Related
I have had an Incredible since about October of 2010 and it finally bit the dust and I have moved to the Fascinate because of the price and awesome reviews the phone has received.
I have a few questions about the Fascinate.
What known bugs does this phone have? Are the bugs specific to Froyo, Gingerbread or both?
Which stock ROM is better for this device, Froyo or Gingerbread? (I prefer Froyo for the Incredible)
Is there a mostly stock ROM for this phone that is completely stable, zero bugs and zippy?
What is the best and easiest root method?
Is there anything I need to do before I root?
Thanks for any help.
Take a look at my guide in the general section. Section 1 has i.structions for flashing imo one of the best froyo roms...its just a enhanced version of stock froyo that yields awsome battery life. I also have a section (5) on rooting, but its not needed if your flashing a custom rom. Pretty much all of the latest roms for the fascinate are pre rooted.
Thanks a lot! I will check this out over the weekend.
ejdavis72 said:
I have had an Incredible since about October of 2010 and it finally bit the dust and I have moved to the Fascinate because of the price and awesome reviews the phone has received.
I have a few questions about the Fascinate.
What known bugs does this phone have? Are the bugs specific to Froyo, Gingerbread or both?
Which stock ROM is better for this device, Froyo or Gingerbread? (I prefer Froyo for the Incredible)
Is there a mostly stock ROM for this phone that is completely stable, zero bugs and zippy?
What is the best and easiest root method?
Is there anything I need to do before I root?
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome to the fascinate forums ej, I too came from an incredible not too long ago so here's a couple things that should help you out.
First, you do not need to root to flash a rom/recovery/whatever. Samsung apparently leaves the security pretty wide open so you're free to flash an alternate recovery in odin then flash the rom of your choice from there. This was a weird concept for me coming from the incredible, and I think a lot of people just assume that you need to root before flashing roms (as that's how it is with moto, HTC, etc) but that's not the case.
I don't know if you prefer stock or AOSP roms, on the stock front, I think there's Superclean, Geewhiz, and TSM resurrection. These should be quite stable stock-ish roms that don't have the bugs that AOSP roms do. AOSP roms (ICS/MIUI/CM7/TSM PoolParty) on the fascinate use a different and faster filesystem (MTD). I can't really comment on any roms but MIUI/CM7/ICS as that's all I've ever used personally. The AOSP bugs that I've run into (currently on CM7) are data issues - data will occasionally drop out requiring airplane mode toggle, or will get stuck on 1x after sending/receiving SMS. Also there's a weird thing where the earpiece volume during calls will default to a high volume (just requires a quick volume adjustment or tasker script). I don't always notice this happening though.
I'll probably think of more later on, those are just the ones that come to mind at the moment. Hope this helps.
k_nivesout said:
Welcome to the fascinate forums ej, I too came from an incredible not too long ago so here's a couple things that should help you out.
First, you do not need to root to flash a rom/recovery/whatever. Samsung apparently leaves the security pretty wide open so you're free to flash an alternate recovery in odin then flash the rom of your choice from there. This was a weird concept for me coming from the incredible, and I think a lot of people just assume that you need to root before flashing roms (as that's how it is with moto, HTC, etc) but that's not the case.
I don't know if you prefer stock or AOSP roms, on the stock front, I think there's Superclean, Geewhiz, and TSM resurrection. These should be quite stable stock-ish roms that don't have the bugs that AOSP roms do. AOSP roms (ICS/MIUI/CM7/TSM PoolParty) on the fascinate use a different and faster filesystem (MTD). I can't really comment on any roms but MIUI/CM7/ICS as that's all I've ever used personally. The AOSP bugs that I've run into (currently on CM7) are data issues - data will occasionally drop out requiring airplane mode toggle, or will get stuck on 1x after sending/receiving SMS. Also there's a weird thing where the earpiece volume during calls will default to a high volume (just requires a quick volume adjustment or tasker script). I don't always notice this happening though.
I'll probably think of more later on, those are just the ones that come to mind at the moment. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw you on these forums earlier and recognized you right away, I remember you from the Incredible forums for sure.
Thanks for the help, you answered many of my questions! A few more though...
Is the volume bug with all ROM's or just with certain ones?
How would you rate this phone against the Incredible, and can I use Mesmerize ROM's too? Would you recommend Froyo for this phone or Gingerbread?
ejdavis72 said:
I saw you on these forums earlier and recognized you right away, I remember you from the Incredible forums for sure.
Thanks for the help, you answered many of my questions! A few more though...
Is the volume bug with all ROM's or just with certain ones?
How would you rate this phone against the Incredible, and can I use Mesmerize ROM's too? Would you recommend Froyo for this phone or Gingerbread?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The volume bug is something that I've read is an issue with all MTD roms (CM7/MIUI/ICS), but in my experience, I've only noticed it a couple times, and I've only been on MTD roms since I got this phone a month or two ago. What I'm trying to say is, it's a pretty minor concern for me, but I don't actually talk on the phone all that much.
IMO, this phone is a nice upgrade coming from the incredible. Not galaxy nexus-like nice upgrade, but still, considering I sold my incredible for what I paid for the fascinate, it was totally worth it. One of the big things you'll notice coming from the incredible is the screen. I had an AMOLED incredible, and the SAMOLED on the fascinate is *much* better. You get a little more screen real estate (3.7" vs 4") and the display itself is just much more vibrant and closer to the actual glass part of the touchscreen that you interact with. Also, with voodoo color, you can tweak the display exactly to your liking, which is something I've definitely enjoyed being able to do.
Also, if you use your phone as a media player, you will love the WM8994 DAC used in the Galaxy S line. It sounds absolutely amazing paired with the voodoo control (app that lets you tweak sound and display) - considerably better than any ipod I've tested it side-by-side against. The audio quality alone will make it hard for me to upgrade, considering the DACs used in the newer generation devices like the Nexus or Galaxy SII are actually inferior to the one used in the original Galaxy S phones.
There is one downgrade coming from the incredible though, and that's the RAM (384MB vs 512MB), but I haven't run into any situation yet where the RAM was insufficient to do what I wanted to do. Also, if you're in to tweaking kernel things, you can do MUCH more with the kernels on this device compared to the incredible.
I'm not sure about mesmerize roms, I don't think you could use them on the fascinate unless they were modified. Are there any mes-specific roms you've seen that aren't available on the fascinate? As far as froyo vs GB, I can't really comment on that either since I've only used GB/ICS. Now that I think of it, aside from stock roms, I haven't seen any froyo roms around. But that's probably because I got the phone right around when GB finally officially came out for it.
k_nivesout said:
The volume bug is something that I've read is an issue with all MTD roms (CM7/MIUI/ICS), but in my experience, I've only noticed it a couple times, and I've only been on MTD roms since I got this phone a month or two ago. What I'm trying to say is, it's a pretty minor concern for me, but I don't actually talk on the phone all that much.
IMO, this phone is a nice upgrade coming from the incredible. Not galaxy nexus-like nice upgrade, but still, considering I sold my incredible for what I paid for the fascinate, it was totally worth it. One of the big things you'll notice coming from the incredible is the screen. I had an AMOLED incredible, and the SAMOLED on the fascinate is *much* better. You get a little more screen real estate (3.7" vs 4") and the display itself is just much more vibrant and closer to the actual glass part of the touchscreen that you interact with. Also, with voodoo color, you can tweak the display exactly to your liking, which is something I've definitely enjoyed being able to do.
Also, if you use your phone as a media player, you will love the WM8994 DAC used in the Galaxy S line. It sounds absolutely amazing paired with the voodoo control (app that lets you tweak sound and display) - considerably better than any ipod I've tested it side-by-side against. The audio quality alone will make it hard for me to upgrade, considering the DACs used in the newer generation devices like the Nexus or Galaxy SII are actually inferior to the one used in the original Galaxy S phones.
There is one downgrade coming from the incredible though, and that's the RAM (384MB vs 512MB), but I haven't run into any situation yet where the RAM was insufficient to do what I wanted to do. Also, if you're in to tweaking kernel things, you can do MUCH more with the kernels on this device compared to the incredible.
I'm not sure about mesmerize roms, I don't think you could use them on the fascinate unless they were modified. Are there any mes-specific roms you've seen that aren't available on the fascinate? As far as froyo vs GB, I can't really comment on that either since I've only used GB/ICS. Now that I think of it, aside from stock roms, I haven't seen any froyo roms around. But that's probably because I got the phone right around when GB finally officially came out for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After spending some time with this phone I have some issues with it...
1. Lowest in-call volume is TOO HIGH!
2. Headset buttons don't work other than pause, play, answer, and end. (GAY!)
3. When I end a call and hit the power button to turn the screen off, it comes back on! (with Widget Locker) regular lock works fine to keep the screen off after a call. Hmm
4. Music playback doesn't seem to sound right. (sounds tinny)
5. Volume buttons turn the screen on! (What the hell?)
ejdavis72 said:
After spending some time with this phone I have some issues with it...
1. Lowest in-call volume is TOO HIGH!
2. Headset buttons don't work other than pause, play, answer, and end. (GAY!)
3. When I end a call and hit the power button to turn the screen off, it comes back on! (with Widget Locker) regular lock works fine to keep the screen off after a call. Hmm
4. Music playback doesn't seem to sound right. (sounds tinny)
5. Volume buttons turn the screen on! (What the hell?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.
try flashing the glitch v13.1 kernel, should help with in call volume...thats if your currently on a mtd rom. If your running a TW rom, then use the kgb kernel and use terminal to adjust call volume settings.
ejdavis72 said:
After spending some time with this phone I have some issues with it...
1. Lowest in-call volume is TOO HIGH!
2. Headset buttons don't work other than pause, play, answer, and end. (GAY!)
3. When I end a call and hit the power button to turn the screen off, it comes back on! (with Widget Locker) regular lock works fine to keep the screen off after a call. Hmm
4. Music playback doesn't seem to sound right. (sounds tinny)
5. Volume buttons turn the screen on! (What the hell?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. I'm on glitch kernel and it's fine for me. You can also customize all sorts of volumes but I've just left em at the default.
2. What other functions are besides play, pause, answer/end aren't working? Track skipping? I have a pair of headphones with inline controls and nothing works on MTD roms for me, so your already a bit ahead of the curve in comparison.
3. Sounds like something with widgetlocker, not necessarily the phone.
4. Adjust settings in Voodoo control if you need. Music sounds *amazing* with my setup. I personally delete DSPmanager and just use VC.
5. This is something that can be turned on or off with CM7/MIUI. You didn't say what rom or kernel you're using so it's kinda hard to help.
k_nivesout said:
1. I'm on glitch kernel and it's fine for me. You can also customize all sorts of volumes but I've just left em at the default.
2. What other functions are besides play, pause, answer/end aren't working? Track skipping? I have a pair of headphones with inline controls and nothing works on MTD roms for me, so your already a bit ahead of the curve in comparison.
3. Sounds like something with widgetlocker, not necessarily the phone.
4. Adjust settings in Voodoo control if you need. Music sounds *amazing* with my setup. I personally delete DSPmanager and just use VC.
5. This is something that can be turned on or off with CM7/MIUI. You didn't say what rom or kernel you're using so it's kinda hard to help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yeah, I totally forgot to tell you what ROM I'm using.
I'm on the Geewiz 2.3 Gingerbread ROM and kernel because I always like some goodies but I try to stay as close to stock as possible for stability reasons. I know the volume issue is with Widgetlocker but it didn't do that on the Dinc so, I have to have something to blame right? Ha...
Do the US Cellular Mesmerize phones have the same issues as our phones? Ya know like the headset control, in-call volume too high and all that?
Oh I gotcha, does the kernel you're using support voodoo sound? If not, I'd try out another one that does and then check out your music. And yes, I think the issues that are common to the phone affect the fascinate/mesmerize/showcase since they're essentially the same phone. I don't know much about touchwiz roms, but I'd suggest looking into a kernel with more features, you might be able to tweak those things that you're having an issue with.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
I have a guide to kernels for eh03 here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1459905 all 3 tw kernels have voodoo sound as of latest updates iirc
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
I tried the KGB kernel and it has an option to boost in-call volume but nothing to lower it. The tinny sound issue was my inline remote I use for the headphones, it had a faulty volume slider that needed some cleaning. Thanks for all your help!
k_nivesout said:
Oh I gotcha, does the kernel you're using support voodoo sound? If not, I'd try out another one that does and then check out your music. And yes, I think the issues that are common to the phone affect the fascinate/mesmerize/showcase since they're essentially the same phone. I don't know much about touchwiz roms, but I'd suggest looking into a kernel with more features, you might be able to tweak those things that you're having an issue with.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh okay, I thought all theses issues were probably software issues with Verizon's ROM/kernel. Yes, Geewiz kernel supports voodoo.
Droid Razr Maxx
Well I guess this is my goodbye... I scored an awesome deal on a Motorola Droid Razr Maxx off of Craigslist and it's time for me to move on.. Thanks for all your help and I hope to see you all sometime in other forums.
I use my HOX+ quite often as my main mp3 player. I tend to use Poweramp as a player and a pair of klipsch image x10s for earbuds. My problem is quite often when I am listing to music, the music stutters. It just cuts out for a fraction of a second, then continues playing normally. This glitch isnt annoying enough to make the music listening experience on the HOX+ unbearable, but it does get quite unpleasant as the music stutters every 5-10 min.
Has anyone else experienced this with their HOX+? Has to be a problem on the phone side since this problem persisted across a few roms and music apps. Also when I use my earbuds on my ipod, there is no such stuttering.
Any help or advice would be much appreciated.
thekalby said:
I use my HOX+ quite often as my main mp3 player. I tend to use Poweramp as a player and a pair of klipsch image x10s for earbuds. My problem is quite often when I am listing to music, the music stutters. It just cuts out for a fraction of a second, then continues playing normally. This glitch isnt annoying enough to make the music listening experience on the HOX+ unbearable, but it does get quite unpleasant as the music stutters every 5-10 min.
Has anyone else experienced this with their HOX+? Has to be a problem on the phone side since this problem persisted across a few roms and music apps. Also when I use my earbuds on my ipod, there is no such stuttering.
Any help or advice would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is the phone, mine does it too. It can get annoying sometimes but not a big deal.
Sent from my HTC EVARE_UL using Tapatalk 2
killman2659 said:
It is the phone, mine does it too. It can get annoying sometimes but not a big deal.
Sent from my HTC EVARE_UL using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must admit i am really confused why people can't just take at least some minutes to search or read the threads from where they are taking their files.
if you have stuttering then it's because you have elite kernel (sense) or blade kernel (aosp) running. Both have their reasons for sound issues and both threads feature an explanation and a solution to these issues.
I'm totally sure this question will be asked a couple of times here but nevertheless, here's the answer:
for elite kernel it's about the power management. this kernel is an attemp to get most battery life out of the device by lowering the standby clock (for example). If you listen to music this might cause some sort of short lags and if you use beats audio these lags will become more frequent.
for blade kernel one reason is the fact that htc doesn't offer the drivers we need to get a completely flawless audio experience.
the solution:
use a music player app which is able to adjust the audio buffer (just like player pro with it's dsp pack) and increase it. then the lags will be mostly gone.
and folks please, if you want to have a device that's working without any issues then just stay with your stock rom.
for anybody else, who is willing to experience some bugs: at least keep reading the threads in here. there's absolutely no reason to discuss one and the same topic at least 20 times across the same subforum and often even a couple of times in one and the same thread.
nchantmnt said:
I must admit i am really confused why people can't just take at least some minutes to search or read the threads from where they are taking their files.
if you have stuttering then it's because you have elite kernel (sense) or blade kernel (aosp) running. Both have their reasons for sound issues and both threads feature an explanation and a solution to these issues.
I'm totally sure this question will be asked a couple of times here but nevertheless, here's the answer:
for elite kernel it's about the power management. this kernel is an attemp to get most battery life out of the device by lowering the standby clock (for example). If you listen to music this might cause some sort of short lags and if you use beats audio these lags will become more frequent.
for blade kernel one reason is the fact that htc doesn't offer the drivers we need to get a completely flawless audio experience.
the solution:
use a music player app which is able to adjust the audio buffer (just like player pro with it's dsp pack) and increase it. then the lags will be mostly gone.
and folks please, if you want to have a device that's working without any issues then just stay with your stock rom.
for anybody else, who is willing to experience some bugs: at least keep reading the threads in here. there's absolutely no reason to discuss one and the same topic at least 20 times across the same subforum and often even a couple of times in one and the same thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I don't know if my device is faulty or not but I'm on the stock kernel and ViperXL+. In the CPU tab in venom tweaks you can change the min frequency to 2xx and it almost stops the skipping. (I always read before I type )
Sent from my HTC EVARE_UL using Tapatalk 2
nchantmnt said:
I must admit i am really confused why people can't just take at least some minutes to search or read the threads from where they are taking their files.
if you have stuttering then it's because you have elite kernel (sense) or blade kernel (aosp) running. Both have their reasons for sound issues and both threads feature an explanation and a solution to these issues.
I'm totally sure this question will be asked a couple of times here but nevertheless, here's the answer:
for elite kernel it's about the power management. this kernel is an attemp to get most battery life out of the device by lowering the standby clock (for example). If you listen to music this might cause some sort of short lags and if you use beats audio these lags will become more frequent.
for blade kernel one reason is the fact that htc doesn't offer the drivers we need to get a completely flawless audio experience.
the solution:
use a music player app which is able to adjust the audio buffer (just like player pro with it's dsp pack) and increase it. then the lags will be mostly gone.
and folks please, if you want to have a device that's working without any issues then just stay with your stock rom.
for anybody else, who is willing to experience some bugs: at least keep reading the threads in here. there's absolutely no reason to discuss one and the same topic at least 20 times across the same subforum and often even a couple of times in one and the same thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im currently on stock kernel and Viper Xl+ like killman2659, so that is not the problem.
thekalby said:
Im currently on stock kernel and Viper Xl+ like killman2659, so that is not the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Stock stock stock. Still have the sound issue
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda premium
gtkansan said:
Same here. Stock stock stock. Still have the sound issue
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These are most probably the issues:
1. Audio buffers have incorrect values.
2. Music app has incorrect sound enhancement values
3. Phone fault. If that is the case, then bring down to HTC for phone servicing. Remember to lock your bootloader if you choose this option.
4. The headphones are faulty.
Same over here. Happens on every Rom. All well. Go clear app caches and stuff to boost the speed.
Sent from my HTC One X+
I also find I have audio issues in PowerAMP on my One X+, notifications or system sounds cause music playback to stutter and crackle. Hasn't happened on any other device or even different players like Spotify on my One X+.
Completely stock and I ha e the same problem.
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda app-developers app
I messed around with a few CPU settings and haven't had any skipping so far. I use smartassv2 and noop with max 1700 and min 51.
Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2
I use PowerAmp, and the only time the music has ever appeard to "skip" is when I get a notification (Gmail, message, facebook, etc). I have to assume that's not the problem you guys are talking about.
Have you tried to listen in Airplane mode? Is it still clipping? Could it be a sync'ing issue?
Just food for thought...
Hey everybody.
Just wanted to point out a fact about xLoud and the terrible overuse on recent ROMs/Kernels from people that have no sense of audio quality and clarity, or people that don't actualy know what a DSP is, what it can do, what it can't do.
