The Sound Quality discussion thread

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TotallydubbedHD

Senior Member
Dec 7, 2010
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London
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From speaking with Samsung I was lead on to believe that there should be a new update by the end of next week to resolve audio issues. (UK)

Hopefully this is the same fix that resolved Korean's S3's.

Hopefully it's sooner than end of next week, will keep checking KIES over the next few days :)

I spoke to Samsung about the audio crackle issue and they suggested I take it to a samsung repair centre for repair? Is there any point? It seems like this doesn't affect everyone or else it would be a bigger issue?

read above.
But basically - people working at Samsung, don't even know their own products ;)
 

studiominal

Senior Member
Aug 3, 2010
107
95
Ann Arbor
read above.
But basically - people working at Samsung, don't even know their own products ;)

+1
So true that even they don't know what the problem is. Maybe it's like that because the company is too big to share all the issues rapidly and efficiently. And it's kind of impossible for a repairman who is ONLY educated how to run Odin3 to figure out this tech-related issue.
But guys don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to advocate Samsung, I still have bunches of complaints for them :)
 

Sortvind

Member
Jul 15, 2012
12
1
I got the same reply from the norwegian samsung crew, that a updated would Come soon.

Soon, such a vague word.

Just like lg would update the x2, soon.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
 

nnotis

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2012
110
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Seattle
www.nicknotis.com
I just want to report here a few things regarding audio:

1. I've managed to get both the iBasso D12 and Head Amp Pico to work with my S3. They sound just as they do when connected to a laptop. If you connect a DAC to your S3, the phone's speaker should go silent. If it does and you still get no sound out of the DAC, disconnect everything and try again.

2. The stock headphone jack is too noisy for use with IEMs (inner ear monitors). It sounded OK to me with full sized headphones though.

3. I'm on Blackstar, which retains USB DAC support. I'd expect other Touchwiz based ROMs to do so too. Sadly, I haven't found any AOKP ROMs that do. I seriously hope that someone ports the relevant drivers, as I want me some CM10.
 

TotallydubbedHD

Senior Member
Dec 7, 2010
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I keep getting a pop-up from kies saying it downloaded the latest i9300 firmware?

I click on the bubble, and nothing shows up - and as I'm on a custom rom, I can't connect to kies to check.

I did checkfus, and nothing new.
 

Viper_21

Senior Member
Jul 5, 2012
113
20
I too have the crackle issue. Very noticeable as I listen to audio books. I opened 2 consecutive tickets with Samsung US Support and each time they insist I call in to troubleshoot the problem or to bring it in for repair. Both times they ignored my comment that it is a widespread known issue and do not admit that is known to them.


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rlorange

Senior Member
Nov 5, 2010
4,307
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Melbourne
I too have the crackle issue. Very noticeable as I listen to audio books. I opened 2 consecutive tickets with Samsung US Support and each time they insist I call in to troubleshoot the problem or to bring it in for repair. Both times they ignored my comment that it is a widespread known issue and do not admit that is known to them.


Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app

1. Flash Siyah Kernel.

2. Install extweaks app from the market.

3. Select "Idle only"

4. Crackle gone for good!!!

Stock deep idle mode powers down hardware to save battery (LPA and AFTR). Its a two stage deal. LPA keeps GPS and Bluetooth chips powered. But if they are not needed then AFTR kicks in which saves around 30% battery playing music screen off.

Unfortunately some electromagnetic interference is causing a crackle on the Audio (think mobile phone buzz).

I SERIOUSLY doubt that Samsung have another solution to keep LPA deep idle active AND eliminate the crackle... Nothing short of constructing a miniature Faraday cage around the offending component is likely to properly fix it.

IMO any "fix" Samsung will offer will do exactly what the above procedure does as default in the stock kernel.

Unless they get really creative and invent a new deep idle mode to keep just the offending hardware active... one can dream :)

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
 
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rftsilva

Member
Jul 21, 2012
11
0
São Paulo
I've bought the Brazillian version and mine got the cracking sound on music player too. That's so annoying. My 6-year ipod mini beats by 10-0.
Besides that, lock screen sound and unlock screen sound are also glitching on bultin speaker.

