My Take on Music Players.

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First off let me say i understand that everyone's hearing is different and what sounds good to one may not sound good to another.

I decided to do a little comparison of jetAudio PowerAMP & PlayerPro to see which one i thought had the best audio. Not features or operation ect. Just the best audio to my ears. The test went like this. Install them and set all audio extras off. No bass boost. No eq. No virtaulizer. No stereofx. nada, nothing. Nothing but just the unaltered sound from the player.

I chose a lot off different tracks to compare but concentrated on Saving Abel- The Sex is Good and ZZ-Top- Blue Jean Blues along with Matchbox20- Hang. I would load up a song in all three. Play it back to back to back listening to each one closely for bass, mids and treble. Drum clarity. The sound of fingers gently breathing over the strings. Upfront vocal quality.

Before i get to the results let me give a little info about the setup. It's a Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 with TerraSilent 1.3.5 kernel, Klin's Icy~Fusion 2.3 ROM. Voodoo Sound Control. The cans are a-Jays-ONE and MEElectronics SP51's. I also conducted the test with and without DSP Manager (which is included in the custom rom.) For settings in DSP. No bass boost. No Compression. No Loudness Compensation. Just eq with the first set to +2.2 for a little bass boost. All others at 0. I also like Virtual Room Effect set to ROOM.

The results: HANDS DOWN PlayerPro! Seriously, it was no contest. Every song i tried resulted in PlayerPro kicking there backside. Jet and Pamp sounded very similar. The bass just seems muddy, the mids are lackluster and the highs are over exaggerated. Overall an unclean sound. PlayerPro was clear and precise.

This isn't the first time I've conducted this test either. I've tried the same test with the 4.0 in stock condition and also with steves custom rom with voodoo. The results are always the same for me. One reason i keep doing the test is because i see so much in forums singing the praises of PowerAmp and i keep telling myself that maybe the test was a fluke, my hearing wasn't having a good day ect. But low and behold there's not even a maybe this sounds just as good or better. It's always the same surprised look on my face with a smile when i hit play on PlayerPro.

PowerAMP fans don't flame me If it sounds that good to you, well more power to ya (pun intended). I'm uninstalling all others for about the 4th time and sticking with PlayerPro. Good day!

DVC

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IMO Poweramp's DVC feature makes it stand out from the rest. However, you need to have some knowledge on how to properly adjust the EQ in order to fully maximize its potential. Right now I'm using neutrino music player and it sounds good out of the box, you don't need to do extensive tweaking unlike in poweramp. I'm not giving up on poweramp yet though

See here is my take on eq's. From what I've read all my life, eq's should never be used to boost frequencies. Most audiophiles will say if the player is doing what it needs to do, then boosting frequencies will only add unwanted distortion. So if eq'ing is used it should be to cut not boost.

I tend to agree with them. I want to hear exactly what the sound producer/mixer wanted me to hear when they cut the track. Not something thats been artificially added. And agan, not trying to start a war of words on the matter, just giving my honest opinion. looking forward to others opinions on the subject.

I personally like poweramp. The dvc feature is great. I only slightly adjust the eq to give a little more bass and also a boost around 4k. It sounds to me better than player pro. My headphones are sennheiser hd 205 ii. So they're pretty good and I can hear that the clarity in player pro is a little better than in poweramp. But again, the dvc allows me to get the warmer, cleaner sound that I want. The player pro's eq flat out sucks.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda app-developers app

Ok, after hearing others opinions on the subject i decided to revisit my test again but this time with DVC on in PowerAMP. Well as they say,,,,,this is a game changer It's unbelievable how much difference putting that one check in the box made! I believe i'm going to have to call it a tie now between PowerAMP and PlayerPro. After loading up several of the same songs in each one and listening side by side, it was real hard to pick a clear winner.

Originally Posted by kesongpinoy

IMO Poweramp's DVC feature makes it stand out from the rest. However, you need to have some knowledge on how to properly adjust the EQ in order to fully maximize its potential. Right now I'm using neutrino music player and it sounds good out of the box, you don't need to do extensive tweaking unlike in poweramp. I'm not giving up on poweramp yet though

I'm with you, I ALWAYS leave my EQ's on any of my players FLAT as that is really the only way to compare different apps.

---------- Post added at 02:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 AM ----------

Originally Posted by mwclark7

Ok, after hearing others opinions on the subject i decided to revisit my test again but this time with DVC on in PowerAMP. Well as they say,,,,,this is a game changer It's unbelievable how much difference putting that one check in the box made! I believe i'm going to have to call it a tie now between PowerAMP and PlayerPro. After loading up several of the same songs in each one and listening side by side, it was real hard to pick a clear winner.

If your gonna test sound on this level you should also flash like 1.4 or 1.5 versions of Stratus ROM (EtherealRom) so you can compare the difference BEATS Audio makes, personally I felt that gave the best clarity, despite the loss of DVC in poweramp.

Originally Posted by daniel644

I'm with you, I ALWAYS leave my EQ's on any of my players FLAT as that is really the only way to compare different apps.

---------- Post added at 02:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 AM ----------



If your gonna test sound on this level you should also flash like 1.4 or 1.5 versions of Stratus ROM (EtherealRom) so you can compare the difference BEATS Audio makes, personally I felt that gave the best clarity, despite the loss of DVC in poweramp.

I if you do, make sure you use my latest version, because I applied a better, cleaner beats mod in it.

what's irritating about the DVC though is its uneven volume scaling which can badly hurt your ears if you forget to turn down the volume

Also, remember you need a MINIMUM 192 kbps bit-rate to properly judge audio quality.

IMHO the best albums to use for testing sound quality are "Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon" remastered of-course and "Evanescence's Fallen".