, always loud enough... I guess i had luck...
[Nexus 5 General] parmend:
Anyway to increase the earpiece when on a call ?
[Nexus 5 General] D.D.P.:
It can manually be tweaked as well if said person doesn't want to flash any files.
[Nexus 5 General] D.D.P.:
You can manually adjust the max settings, but with great caution.
[Nexus 5 General] D.D.P.:
Increase these, don't exceed set volume by too much. The difference is quite noticable, and voila. Enjoy!
[Nexus 5 General] lekou:
thanks for the idea, i did a few holes with a 2mm drill.

u can feel the expanded soundwaves shaking the phone.definitely unlocks the loudspeaker potentional
[Nexus 5 General] Alfonso87:
As a possessor of the 1st hardware release of the Nexus 5 (301) today i have applied this mod to my phone. Thanks for sharing ;)

I must say that this + some tweaks on the audio property file make a really big difference. I'm thinking of increasing the size of external holes, the ones on the bottom. Anybody have already done it? Could this be useful to increase sounds loudness even more?
[Nexus 5 General] beta990:
Thanks for the hack. I'm a bit worry about my warranty, maybe I will try this mod in the future. :)

I've haven't seen later revisions, but LG seems to have fixed the issue on them.
[Nexus 5 General] dabadoo:
Has anyone who did this mod sent their phone for a RMA and actually received a new phone without being charged because the warranty was voided?
[Nexus 5 General] dabadoo:
For anyone still wondering, I called google and talked to some in the warranty section. They said any hardware modifications that were done by ANYONE THAT IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO DO REPAIRS, WILL VOID WARRANTY. And by authorized they don't necessarily mean LG or google, it can be any store as long as they're authorized. In this case, they said a receipt would have to be provided. Hope this helps someone.
[Nexus 5 General] IcipherPT:
wow :cyclops:
[Nexus 5 General] Comrade1809:
I have the same problem. I didn't perform the mod but I did open the back end to see what all the fuss was about. After putting the cover back on, my signal dropped significantly. I mean from being at 5 bars HSPA+ to one or no bars at all.

Something happened, and now I need to find out whatI can do to fix it.
[Nexus 5 General] RJT71:
Something happened, and now I need to find out whatI can do to fix it.[/QUOTE]

You probably broke something. Maybe some contacts aren't connecting. Well I using this mod with two wires, one for gsm and one for Wi-Fi. Now I can connect my Wi-Fi signal in the back of my garden. And before I couldn't. Hard to say if gsm is better. Here in Holland with the best provider kpn it doesn't matter where you are. It's good all places.
[Nexus 5 General] :
Wondering if the one-time replacement would work with this mod done
[Nexus 5 General] Elluel:
Most likely not. Even just opening the back voids warranty.
[Nexus 5 General] dex willer:
the back cover has a secret clips in the middle. in order to get fully sealed back cover, and woking nfc or wireless charge after closing the cover, gently push with a little force with your thumb on the little upper middle from "S" letter until hear a "click" voice. with this, u can sure everything is now snapped. for those having problem with not working antennas, give this a try.
[Nexus 5 General] Corvo007:
Hey [MENTION=3682533]AdamOutler[/MENTION], (and others) the screwdriver needed to undo the Nexus 5 screws is PH0 or PH00?
[Nexus 5 General] :
Took the plunge and tried this mod, my results are positive so far, my only worry is how it will affect the mic with sound moving through different areas. The sound is less tinny with a small but noticable volume gain. I use fauxsound to boost my volume sound and i can now boost it higher without the distortion i was getting previously, so i get a much better quality output, along with using an equalizer makes an impressive sound boost. Providing there is no issues with the mic i would highly recomend this mod as its easy to do and even if it goes wrong its not expensive to get a new speaker module. And also my module was a newer one so the gains i got were more quality based as the module didnt have any issues as far as volume like the old modules have.
[Nexus 5 General] howard bamber:
More air is massively better. My hi-fi speakers have no back or sides. Just a Base and front.
[Nexus 5 General] albenex:
Hello and thanks for this mod.

I've read about it at the beginning but waited till now for RMA reasons.

I've seen couple of youtube videos showing this mod and read about comments of yours.

While it's clear that holes are made diagonally on the speaker case, it's not very clear for me the direction of these holes.

