Static / buzzing from speakers at low volumes

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Lendogg81

Member
Mar 25, 2012
12
0
When nothing is playing? If nothing is playing and you have speaker noise than you have a completely different issue. Most people here are talking about speaker noise while music is playing at various volume levels. If yours just makes noise while nothing is playing I would return it ASAP.

Did you get yours in the mail or via a retail location? If it was the mail... Actually I won't go there right now, been making too many waves as it is so I will go back to the shadows. Speaker noise out of speakers while NOT playing and NOT near max volume can mean several things, a blown speaker is one cause but there are others...
If you care to take the time to read my previous posts you will find that I fully understand that the speakers shutoff when not in use, and the sound only happens when they are active.

The reason I ask if anybody has no high pitched whine when on max brightness is that when on max brightness the high pitched whine is gone (or inaudible to human hearing) when the speakers are active on my device. My friend who I mentioned previously does in fact keep his Nexus on max brightness, so that is probably why his made less noise when compared to mine. Although, I am beginning to feel that my is in fact operating "normally".

So, as a quick "fix" just turn your screen on max brightness if the noise is bothering you, and if you are in a dark room and the screen is too bright on max settings, you just have to choose the lesser of two evils (or wear headphones).

Furthermore, I do not believe you understand the issue many of us are discussing here. This has nothing to do with blown speakers. The noise that we are all describing can only be heard clearly at low volumes as it is a background noise only present when the speakers turn on. Please, read through the thread thoroughly before posting irrelevant information.
 
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Lendogg81

Member
Mar 25, 2012
12
0
This is the last I will post on the matter. Although my friend keeps his Nexus on max brightness, his tablet does not have the high pitched buzz/hum regardless of the screen brightness setting. It is a defect, and I will get an exchange tonight.

*Update* - Exchanged, problem persists :(
 
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oxxshadow

Senior Member
Apr 2, 2012
1,230
156
I find it weird that on Stock Rom the issue is less noticeable, while on aosp ROMS like Purity it is
 

oldsoldier2003

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2012
133
57
Eldorado
I'm a professional audio engineer, I know exactly how these things work. Most cheap devices do volume controls that way, because adding a dedicated op-amp for analog volume control increases costs of the device, and the Nexus 7 is a budget device.

It does happen on mine, too, in every app that plays sound.
As a professional Audio engineer I bet that drives you nuts. I have tinnitus so it drowns out the buzzing lol!

I love when pros come in here and give the technical explanation haha hats off to you, sir!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

/agree
 

oxxshadow

Senior Member
Apr 2, 2012
1,230
156
So I guess there are no solutions... or even a way to make it less worse than it is

someone recommended installing Viper for Android... but I do not see how that will help
 

James101

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2013
159
25
I have the same problem, and its pretty bad, at low volume I can hear, and high, it makes music sound terrible!
 

zschmeez

Member
May 7, 2013
28
3
Google Pixel 5a
Same Problem Here

I just noticed this buzzing while playing GTA Vice City on mute. My tablet is a 32 GB Nexus 7. It's manufacture date is August. I probably won't return this, but it's still a flaw I didn't expect. I hope Google comes up with something to fix it, or at least sends us all pair of ear buds so we don't have to hear the buzzing.

Edit: I am running Android 4.4.2 completely stock.

---------- Post added at 09:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:02 PM ----------

This problem seemed to magically appear over night for me, I was watching a YouTube video before I went to bed on the lowest setting and it seemed fine.

Wake up this morning, put on a YouTube video again and it has this horrid static that only gets unnoticeable at about the 4th volume notch.

I've had my Nexus 7 a week, and I've never noticed it until now. It seemed to just appear, like he said. Hope Google can find a fix for this.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
 
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Nysten

New member
Jan 18, 2014
1
0
The reason I ask if anybody has no high pitched whine when on max brightness is that when on max brightness the high pitched whine is gone (or inaudible to human hearing) when the speakers are active on my device. My friend who I mentioned previously does in fact keep his Nexus on max brightness, so that is probably why his made less noise when compared to mine. Although, I am beginning to feel that my is in fact operating "normally".