So what is xLoud? What does it promise to do and what does it really do?
So xLoud apparently is a "technology" that can offer you "magically" more audio volume to your smartphone without changing anything to your phone as a hardware.
You know, when you have studied music technology and you know how physics and audio hardware works, reading to a phrase like this one, you know that something very fishy is going on. Reading the technology's description word by word you know that such thing is impossible to happen in real life.
So what xLoud really does to your smartphone's audio? Does it really work or it's just another thing that gives empty promises?
Breaking down xLoud:
So what xLoud really does is think how our ear and brain percieves audio and how they can take advantage of it to (obviously) fake a higher volume sound. So their idea is to take advantage of the fact that our ear has sensitivity to mid range frequencies and base everything around that. OK that's good but how can you take advantage of such thing to make a hardware perform a higher volume sound than what it does? Easy, it's called linear audio dynamic range compression. So what they do is they steal dynamics from the frequency ranges our ear is less sensitive to them and then assign the extra dynamic range to your effect. So they take the extra space and they over compress (or better over limmit) the audio to a point what you hear is simply a panic of noises since there is no dynamic range between the most loud part of a sound/track (like a kick) to the least busy part of the sound/track (a whisper) and make everything sound super-loud, avoiding the fact that our ear has also the sensitivity of dynamic range to percieve and understand audio hence they render the result amataurish, ugly, clipping and completely unrecognisable. Anyone that knows how Audition/Cool edit works can replicate the same effect very simply by opening a track of their desire then go to Effects->Amplitude and Compression->Tube-Modeled Compressor and apply these settings->
thresh: -30.db
gain:18db
ratio:12.0:1
attack: 1.0ms
release: 20ms
Then press OK and listen to the result. Sounds familiar? Doesn't it kill the track? Does it sound louder? No? So then why do you keep using it?
Also on top of that, xLoud has some bad rough edges. Because of the fact that the dynamic compressor is always on, it affects the volume levels behavior of your phone. So turning lower the level seems a bit unresponsive or the audio is not as turned down as you'd expect it to be. Also go near the speaker and start to turn lower the volume. You can hear the hiss going louder and louder as you go nearer to the silent mode. That's because the noise ratio gets raised everytime the compressor tries to higher the volume. But the worst bug of xLoud is that technicaly your phone can never-ever-ever and under no cirscumstances enter a pure silent mode. Nomatter what, your phone will always perform sounds, even if that means a very low level hiss/static sound, but there are even occasions that the compressor will take so high the peak signal that it will leak over the throttling effect of silent mode and you will be able to hear some sounds if you are near your phone's speaker.
So my point was alot of people know here that Beats is more or less a placebo like Bravia Engine is but none of these two seem to harm the quality factors they touch but Xloud on the contrary is the worst thing that can happen to your ROM/Kernel and I felt like it was about time you should know about it. Not only it is NOT loud, not only it is NOT nice, not only it's super inaccurate, but it can be proven dangerous to the hardware of your phone and nobody of the ROM developers does the mearest effort to warn their users about it because themselfs have no idea what this tool really does. I hope my post gives help to people and I also hope that there is a way I can completely get rid of xLoud and anything related to it on roms that are on XDA since just removing the apks and the lines on build.prop are proven to not be enough to make me get rid of that terrible nightmare called xLoud and seems the problem goes deep on the kernels that use it.
