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Root Audio Lib's

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dspl1236

Well-Known Member
After trying all the roms that we have, it seems to me the that Stock V4/6 roms have the best audio output. I drive 2-400mi a day and always tweaking my cars sound system between hip-hop, rock, or whatever i am listening to.

on the stock roms its Dolby digital, it sounds the cleanest and i rarely have to change settings on my head unit or amp as i drive.....other audio lib's in the other roms make the audio seem too "amplified" and slightly distorted. buggs the heck out of me


i am about to go back to v6 just for the better audio clarity and deal with it being oem....but ill prolly flash BP kernal



that is all
 
Beats audio i know was added to one of em. and beats is overrated/overpriced IMHO...just not worth the money when i can get headsets that sound better than the beats ones... for cheaper. Its a gimmick. All it is is a software equalizer.
 
... And when you consider its just an expensive equalizer, you might as well use Dsp manager. I don't use headphones enough to delve too deep into the issue, but I've never noticed a difference with even Dsp.
 
I suppose the question is: why? (I'm not being flippant, either... it's an honest question for discussion)

I'm a bit of an audiophile (not to mention I produce/master music) and I only play FLACs on my home system for the obvious audio quality. If you're not playing FLACs and at most playing 320k MP3s, then sound enhancement only enhances a 'lossy' format.

When guys send me MP3s, I can't work with the file and enhance it, because there's data that was lost in the compression to the MPEG-3 file. If I try to enhance it (and believe me, I've tried), the lost data creates a distortion pattern that is akin to a metallic hiss in a tin can. It's not as discernible on a 320k file, but anything lower and you can really notice it.

Winamp for Android will let you play FLACs (with the pro version... boo!), but the stock and most other players won't. So on a phone, where quality is 320k at best (and that's GMusic... Amazon only rips to 256k), enhancing the sound with Beats makes no sense. Equalization makes sense, but stereo and reverb (room) enhancement are limited because of the 'lossy' nature of an MP3; the enhancement distorts the sound. If you're playing music on $15 headphones, you might not notice it, but play your phone through a Bose or high-end Bluetooth system (or wifi) and you definitely will. There's already signal to loss hiss from the Android phone that you don't get on a normal stereo (it's a phone, not a stereo, afterall), and enhancers can actually exacerbate the problem.

So, that said, do any of you have some experience or compliments about the quality of Beats, compared to, say the EQ abilities of DSP Manager? I don't use DSP much, but when I do, I don't notice much improvement... I certainly didn't see any from Beats, but I'd like to think I did something wrong with the libs/files and wasn't experiencing it right.
 
I would rather have the stock audio libs/files.... the low hz sound is cleaner (new beats over old beats) but as the highs still kinda suck. I stream pandora one all day and yes at times based on cell coverage i get a crap stream, but rarely. when i dont use my phone... i use my usb stick or cd with 320k mp3s....quality does increase on the high end but the lows seem to be about the same. heck i think my blackberry storm may have sounded better...lol

kenwood head, 4-way rockford fosgates all around, with a 10" rockford p2 holding the lows in the back of the wagon.
 
It's funny you should mention that... low-lows and high-highs are what's rolled off in the compression process. From what I can tell, Beats was just EQing and allowing EQ profiles, which is great and all, but DSP does the same and I really can't tell much improvement.

The problem with lows is you have to take into account box porting and design into signal loss/reduction. I don't know what you've got and if it's a pro box, but you can lose a ton of bass in how the subs are boxed poorly (which is why some cars sound like shit and only rattle with no forward pressure/sound). Hell, even most home speakers fail that test. My studio monitors are tuned to hit broader frequencies, but still fail at certain points... I refuse to pay thousands for 'perfect' speakers. lol

If I had to guess, I'd say Beats was designed to affect the mid to high frequencies that are most prevalent with headphones.
 
Beats is licensed by Dr Dre. so it's oriented towards clean lows and mids.. (Beats also as their own line of expensive cheap headphones built for hip hop rap.) Highs are nice but you can hear it break up if pushed.

The output is so quiet on this phone I always max the phone so I don't max my system out.

The stock dolby has clean highs and lows. Doesn't break up when pushed.
 
Omg if you guys have never listened to FLAC its soooo clean! I wish my car stereo supported it.

One other thing...

Listen to an mp3 version of a song, then listen to the vinyl record version of the same song. tell me which has better and cleaner sound. You'll hear stuff you didn't hear in the Mp3 i promise.
 
I've got a huge vinyl collection and my favs are the jazz releases. Jazz on vinyl sounds FAR better than the comparable CD... even if you have a remastered version. But when I started ripping all my Blue Note CDs, I did it to FLAC, so there was no sound/data loss.

Some friends and I had the MP3/vinyl debate before and from a pure quality aspect, MP3 is better sound, but vinyl has a warmer sound and is generally professionally mastered (it's required for pressings), whereas most digital releases (except for major labels) are not mastered. So the MP3 file is actually a better delivery system, but has shittier source material. Honestly, even my worst vinyl pressings sound better on my turntable with a nice Ortofon needle, than some of the new music coming out in sites like Beatport and Junodownload. There's no quality standard to release something digitally, like there is to get something pressed to vinyl... and it shows.
 
Too bad iPods dont support flac :/ at least natively.... the SRTRV on my stereo in my car is a nice feature and helps a bit. It tries to help with the 'lossy-ness' of mp3s
 
I listen to FLACS on my Z-2300 with satellites replaced with some nice Klipsh shelfs. One day I will have me a nice clean optic setup, my wallet keeps telling me no though, and my brain says pure analog coax home, so damn expensive. Optical has sooooo much option at a more "balanced" price, then again with the loss, I kinda don't see the justification in price either.
 
After flashing the new beats I'm having low volume in calls again....dammit ... Just a word of warning unless no one else is experiencing this then disregard it...
 
atomilluminati said:
After flashing the new beats I'm having low volume in calls again....dammit ... Just a word of warning unless no one else is experiencing this then disregard it...
Click to expand...


interesting...i have not noticed that issue...but my spectrum had a heart attack to today..10-12 reboots
 
I prefer omap processors they seem to have better build qualities, seems like qualcomms cant handle much stress before sending a kernel panic (reboot)
 
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