You're the only one who has adressed the screen brightness. I tested your solution to max the brightness to make the noise go away and it worked (the noise is so small that you can't hear it)! This makes me really wonder whether the speakers have some grounding/isolation issues, or if it is software related.. The speakers seem to be interfering with the other components like the processor and the screen backlight and as others have said, the usb-port while charging.. I guess there could be a hardware fix for this, but it's not really something you could do by yourself. Maybe if ASUS would really look into what is going on, we could send our devices to be repaired and they could change the speakers with better isolated ones.. That would be the least they could do.

If the issue is software related, well, google would better be investigating already... The Nexus series is basically what represents google and their android right now. With these problems they are making a bad image if themselves. I hope google isn't turning into a super-greedy company, selling us **** and backing away from responsibilities.
 
Feb 7, 2014
25
4
Um so a quick and dirty fix if for both the speaker whine AND the processor interference noise. This is only if you don't need the volume on:

1. Plug in a pair of headphones, you don't even need to use them, just plugging them in switches the speakers off and removes the processor noise interference.

Yeah I know this is obvious, just pointing it out to anyone
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
 

The-Last-Hylian

Senior Member
Feb 14, 2012
2,208
694
www.ivaninsurance.co.uk
I noticed a buzzing on my 2013 N7 last night - had the sound turned down all the way (I like to keep my devices on silent) went to youtube and started a video, was about to turn up the sound when I heard the buzzing coming from the top speaker.

So it's not something that is fixable from what I've read or?
 

Valnomien

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2007
138
3
Anaheim
speaker buzz

I am running CM11 on my razorg and the only time I hear the buzzing is when running a game/app even with volume on mute which is frustrating. There has to be some developer option in CM that allows us to disable speakers without plugging in a headset?
 

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  • 41
    It's because the Nexus 7 uses a crappy digital volume control that simply reduces the volume of the digital waveform before it hits the DAC, instead of having a real analog volume control -an op-amp that adjusts the volume of the signal before it hits the headphone/speaker amplifier.

    What you're hearing is quantization noise as at the lowest volume the audio uses only 2-4 bits of dynamic range instead of the full 16 (or 24, dunno what DAC is in this thing). It's the same as the bit-crushing effect you hear in some dubstep and other electronic music that degrades the audio into a robotic crunchy mess, only here it's not on purpose, it's just cheap design.

    There is nothing you can do about it.
    18
    I'm not sure how you know that but if you're right I guess that means it would happen on all of them... which.. sucks.. Is there anyone that doesn't have this issue to disprove this?

    I'm a professional audio engineer, I know exactly how these things work. Most cheap devices do volume controls that way, because adding a dedicated op-amp for analog volume control increases costs of the device, and the Nexus 7 is a budget device.

    It does happen on mine, too, in every app that plays sound.
    11
    As the others have said, thanks for the explanation. Nice to hear from somebody who understands it, and if the problem is present in all units that actually makes me feel better since I don't have to worry about returning my otherwise perfect unit. :)

    Question though, how come I don't hear the static when using headphones, even on the lowest volume settings where I hear the static from the built-in speakers? That makes me think it's related to the speakers and not the audio hardware... but you obviously know more than me on this.

    My pleasure! There's tons of FUD on XDA about many things, so I try to contribute on stuff I know well to reduce that.

    Without looking at the schematics of the thing I can only guess:

    The speaker amplifier is probably just a simple design that outputs 100% power all the time, so you have to control the volume of the signal that enters it, whereas the headphone amp probably has an integrated analog volume control.

    A volume control is much easier (read: cheaper) to do in an integrated chip with low power signals (headphone out) than higher power (speaker out), and again, cheaper was the way to go with the Nexus 7.

    Hence, there are two separate outputs from the audio chip - one that feeds the speaker amplifier and uses the bit-crushing digital volume control, the other outputs full-scale audio to the headphone amplifier which controls the volume in analog.
    4
    I just started playing a few games on this Nexus 7, and I turned the volume down to the lowest setting because it is late at night and other people in my house are sleeping. I immediately noticed a soft but very audible static buzz coming from the speakers... about the same volume as the audio itself. I held my ear up to the hardware and confirmed it is both top and bottom speakers.

    Anybody else experience this?
    4
    I personally fixed my low speaker static by using a kernel with Faux sound enabled and using that to set the speaker gain to about -5, this results in being able to use a higher volume level which doesn't have static present, but the device is still quiet enough to watch videos in bed.

    Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk