[Samsung Galaxy S10 Guides, News, & Discussion] Skulldron:
Introduction:

Hi everyone. Today I will be teaching ya'll about the beauty of Viper4Android and how to maximize your s10 speaker power. Most of ya'll have probably heard of Viper4Android and its extensive ability to turn crappy earphones or mediocre headphones into grade A audio devices, through extensive tuning. I'm here to say that after hours upon hours of tuning, I was able to squeeze nearly the best possible sound out of the dual speaker setup on the Galaxy S10. This guide, will show you how to setup viper4android on an s10 running Magisk, and I will later showcase and explain what each of the frequencies do, and what frequencies in particular, the s10 speakers respond to, and how I tuned them to sound even more phenomenal.

Firstly who am I?:

From those of you, who recognize my name, I am the dev of Project Pixel, and Lightheart OS, two of the fastest (imo) S10 stock based OneUI ROMs. What most people don't know, is that I have a very real passion for audio, and I have done many setups, for various headphones, earphones and speakers. I despise Bluetooth, mainly due to it cutting off my access from using a dac, and I love putting in hard work, to turn trash into gold, and I did exactly that, with a 15 hour plus setup for a set of 2$ tin cans. If you wanna know about viper, I'm your guy.

Alright, now that we've gotten that out of the way, onto setting up Viper4Android.

Requirements:

1. A OneUI based custom ROM with Magisk - We will be working with Dolby Atmos and Soundalive enabled, hence why we need a OneUI based ROM. I have tried using LOS to get a similar result, and you can try an get the same experience, but I will not be able to fully support LOS Audio setups, due to not using LOS myself atm.

2. Viper4Android Apk - This is the key to the entire setup. Viper4android needs no introduction.

Link: https://labs.xda-developers.com/store/app/com.pittvandewitt.viperfx

Installing Viper4Android on your S10:

1. Download the latest ViPER4Android v2.7.1.0 from XDA lab

2. Install the downloaded APK on your S10

3. Launch the ‘ViPER4Android’ app but do not install the drivers right now

4. Open ‘Magisk Manager’ and go to the ‘Modules’ section of the app.

5. Search and find the “Audio Modification Library” module and press the download icon next to it.

6. Tap on ‘Install’ button to install the module on your device.

7. It will now automatically reboot after installing

8. Now go back to the ViPER4Android app, tap on “OK” to install the required V4A drivers.

9. Grant the Superuser permissions to the app when prompted.

10. After the drivers are installed, the device will automatically reboot.

11. Now this is where it gets complicated. Sometimes on this step, Viper will be successfully be installed, sometimes it won't be. If it asks to install drivers again, then install again and reboot. If it still hasn't installed, then disable audio modification library and install drivers again, and on next boot re-enable audio modification library and then go-to viper and reinstall drivers again, if it asks. To check if Viper is running, press on the chipset icon next to the settings icon, and see if it says "NEON Enabled: Yes". If it says this, you have successfully installed Viper. If not, then keep trying different variations, since Viper installs are quite buggy for some reason.

Lineage OS Users:

Well, if you already have magisk, just install viper and install the drivers straight away and it works... you lucky sods.

The forensics of audio:

Alright now here's the fun part (for me, I like explaining audio for some reason). The S10 has a very good dual speaker setup, as it is. The bottom speaker handles almost all the bass and a lot of the lower mids. The earpiece speaker handles all the highs and a lot of the detail from instruments such as cymbals from drums, and the highest singing notes. Now for a brief lesson on what Lows, Mids and Highs are.

Lows:

Lows are your basslines, bass and basically more bass. Its the deep boom you hear from songs such as Devil Eyes and Humble. It's the thump you hear from the kick drum, that knocking loud and powerful kick in songs like Ballroom Blitz. While being the nicest frequency to hear, due to its deepness being so comforting, it is also the hardest frequency to produce from speaker, since to create meaningful lows, the driver has to vibrate a lot, and if it wasn't designed to stand the pressure, it will shatter and get damaged. Speaker's have safeguards against this 9/10, but its still good to be aware. Low frequencies consist of 32hz, 64hz, 125hz and 250hz. 500hz is considered the surround sound frequency and its the bridge between lows and mids, so I won't call it a low or a mid.

Bass Runoff: This is when a song has a deep bass boom, and it continues onto the next note. The worse the bass is on the devices, the less likely you will even hear the bass runoff of the song.

Mids:

Mids are where most of your instruments lie. Drums, pianos, guitars, electric guitars and triangles. Almost all instruments except high frequency instruments live in this section. The main problem with most speakers, earphones and headphones is that when you max out the volume, the mids tend to get completely drowned, as the device tries to push its bass and highs to the max to show "appealing sound". The only way to counter this is to set a master limiter in Viper4android, to stop it from doing that, or by adjusting the frequencies while the device is playing at max volume, and reducing its bass and treble to balance things out, but then you'll notice the total volume output will be reduced. Audio is a complicated science with lot of complications and hurdles, and it takes practice to know what you are doing, and to learn to balance it. The frequencies that lie in mids are 1khz, 2khz and 4khz.

Highs:

Highs are where most voices, cymbals, high pitched audio instruments lie, and its better known as the treble frequency. The thing about highs are that increasing it occasionally leads to better detail, as the audio graph tends to push the mids up. Highs however have a problem. If you push them too much, they will start sounding harsh, and quite literally sound like screeching and hurt your ears. Once again, it comes down to a balancing act. If you learn how to push these frequencies appropriately, you can come up with a tune that has great highs, but not too high to the point of screeching. Once again, it takes practice to understand this, so don't be surprised if the first few attempts don't work out. The frequencies that lie in highs are 8khz and 16khz.

S10 Speaker Analysis on stock and what it responds to:

The S10 speakers as I've mentioned before are a very good pair of speakers, although they are biased towards treble and detail, as bass isn't really that prevalent in these drivers. These speakers appear to have split audio frequency channeling, which means that adjusting highs will mainly affect the earpiece speaker, and adjusting the lows will mainly affect the bottom speaker. This is a good thing, since adjusting our highs in Viper won't result in us losing bass from the bottom speaker.

Bass:

The S10 speakers lack this, quite badly actually. The main problem isn't that it doesn't have bass, it just doesn't have the majority of the frequencies of 32hz, 64hz and 125hz. The bottom driver primarily responds to 250hz, which also happens to be its gain frequency (This means that lowering or increasing this, reduces total volume gain). Hence getting any extra bass out of these speakers is gonna have to rely on mainly 250hz.

Mids:

For the S10 speakers, this is where they do a decent job. The mids are all responsive in some way, except for the anomaly that is 500hz (I mentioned why this isn't a mid nor a low in my audio explanation). And as for the general performance without tuning, detail can be heard from the various instruments, although it maybe muddy at higher volumes (I mentioned why this happens, in my explanation of audio earlier as well). For this reason, we do not need to touch the mids, since balancing out the lows and highs, will give us the result we want.

Highs:

This is where the S10 speakers shine. The top firing earpiece speaker, is very good at producing at high highs, and very clear at that too, without screeching. The only fault I have with this setup, is that they haven't gone far enough, and you will understand why, in songs such as Renee by Sales when the cymbals play, and they can be barely heard since the mids are muddy as well. To get the most out of the S10's treble, we will be touching on 8khz and 16khz.

One last explanation on Reverb:

This is the last explanation before the tuning, I promise. Reverberation is a powerful tool in Viper4Android, as it can emulate echo and surround sound effect of 500hz, but spread it across all frequencies. We will need this since the 500hz of these speakers will be essentially nerfed to increase bass. Along with emulating surround sound, reverb will be the tool to give us more general volume output, through dry signal. Dry Signal in Viper is the speakers general volume signal, and increasing it, increases the total general gain. Increase it too much however, and you lose all the benefits of tuning, since it just nerfs all frequencies at max power.

DISCLAIMER: I will not be held responsible for breaking your speakers, causing damage or any nukes that result from using this guide. Please use this carefully and with responsibility.

The Setup:

Now that I've gotten the nuke disclaimer out of the way, lets move on to the setup. As I have explained before what the pro's and con's of the S10 Speakers are, it should give you a general idea of what frequencies we are tuning. Here's what tools we're gonna use from Viper:

1. FIR Equalizer: The reason we are using this, instead of SoundAlive's default equalizer is because SoundAlive tends to reduce the volume after each frequency is adjusted, and so by the end of trying to use SoundAlive, the speakers total gain is essentially halved.

2. Reverbation: I've already explained why this is going to be an essential part in retaining detail and surround sound.

-Before we continue, this is my S10 reference device setup:

Device: G973F (S10 Normal)

ROM: Lightheart 1.0

Kernel: CruelKernel 3.7

Magisk: 21.0

Prerequisites: Make sure Dolby Atmos is on from your quickpanel.

Step 1. Switch on Master Power on Viper for Speaker.

Step 2: Switch on FIR Equalizer and follow the settings below:

FIR Equalizer Settings:

31hz: -12.0db - Literally dead, doesn't do anything other than reduce total volume gain.

63hz: -12.0db - Dead frequency, muddies the bass

125hz: -12.0db - Dead frequency, just muddies the bass line.

250hz: +7.0db - This is gonna be to increase the overall bassline performance and thump. For some reason all of it lies on this frequency on the S10.

500hz: -12.0db - Nerfed to increase the bass output from 250hz

1khz: 1.5db

2khz: 1.5db

4khz: 1.5db

8khz: 4.0db - This increase is for vocals

16khz: 9.0db - Highs are gonna sound loud and crispy

Step 3: Switch on Reverberation and follow the settings below:

Reverberation Settings:

Room Size: 36m2 - Determines the emulated soundspace. 36m2 is large enough for small speakers, as any higher will start causing echos

Sound Field: 36m - The soundfield itself, allows for better seperation between the left and right speaker

Damping Factor: 63% - This reduces the echos caused by reverb

Wet Signal: 10% - This increases the surround sound effect but only by a little bit, since too much will muddy all the frequencies and all you will hear is echoes

Dry Signal: 65% - Explained before, total output signal of speaker. This is slightly above the stock output gain

That's all folks!

Result:

With the increase in the bass line, you should now be able to hear a faint bass runoff, along with bass itself with the thump being significantly stronger.

With the increase in the highs and vocals, you should now hear highs, far more clearly from the earpiece speaker, still with no distortion, but far more clarity. The presence of vocals and instruments should also be far more prevalent and way less muddier.

With the reverb, you should now hear true surround sound, and a slightly higher output in sound itself along with a bit more reverb.

Note: Audio is wonderful and everyone has their own preference. What I sought out to do with this tune is to improve the general performance of the S10 speakers themselves, and I have conducted hours upon on hours to reach this conclusion. Your preference may vary. Also I have also tested only on the S10, so remember that the results may vary for the s10e and S10 plus, although they share the same speakers.

That's all for this guide ladies and gents. I hope you enjoyed my explanation and understood everything. If you have any queries, please feel free to reply on this thread, and if you are a Project Pixel or Lightheart user, feel free to contact me on the group. I hope you enjoyed :)

Songs used for testing:

Devil Eyes by Hippie Sabotage (For Bass Runoff and Bass - Skip to 25 seconds)

Renee by Sales (For Highs and Vocals - Skip to 2:02)

Go F Yourself by Two Feet (Bass Drop and Treble - Skip to 45 seconds)

Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet (Thump and Mids check - First 18 seconds)

And a whole bunch more I don't remember. I go sleep now :)