[Q] Improving the N9005's Volume Levels / Techy Audiophiles' Assistance Needed

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The.Opethian

Senior Member
Nov 9, 2008
209
27
London
www.opethian.com
Hello all. Just recently purchased the Note 3 (upgraded from a Nexus 4, which was an upgrade from a Motorola Atrix) and one of the things that I've been missing is good audio quality. At the moment, the best sound from any mobile device in my experience was that of the Atrix running CM7.2. Yes, it even beat the original Galaxy i9000 with the Wolfson chip, and even all of the iPhones. To this day I don't know what the DAC was that was running off of the Atrix's Tegra core.

Anyway, the Nexus 4's audio was... forgettable. Samsung did a good job with the Note 3, unfortunately the volume levels are still poor. Much improved from the Nexus 4, but still nowhere near where I would like it to be.

For comparison, I mostly listen to my music on a FiiO X3, although I don't like that the X3 can't read HE-AAC v2 (fantastic compression, especially for audio books), and the X3 doesn't have Last.FM scrobbling features. I still use it since the Wolfson chip really delivers and it sounds beautiful.

Software-wise on the N9005, the N9005 built in player delivers the best playback options. WinAmp sounds okay, but PowerAMP actually performs worse. Enabling the effects in PowerAMP and the volume... goes down? Weird. So the built-in player and the DSP effects are really great, except for the volume levels.

The volume of the FiiO X3 goes from 0-60. The Note 3 goes from 0-15. The X3's volume at 30 (half) is almost the same as the Note 3 on MAX volume!

Now I'm not expecting the Note 3 to have the same power as the X3, but I feel like it could at least go a further 20% more.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any tips or recommendations will be most appreciated! :)
 

radicalisto

Senior Member
Nov 13, 2013
3,729
1,511
York
Hello all. Just recently purchased the Note 3 (upgraded from a Nexus 4, which was an upgrade from a Motorola Atrix) and one of the things that I've been missing is good audio quality. At the moment, the best sound from any mobile device in my experience was that of the Atrix running CM7.2. Yes, it even beat the original Galaxy i9000 with the Wolfson chip, and even all of the iPhones. To this day I don't know what the DAC was that was running off of the Atrix's Tegra core.

Anyway, the Nexus 4's audio was... forgettable. Samsung did a good job with the Note 3, unfortunately the volume levels are still poor. Much improved from the Nexus 4, but still nowhere near where I would like it to be.

For comparison, I mostly listen to my music on a FiiO X3, although I don't like that the X3 can't read HE-AAC v2 (fantastic compression, especially for audio books), and the X3 doesn't have Last.FM scrobbling features. I still use it since the Wolfson chip really delivers and it sounds beautiful.

Software-wise on the N9005, the N9005 built in player delivers the best playback options. WinAmp sounds okay, but PowerAMP actually performs worse. Enabling the effects in PowerAMP and the volume... goes down? Weird. So the built-in player and the DSP effects are really great, except for the volume levels.

The volume of the FiiO X3 goes from 0-60. The Note 3 goes from 0-15. The X3's volume at 30 (half) is almost the same as the Note 3 on MAX volume!

Now I'm not expecting the Note 3 to have the same power as the X3, but I feel like it could at least go a further 20% more.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any tips or recommendations will be most appreciated! :)

There a re a couple of sound boost mods around, but most distort it quite badly IMO.

VIPER4 is probably the better one to choose if you are rooted.