Is anybody else experiencing this?
 
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Aimara

Senior Member
Jun 17, 2012
896
88
bluetooth doesnt use the dac onboard , maybe thats why cracking is not heard

just received a email back from samsung Customer Support Center

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email.
Your email reference no : 1107393510

Please kindly to bring the earphones and your set down to our service centre to let our technicians verify the issue.
 
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mlpjunior

Member
Jul 22, 2008
21
0
No crackling here. Tested with lossless. White sgs3 made in Vietnam (new batch i guess) + Syah

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

I have a U.S. variant (Verizon) with the crackling. Oddly, having the screen off makes it better. When the screen is on, and the phone is under heavy load, it gets much worse. Mine is a 32gb blue, made in China.

Edit: I get plenty of crackling with bluetooth audio as well.
 
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tolis626

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2009
2,518
598
Amaliada
A report about the crackling issue.
I sport a pair of AKG K514 MKII cans these days(pretty good for 50€-They lack a little bass and noise isolation,but they sound very clear),with which the crackling is really easily heard(sounds like scratching vinyl or something).However,I tested the phone with my main sound system(Vienna Acoustics Grand Beethoven speakers and PrimaLuna Prologue II amp) and,apart from the fact that I was impressed by how well it sounded (considering it's a device that fits in the palm of my hand),I didn't hear any crackling,even when I was listening to loud music(metalhead here ;) ).It might as well be a coincidence or something could have been keeping my device awake,but I'll test again when I get back home. :)
I also plugged my S2 to the same speakers afterwards.I almost cried and my ears almost bled.It was...Horrible.Most of you probably knew already but anyway,comparison is pointless.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
 

ficklecycler

Senior Member
Jan 29, 2011
219
57
A report about the crackling issue.
I sport a pair of AKG K514 MKII cans these days(pretty good for 50€-They lack a little bass and noise isolation,but they sound very clear),with which the crackling is really easily heard(sounds like scratching vinyl or something).However,I tested the phone with my main sound system(Vienna Acoustics Grand Beethoven speakers and PrimaLuna Prologue II amp) and,apart from the fact that I was impressed by how well it sounded (considering it's a device that fits in the palm of my hand),I didn't hear any crackling,even when I was listening to loud music(metalhead here ;) ).It might as well be a coincidence or something could have been keeping my device awake,but I'll test again when I get back home. :)
I also plugged my S2 to the same speakers afterwards.I almost cried and my ears almost bled.It was...Horrible.Most of you probably knew already but anyway,comparison is pointless.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

You are more likely to notice the problem with music that has quiet sections in it. Listening to metal is probably going to make it difficult to detect.
 
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tolis626

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2009
2,518
598
Amaliada
You are more likely to notice the problem with music that has quiet sections in it. Listening to metal is probably going to make it difficult to detect.

Well,contrary to popular belief,bands that make metal music of any kind also have songs that are softer than Pantera's average song.An example is Avenged Sevenfold,they have some quieter songs(Although some may consider them alternative,not metalcore,but I don't give a crap).And yes,with these songs it's easy enough to hear it. ;)
Also,is it only me or does it occur more often with higher bitrate files?
 

rlorange

Senior Member
Nov 5, 2010
4,307
2,242
Melbourne
It's hardware like the Bluetooth or GPS powering up or down when LPA deep idle kicks in. It's sending out ELM interference which the DAC is picking up. Like when a mobile phone rings near a sound system

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rlorange

Senior Member
Nov 5, 2010
4,307
2,242
Melbourne
My bluetooth is not enabled. Im just lucky for having no problems at all with the device.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

The SGS1 had a ported deep idle mod I used, the dev integrated a way to actually see how much time was spent in each state. TOP-ON was partial shutdown of hardware and reasonably reliably worked as it should but still many things seem to block it, some unaccounted for.

TOP OFF was the proper full deep idle state and harder to achieve with many unaccountable things blocking it.

