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Help Serious audio quality dip on Razr

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benhodges

Lurker
When I got my Razr a week ago, I loved everything about it...except for listening to audio. The vocals sounded really distant, so I ran sound tests on my OG Droid, X, and Razr, all using Amazon mp3.
I composed a Wav file witih 5 tone gens running at once, 700, 1k, 2k, 3k, and 4k, then routed the output from each into Sonar, and compared them with a spectrum analyzer.
Just as I had predicted, the OG and X were about the same. The Razr, however, had a big dip between 600 and 2k, which is the frequency range where a lot of the vocals sit.
Has anyone else had this problem with the Razr?
I'm more of an audio guy than a programmer guy, so I'm not sure whether this is something that Moto tweaked in their software, or if it's a hardware problem with the phone. Could it possibly be addressed in future updates?
 
I've had the Dinc, several DX's and a DX2 and it seemed to me that the RAZR had better audio quality than the other 3 phones. I did tweak the audio settings on the phone, and I also use Mixzing which has lots of custom audio settings of it's own. I use blue tooth headphones, but do use the 3.5mm jack to play my mp3's through my car stereo and I am happy with the sound quality. Wonder if the problem you are experiencing is something that I don't notice or if not all RAZR's are effected by this issue?
 
Interesting comparison... I'd like to see that comparison made against several different handsets to help factor out the possibility of a single phone with an audio issue.

Personally I've not seen (or heard in this case) any audio issues with my Razr. As such I can't confirm or deny it...
 
When I first plugged up my Razr, to my ears, the audio quality was inferior to my OG Droid, Droid Charge, and even the Bionic, headphone whine and all. However, after installing Poweramp I have found the results to be very impressive. I guess the music app on the Razr was poorly made? Even without boosting the pre-amp levels in Poweramp the audio output is louder and superior than that of the stock music app.
 
The issue is a lack of gain, but the pre amp function in Poweramp fixes the issue. There are also other audio features.

With Poweramp at least, the Razr sounds a good as the Rezound and my iPod 4.

The stock music app IMO is a resource hog and there are better options.
 
AndroidGreg said:
Go to the audio settings and turn off the live, 3d stereo effects thing stuff, makes my beats headphones sound like stock apple ones before after its all back. I noticed the vocals and certain guitar rifs were realld drowned out but after that all is good.
Click to expand...

You, sir, solved my problem. Thanks!

For some reason, I had never delved into the audio menu on the Razr yet (I'm not sure if the OG and the X had these settings). I just assumed that each audio program used its own sound settings. You were right - I went into the menu and 'audio effects' was enabled, with 3d surround selected. Turned it off, and it sounds great.

Thanks again! Hope this helps someone else whose phone came with those settings defaulted.
 
It was set to on by default? The effects settings are artificial, but some folks like them.

Added: I do use bass punch in EQ settings.
 
I feel so stupid. I noticed the sound problem with the vocals sounding weak and distant and thought it was a bad quality sound chip or something. After reading another thread online where the problem wasn't resolved (people actually recommended using *more* effects in poweramp to solve it :) I uninstalled all my music apps and podcasts and decided to use my old ipod touch for music and the razr for all other things (it is an awesome piece of technology). After finding this thread all is good and I am again happy as f$##$ with my phone.
 
Is this found in the System Settings/Sounds? The only thing I found was "Wired Stereo Devices. Would someone mind telling me where to find this? Or, are you guys talking about how the Razr sounds when it's connected to speakers?

AndroidGreg said:
Go to the audio settings and turn off the live, 3d stereo effects thing stuff, makes my beats headphones sound like stock apple ones before after its all back. I noticed the vocals and certain guitar rifs were realld drowned out but after that all is good.
Click to expand...
 
On android 4 (ICS): goto settings->sounds and then scroll al the way down. The last two settings are for audio effects. Turn both off.
 
That's where I was alrighty. Made the changes but left bass boost on. I guess I don't have the audiophile ears that some of you have :) I couldn't tell a difference LOL
 
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