Low Audio Quality of Media While in Call/VoIP

[Darkshades]

Hi, thanks for reading.
Coming from an extremely weaker Sony Xperia c5 ultra e5506, the only time media audio quality was adjusted to be mono/lower bitrate was during cellular calls.

I regularly used​ discord as VoIP and played YouTube or music while connected to discord and the sound remained high quality stereo, same as when not using the VoIP application.

However on the Galaxy S8+ the audio for all media is changed to single channel mono muxed to stereo, extremely tinny sounding low bit rate the moment I connect to discord or similar VoIP application.

Does anyone know if there is a way to change the audio quality of background application media to not be reduced so significantly while using call/VoIP applications? Or is this just going to be how it is.. ?

Thank you.

Edit/Update: I just tested discord on my phone before last, the Galaxy S III, and YouTube audio quality is not distorted or downgraded while connected to a VoIP server... Overall make satisfied with my S8+ but I'll be fairly disappointed if audio quality multi tasking in an almost 10 year old phone, 5 predecessors behind, out performs it...

 

[Darkshades]

*bump* forgive me, I'm hoping more eyes see this and possibly have information... thank you

 

[Darkshades]

*polite bump* Anyone else experiencing audio bitrate quality problems? I have to imagine there are others that multitask on their phones and like to be in calls/voip and watch videos/listen to music/etc at the same time without insane drops in audio quality...

 

[Mikeand96]

I have the same problem with my S8+.

---------- Post added at 09:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 AM ----------

I did just find out that if you mute the MIC it will go back to original sound quality.

 

[SuperHensa]

I have the same issue after upgrading from a iPhone 5s with perfect discord sound quality, to my S8+ which makes the call quality really compressed and bad unless my own Mic is muted. Playing any kind of media while in a call makes it sound like it's playing audio from a 144p YouTube video from 2004.

I use discord nightly and i really really wish there was a way around this. :crying:

 

[Darkshades]

Anyone have any additional info...? It's not as big a problem for me anymore however it's still annoying...

Thanks

 

[TangoNcash]

I think I found the solution to your audio issue.
This is for Samsung 8+/8, I mean, it might work for other phones that are Samsung and run Android version 7.0 and Android experience version 8.1 along with latest OS updates.
1. bring down the top menu
2. hold and press on the Bluetooth signal (it should be already synced with your Bluetooth headset device)
3. You're taken to another screen: Click on the three dots to the top right
4. On that little menu that pops up, go to and click on media volume sync
5. If it is off, make sure this option is on, and adjust your Bluetooth volume to max (optional)
6. That's it, it should now be able to play all audio on highest quality.

---------- Post added at 03:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:43 AM ----------

I think I found the solution to your audio issue.
This is for Samsung 8+/8, I mean, it might work for other phones that are Samsung and run Android version 7.0 and Android experience version 8.1 along with latest OS updates.
1. bring down the top menu
2. hold and press on the Bluetooth signal (it should be already synced with your Bluetooth headset device)
3. You're taken to another screen: Click on the three dots to the top right
4. On that little menu that pops up, go to and click on media volume sync
5. If it is off, make sure this option is on, and adjust your Bluetooth volume to max (optional)
6. That's it, it should now be able to play all audio on highest quality.

 

[Mediask]

Thanks for your reply TangoNcash. It seemed to have helped somewhat. The call quality has improved, but the sounds from other apps (such as youtube/spotify) are not. They remain with the same, bad (bluetooth(?)) call quality. The weird part is, it does not seem to affect games (I run them from the game launcher).

While it is expected to have the bad quality with a bluetooth headset, this problem (bad codec) is appearing on wired headphones for me. A problem that was not there with my Samsung S6. I'm planning to go by a samsung service point later this week. Does anyone have found a solution to this problem?