LPA likely is fickle for similar reasons but we have no way of monitoring so....
IMO if you don't have crackle problems with LPA enabled something in your setup is blocking LPA state actually engaging so no crackle. SIYAH allows you to permanently block it. Also no crackle. Many others get intermittent crackle when LPA decides to work and periods of no crackle when something blocks it....exactly what? No way to monitor so who knows for sure.

One thing is certain nobody is reporting a crackle when you 100% certain disable LPA.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
 

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  • 75
    Hi there!

    So I'm not the only one happy with the promising audio codec in Galaxy S III ? ;)
    20
    Wolfson DAC confirmed by Supercurio.

    Audio codec:

    Wolfson Micro WM1811
    http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/audio_hubs/WM1811/
    100dB SNR Class W Heapdhone amp output, ReTune DSP, 3x digital interface.
    Like WM8994 in Galaxy S / Nexus S, except:
    1x stereo DAC instead of 2x.
    2x 2W Speaker amp instead of 2x 1W
    Smaller and probably cheaper, same sound quality expected.

    Audio driver configuration & policy implementation based on TinyUCM (/etc/tinyucm.conf)
    Probable subset of TinyHAL implementing codec configuration in config files instead of having everything hardcoded in ROM or kernel driver at compile time.

    Native sampling rate: 44100 Hz. It means music played will be sent as-is to the DAC instead of being processed by a software up-sampling routine as it is on Galaxy Nexus or other devices with codecs accepting only 48000 Hz.

    AWESOME.
    13
    Crackling sound visualized

    I see quite many people suffering from that 'crackling' sound that comes randomly whenever the music is playing, and I also noticed it. Since this is a bit irritating I wrote a short analysis of the playback sound of SGS3. I played a test signal which plays only 1kHz of sine wave for 10 minutes, and waited until that crackling sound happens again.

    124260454FD959E2282F71


    First, this is a part of the 1kHz signal file that was played through my SGS3, which seems to be OK, but take a look at the next image I attached.

    124274454FD959E1244B29


    Now this throws us a hint that signal is significantly distorted at 00:01.346, but this doesn't actually show everything about noise that's happening during the playback. That's why we need to take a look at the spectrum of the output sound.

    14378C454FD959E1357E9F

    I got you noise!

    Damn Youtube. You just can visit here for the video. http://youtu.be/ObXT-08CYZg

    Actually this noise lasts really short so it was quite hard for me to catch that.
    In the signal file I played, the actual contortion starts at 00:01.26084 and ends at around 00:01.34676. Of course these figures are based upon that GoldWave spectrum analysis; you cannot tell exactly when that noise happened because it just zips away.

    For those who want to take a closer look yourself, watch this video please, or download the file I attached here. You'll see the real body of the crackling noise.

    Hope this is just a bug in the firmware, especially the wrong wolfson dac driver settings from Samsung 'cause I see that rise in the frequencies except for 1kHz is rather consistent.

    +
    Anybody know how to report this issue to Samsung? I tried to report this to Samsung Korea but they redirected me to nowhere.

    ++
    Seems to be related with power management.
    10
    Youtube video

    Sorry for being so late but last day or two has been manic!! Here's a really crappy video I posted on Youtube:

    http://youtu.be/jR6Vc28NEcc
    8
    A digital audio system is composed of:

    406045_3017824090522_1410232016_33249063_365914518_n.jpg


    . A storage module: Music is stored in file as a series of bits 0 & 1 with different encoding formats (MP3, WAV, FLAC…).
    . A player: The player decodes the bits 0 & 1 to PCM digital audio signals.
    . A DAC (Digital to Analog Converter): The DAC converts the PCM digital audio signals to the original analog audio signals.
    . An amplifier: The amplifier amplifies the analog audio signals.
    . A speaker: The speaker restitutes the music.


    Like a PC or a Mac, an Android phone / tablet is a digital audio system.

    386049_3017824530533_1410232016_33249064_602805578_n.jpg



    An Andoid device, running on a kernel with the USB audio feature activated, can output the PCM digital audio stream to an external USB DAC & amplifier, much more efficient than the internal DAC & amplifier.

    376007_3017823650511_1410232016_33249061_1036262226_n.jpg