Is it the same? Pics are too small to infer this information so I hope on an explanation =)

thanks!
[Nexus 5 General] jbondc:
Thanks

Hey just wanted to say thanks for this mod. I actually dropped my phone in coffee this morning!

After powering off & dissembling the phone, everything seemed to be working great except the audio. Thanks to the pics, removed the dust stickers and shook out extra coffee in the speaker.

Used a blow dryer inside the speaker and my audio and phone is back 100% or maybe 90%.
[Nexus 5 General] sxeMonster:
I used Volume Boost app, it worked really well. I needed a slightest boost to receiver volume.
[Nexus 5 General] chamjisky:
immense thanks will definitely try this
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
Awesome! It would be neat if we could get someone to measure before and after.
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
It's great to see this works on devices with "normal" volume too!

The whole idea of this mod is to allow the sound to flow freely into the body as the original housing is insufficient. This is the back-side of the speaker BTW. The front side goes out of the hole at the bottom of the device.

Someone please get a reading! Just use a camera and record your sound level meter before and after with the mic about 1"-2" away from the unit and the volume at max.
[Nexus 5 General] Nitro_123:
Nice Mod [MENTION=3682533]AdamOutler[/MENTION] :D

Very small mistake in the OP. It's Guitar not gitaur :P I'm mentioning this cause for a second I thought you were talking about something differernt and I even googled it :P
[Nexus 5 General] Carbajal3009:
The speaker for the nexus phones have always been a little disappointing. I had the galaxy nexus and the S2 at the time. I remember when I switched to the nexus I was sort of bummed it wasnt even close to my s2. Then got the note 2 and the HTC one. And now I come back to this beast of a nexus....and then I get bummed at the speaker again... :p:( oh well. Guess nothing is perfect right?? Thanks for this OP. Will definitely try this :D :thumbup:

Edit...ViPER4android FX does the trick..sort of :D
[Nexus 5 General] bgaccord:
I have viper4android and it does help.my speaker is louder then my wifes gs3 now
[Nexus 5 General] Cirkustanz:
A much easier thing for you to do might be to simply try modifying your ringtones. If you load the audio files in something like audacity, and increase the DB of the file, it will always play louder, even at the same volume setting in your phone. I'm assuming of course you just can't get enough ringtone volume based on the max setting of the phone.

FYI: Don't go too crazy with it, if you raise the DB too much, you will start to get clipping in the sound, and it's not pleasant.
[Nexus 5 General] slowpok22:
I also had this on the gnex, this works with n5? Was kind of leary trying it on the new phone.
[Nexus 5 General] Ghost_1:
I just did the mod and it was pretty easy minus the clips in the middle of the backplate. lol

The phone doesn't sound any louder but the speaker sounds so much better. I have a Dubstep ringtone and it sounded like crap and had little to no bass. The mod makes a little more bass, no more rattling, and actually sounds decent. lol

I didn't get to put a sound meter to it but I figure if I decide to add more holes I'll just plug the holes with tape and do the measurements then. :D
[Nexus 5 General] Cheeze[iT]:
tried this on mine and got great results! thanks! my voice (google now) still sounds low but google music music is definately louder and much fuller! :good:

Side note, when would it be a problem if we removed too much? Ie wonder what would happen if we made the port like a whole square hole
[Nexus 5 General] wvcadle:
It took me a couple of times reading this to realize that the mod actually puts holes in the speaker housing. My N5 volume is horribly low. Maybe the worst of them all. But, I'm afraid if something else happened to my phone and I had to send it in, they wouldn't honor the warranty if they'd have seen that I have been in the phone. I guess I'll decide what I want to do.

One other thing: I'm not clear on what the issue is. Is it that glue is obstructing something, or that it's too closed of a system?
[Nexus 5 General] Bane99:
Interesting, the volume isn't terribly low on my device, but the entire back of the phone does vibrate when the speaker is on.

I'll keep this in mind if the volume dips too low on my device.
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
There's pictures and a step by step saying to disassemble the device as well as tools in the you will need section and the thread title clearly states HARDWARE MOD. How could you miss it even once?

someone stated that it made their device, without any noticeable loudness issues, noticably louder.

Do some reading and don't quote the OP. Everyone has seen it. [MENTION=2111323]MENTION[/MENTION]s are for getting peoples attention.
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
I had the same results. Ringtone are also louder.

I don't know what would happen. We are breaking new ground here.
[Nexus 5 General] jRi0T68:
Any reason not to use a pin vice (small, handheld hobbyist manual drill) if you have one instead of a heated needle?

Seems more precise in theory.

-No longer accidental, just Jeremy. F.cfb

[Guide] Headphone/Earphone Buying
[Nexus 5 General] johnthephotagrapher:
hey adam is it possible to make a comparison video of sound volume and quality before and after making the changes to the speaker
[Nexus 5 General] bradputt:
ok i just tried the mod.

what i found the speaker port does not really align to the holes on the chassis. But nothing much we could do, cannot align the ports as it's fixed.

anyway, i wanted to the sound to come from other direction other than the port holes at the bottom,

so i took out the sticker and check what's inside and found it's hollow.

so i decided to drill the speaker duct instead, put some tissue paper to prevent the debris from dropping in.

Power up my RTX and drill some holes into it.

end result:

i got crazy on that and drill another few holes on the side. just to make sure this ***** gets as LOUD as possible!

personally i think it did went louder a bit. but still not as loud as my S3.

but i don't really think the quality of the speaker is good on the N5. when i play some songs on the speaker i can already hear some crackle sounds on max volume.

i just don't think the speaker can do the job even if we mod the cover, this is already pushing the limits on that small speaker.

on a side note.......

one thing i notice is the battery is different from D820 and D821... just sayin only
[Nexus 5 General] asim0:
I guess the next batch of nexuses will have a hardware revision...

I never thought I would ever complain about a phone speaker, but this one is so bad I might void my warranty just to get it right.

Low yet distorted sound was not something I thought possible.

Sent from teh void
[Nexus 5 General] Cheeze[iT]:
Can we order new speaker pieces? I'd love to just try things/tear it up with out worrying about screwing upy only speaker piece
[Nexus 5 General] wvcadle:
For one, I clicked through to your thread from an article somewhere (maybe an XDA one). So I dove right into the OP without even paying attention to the title, because I got the gist of what your thread was about from the article.. Second, I've never done, nor considered a hardware mod, so if I had read the title, it may not have even registered with me... I've just never given any thoughts to physically modifying one of my devices. As far as reading.... short of the title, I read every post in the thread before posting, and still didn't get an answer to the question 'What's glue got to do with this?'. The article that led me to your post mentioned that glue may have spilled over onto some areas it wasn't intended. You alluded to this yourself. But nowhere else in your post does it mention anything about it.

Oh, my sincere apologies for quoting half of the text (without images) of your first post.....
[Nexus 5 General] Oli1122:
Found a few on ebay, this looks about the best.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Speakerph...K_Replacement_Parts_Tools&hash=item2585502be9

Strangely, they all seem to be in parts of Europe
[Nexus 5 General] Cheeze[iT]:
Wonder when we can get something closer to home.
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
Good find. I'd have grabbed one of these as a teardown prototype before doing my own if I had seen that. Luckily it seems that nothing unexpected was affected.

The glue is a theory. I have not yet torn one apart to figure out the problem. The thing is, I can't get the glue separated without damaging the speaker assembly. I don't know what's in there for sure, may be plastic, but I know that there is some manufacturer defect to blame for obstructuon and glue is the most likely culprit.

Is there some key word that I didn't use that could make it more obvious that this is a hardware mod?
[Nexus 5 General] Cheeze[iT]:
Wonder if by just replacing the speaker would fix the issue? If we can locate several speakers at a a good price I wouldnt mind picking up a few and experimenting with hole sizes and locations.
[Nexus 5 General] jaggyjags:
Luckily I live just a few kilometers from that seller. I just bought one and will receive it in a few days. Will play with mine see what I learn, perhaps opening it in half to see what's the internal structure. Anything you would like to know?
[Nexus 5 General] bgaccord:
Did mod to my nexus. But now sounds hollow and phone vibrates more. Lol im just going to cover holes or buy speaker assy.
[Nexus 5 General] Oli1122:
I just tried this, and the results seem good. Both levels were recorded 1m away from the phone in a room with 27db ambient noise, with the same song playing each time.

Before mod - 67db average - Couldn't really hear my ringtone in a moderately busy room.

After mod - 80db average - Can just about hear my ringtone in the same room.

One thing to note was that I only put one hole on the front and one on the back of the module, I won't be adding more as im very happy with the volume at present. Cheers for trying this out and sharing this Adam ;) :highfive:
[Nexus 5 General] Cheeze[iT]:
Any chance you can get s picture of where and how big?
[Nexus 5 General] smmndchaos:
I didn't do a direct before and after test, but my phone does sound louder and clearer.
[Nexus 5 General] boywithabeard:
Hey Adam, cool mod, thanks. I also have G2 with a similar problem. Any idea if this hack would work on it? Also wondered if you know of any methods for upgrading or swapping speakers meant for another device. I figure if anyone would know it would be you.
[Nexus 5 General] Oli1122:
I will try to get some up tomorrow but I can't promise anything as I have a large assignment due. ?
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
Holy hell!!!!!

Are you saying there is a 13 dB SPL gain?

As in 4.333333 times louder ?

How did you measure it and what is your setup?
[Nexus 5 General] Oli1122:
Yes it seems quite incredible I will measure it again tomorrow for consistency.

Tonight I also noticed that I could now hear my phone properly when in the shower as before I couldn't hear the lyrics in songs.

I was using a db meter on my mixing desk and a Beringer mic. I believe its accurate to around 2 db.
[Nexus 5 General] jaggyjags:
[MENTION=2102660]Oli1122[/MENTION] that sounds great, would be nice to know were exactly did you make the holes and how big they were, I had a slight important but not that much for sure.
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
If you find out any different we will need to update the portal article which [MENTION=2542035]willverduzco[/MENTION] wrote. http://www.xda-developers.com/android/google-nexus-5-speaker-volume-fix-yields-impressive-results/
[Nexus 5 General] Dani897:
according to what math?? every 3db is very close to double the watts. so 6db is 4x 12 is about 8x power. it's a log of 10. so 10db is 10x power 20db is 100x 3 just happens to be very close to 2x. the word "decibel" is 1/10th bel for alexander graham "bell."

so 13db is about 20x watts.

but it all depends on what you mean by "times louder" if it's "apparent volume" that's kinda subjective and people can't seem to agree on that. i've heard 6db is "twice as loud" as well as 10db and 12db. and i think 6db is the same volume at twice the distance but it's been a while since i've really done anything with audio or logarithms for that matter so it could be 12db or something else.

since watts measured electrically is current times volts, if you have a static reisitive load the power increases with the square of the amplitude. the current increases with the volts... it's similar with acoustic watts so if 13db is 20x power then the amplitude increases th esqrt of 20 or 4.4721x
[Nexus 5 General] leoaudio13:
Confirm that this mod is AWESOME!

---------- Post added at 08:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:17 AM ----------

I would concern about RMS or Peak though. 13db SPL, but it has to depends on how he measured, RMS or Peak :good:
[Nexus 5 General] pogi1100:
Placebo or not, it sure sounds a lot louder :D Thanks!
[Nexus 5 General] cybervibin:
Woot woot

This voids warranty but :(
[Nexus 5 General] AdamOutler:
Definitely not placebo effect. It measures 13db gain.
[Nexus 5 General] southsko:
I just did this. Took less than 10 min. So much louder. I was blown away after I faux sound. I realized as its way more free air I didn't even need to boost. Thanks so much.

I have the tools to open it up and I'm used to opening up everything so this was so easy. Right on man
[Nexus 5 General] caribouxda:
So all this thread is about some support to advertise it in xda tv? Kinda lame. But I guess that is how low some people can go. Also have fun ruinning forever your 2 week old phone's warranty.
[Nexus 5 General] dazz87:
Just wondering how difficult is it to open up the case? I open up an ipod once to replace the battery. Is this more difficult than opening up a ipod? Planning on doing this. My speaker is crappy.
[Nexus 5 General] leoaudio13:
Whats the point of you reading this thread then? Just to troll ?

---------- Post added at 10:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 AM ----------

Its very easy. Go to youtube abd search for Nexus 5 disassemble. There is 1 detailed vid over there. If you follow it right, there will be no damage to phone speaker module!
[Nexus 5 General] Loglud:
The idea behind this mod actually has been around for a long time. When you go back to the OG iPhone 4 they sometimes had problems with this, and a similar fix was issued. Great find adam!!!

For those of you who are scared of doing this, I would wait for a couple of months until the replacement parts are readily available, and usually run 20-30$ for a new speaker if you bouch yours.