 

[marcossanches]

I'll have to revive this thread, I have the same problem with my Zenfone 2, if I enter a Discord channel or WhatsApp call the media audio just gets to be "supressed" like it's very low quality or some audio noise reduction is going on. That really messes things up as you want to use Discord and play with your friends at the same time, but can't hear steps in games, I also found out that if you active your mic in games (at least in PUBG) it does the same. All problems happens with wired and bluetooth phones.

 

[Girra]

The same thing happens for me, even in oreo, there's no solution for this? Really?

 

[enok82]

Unfortunately I can only verify for my Huawei Honor 8, Android 7.0.
Tried Voice Apps: Discord and Hangouts
Tried Media Apps: Spotify and bundled Music Player
The music drops in bitrate, it gets heavily filtered, and volume fluctuate.

 

[sampajama]

SOLUTION

All you have to do is open a voicemail and put it on hold, boom clear discord.

 

[WACOMalt]

I know this isnt a solution, But I was having this issue in Discord on android in a channel I was solely wanting to listen to music in, not talk. What I did was a went to my bluetooth headphones in the bluetooth settings and unchecked "Phone calls"

This left only the higher quality audio modes and now Discord plays good audio and uses my phone mic if I ever did want to talk.

 

[Anonxxx]

I found a solution, but you'll have to do this every time you intiate a call. It doesn't take long though:

Step 1: Launch the Discord app and go to settings
Step 2: Select "Voice & Video"
Step 3: Scroll down and make sure "Audio Mode" is set to "Call Mode"
Step 4: Initiate a call
Step 5: While on the call, open a vociemail then hang up

You should now have clear audio.
I've only tested this with wired headphones btw.
I've been having suppressed and terrible voice quality on my galaxy S8 too. And this method seems to work for me.

 

[Immortalfool]

I seem to be having these issues as well when it comes to my p20 pro. Exact same issue with the filtering and down graded codec. It only reverts to pure quality if I make a phone call to anyone or my voicemail whilst in a discord call or server. The issue here is my mic volume gets dropped dramatically that no one can hear me talk unless it's pure silence and quote "if I don't breath I can hear you". Now that I'm seeing it happen on not just my Huawei device but a Samsung as well, including the fact you have a headphone jack (I only have a usb adapter) this gives me some hope that it's not just some hardware limitation. Other than the similar temp solution of having a phone call at the same time, has anyone fooled around with the developer options?

Phone: p20 pro
Headphones: wired headphones or Bluetooth
OS: Android 8.1 + emui 8.1

 

[Samsung Problems...]

Quick revive

Okay we need this revived because I hate this and need an answer!

 

[thedarkrazer]

Guys, I figured out a wokraround! All you need to do is go into game launcher and add the app as a game. In my case it was Spotify. And then magically it worked perfectly. Don't know why this is only restricted to games but at least it works.

Edit: This only worked with Discord, and I don't believe that it was directly caused by this but by changing some settings in Discord.

 

[Immortalfool]

Guys, I figured out a wokraround! All you need to do is go into game launcher and add the app as a game. In my case it was Spotify. And then magically it worked perfectly. Don't know why this is only restricted to games but at least it works.

What do you mean add the app as a game? You mean on my actual pc version of discord? What about Netflix and YouTube which don't necessarily have a program. Or is there another method you meant.

 

[eddiaz]

someone have a solution? pls

 

[GuestD2813]

This solution has plagued me for months. I'm on the latest version of Android 8.0 and am pretty sure it's a problem with Android. I couldn't find a way around it, until today!

This specifically works with Discord, and getting good audio quality while on a voice call with someone. I like to be on voice calls almost 24/7 so it drove me crazy not being able to listen to any other kind of audio.

Anyways, today there was a new setting in Discord that fixed everything for me:

Go inside your Discord audio settings and enable Force Calls to use OpenSL ES and Call Mode. Both seem to solve this issue to have audio become high quality again.

Sorry for reviving this thread, but this is the first result on Google when looking for low quality VOIP media audio, and I'd like to provide a solution for anyone else who was like me and plagued with this issue.