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Help Bluetooth (A2DP) Sound Quality Issues

E

ezHiker

Lurker
Hi there. Ok, so far I love my EVO, but one thing that is really driving me crazy. With my Blackberry I had grown accustomed to streaming my music from my phone to a bluetooth stereo gateway in my car and my home. My BB sounded GREAT doing this. But the EVO has a really grungy crackling sound, especially when there is loud high frequency content, such as a lot of cymbals, etc. Some songs sound better than others depending on how they were recorded, but by in large it's very annoying. Even my wife, who is nowhere nearly as picky as I am about sound quality complains about it. I've tried to put up with it, but usually I resort to plugging directly into the aux jack. What a letdown for such an otherwise advanced phone! Is anyone else experiencing this?

The research I've done so far indicates the the problem is that Android is locked at a relatively low "bitpool" setting, which is ok for voice, but doesn't provide the necessary bandwidth for decent music quality. Thus far I haven't found way to adjust this. Does anyone know of a solution, or if there is a solution coming? Will this be addressed in Froyo? It just sucks to have to plug my phone in again just to get decent sound quality.
 
Mine sounds fine thru my motorola s9hd's. The only thing i've noticed is when i have them on outdoors away from buildings they tend to skip.
 
I've had the same problem using bluetooth with my stereo. It sounds pretty horrible. Because I had never used another phone to stream audio I had no idea whether it was my radio or the Evo itself. It was disappointing to say the least.
 
Confirmed. Though the bluetooth device that you use seems to have *some* effect, it's not much from one to another. I do notice some clipping on high frequency sounds. My headphone amp tends to smooth these out a bit, but you can only do but so much when the data just isn't there.

For plain-ol non-IEM ear buds it's not bad. But when I use something like my Shures or other reference phones/IEMs you really do notice it. For me, it's not enough to give up my bluetooth receivers since I'm not using the Evo for it's sound quality, but it's a compromise for an all-in-one. I do wish someone could improve the bluetooth stack, though.
 
Thanks, I'm glad it's not just me... I have read about similar problems on other Android devices as well.

The difference is very obvious if I compare between BT and direct aux. This wasn't an issue with my Blackberry. I know I'm kind of picky about sound quality but it's tough to put up with when I know it could be better. I hope the devs are aware of this and address it in Froyo. In fact I'm going to see if I can file a bug report on it, if there already isn't one.
 
Hate to bump an old thread, but the Froyo update is out, and I am still having the same issues. Was using a HTC Hero to stream Pandora to the stereo in my car... The Evo clipped the higher frequencies... It is still doing it after the update.

Anyone else still having this clipping issue?

Is there a fix for it yet?
 
Is there any fix for this without rooting? I am terrible at fixing things, and I don't want to root because I know I will screw up my phone.
 
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