Many thanx for reading
Very thorough and well explained. I always thought something was fishy but never tried xloud. I thought they were changing voltage or something that would push more power to the output to increase volume and was afraid of hardware damage. Plus, I'm well aware of audio clipping when you push the levels too high.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using xda app-developers app
I want developers to offer a way to really get rid of it. Being forced to use it is just too much, it's so much to a point whatever a ROM/kernel will offer to the actual phone or even do super miracles with a super-weak and outdated phone, xLoud is enough to ruin completely the ROM making it trash. I mean ok, you are the developer and you do whatever you want with your ROM/Kernel but you don't even do the job telling people what this thing does or even give the option to disable it completely and then you expect people to respect you or somethin'? I mean seriously? There's a terrible analogy here. My point is, I could make a tiny application that converts your ringtone to a soundfile that will sound the same way it sounds when you integrate to your system xLoud. Why am I forced to use something only a deaf would use? That's a bit rude and offensive to the side of people that are going to use ROMs out of this site. Oh and please, don't start a personal-opinion and personal-taste game here, I provided enough info why it's not a matter of any of those.
Interesting, are you mostly pointing out that xLoud degrades quality?
Personally, I love xLoud, but maybe because I have different wants /needs from the sound on my phone than you. I do not have great hearing but I am not deaf either, but I find the sound coming from the Evo 3D's speaker inadequate. I often can't hear it. Ring tone and alarm /reminder volume is too low and I found myself not watching the YouTube video because I had the speaker to my ear. With xLoud, I actually turn the volume down for some uses. That said, I almost never use an external sound source be it headphones or a plug in boosted speaker. I am also not big on music. I do enjoy music, but for me it is primarily background noise and not a priority. In my car I sometimes listen to music, but mostly I listen to sports talk radio.
I guess what I am getting at/asking is, is your disdain for xLoud primarily related to audio quality? For me, quality isn't important, hearing my phone ring from across the room, for example, is. XLoud for me wouldn't be necessary with a phone with a decent speaker, but is all I know that makes this phones speaker doable. Do you know of any alternatives for my needs? I get what you are saying to an extent, but don't fully understand. You say xLoud doesn't make the sound output any louder, but it sure sounds louder to me. If it's a trick to make the ear think it is louder, Idk, it sure works for me.
Again, I am not trying to argue, nor debate the accuracy of what you wrote. I am certain that you are correct, I mostly wonder your thoughts of xLoud use for my wants and or alternatives.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using Tapatalk 2
There's an extended discussion about audio quality on a smartphone in this thread and xloud isn't even mentioned. It's more about the digital to audio converter used and how to tweak that for the cleanest sound, which is not necessarily the most realistic. Audio is recorded with microphones but heard with our ears so until someone figures out a way to record and playback using an individual's nervous system it will never be totally realistic and there will always be some distortion versus a live performance.
Since one's preference for equalization depends heavily on age, due to hearing loss, and musical preference, such as classical versus rock, there is no right or wrong for shaping the audio coming from our phones. All recorded music is distorted in some way and it comes down to a personal preference on how much and what kind of tailoring each person prefers. Although most people don't care for the distortion caused by clipping it seems that based on the sound levels coming from some vehicles on the road today a few prefer volume over anything else.
I understand that you are asking for developers to not modify the audio equalization in their base ROM but HTC already does that with beats for Sense based ROM's in their current models. Even an AOSP based ROM without custom tweaks is going to depend on the audio profiles that the developers chose. You could use the digital audio output and an external DAC to avoid that customization but most users can't be bothered with that. There are AOSP based ROM's that don't include any equalization beyond what the developers included and your best bet may be to try those if you really want minimal equalization.
ramjet73
Most of the answers were pretty expected. People, dynamic range compression = leap gap degradation in quality. All record music is mastered by professionals and is done with expensive hardware/software and it is done with reference speakers, one of them is speakers being used in mobile phones, so you don't need to rape again the quality of the audio. The result of nearly zeroing dynamic range of audio is not higher volume, it's a noisier/busier audio track, that's all. Ther are other workarounds that could be done but xLoud is the worst thing that can happen to a mobile phone. Personaly, I never had a problem with the speaker of my phone at all. My point is xLoud alone does not do what you think it does because of the way our perception of hearing works, the result of you being able to hear your phone on a loud area is because of something else, not xLoud. Our ear is less possible to "understand" a change in the background when something has no dynamics (the case of xLoud) hence the effect of masking (check wikipedia) so if you make a constant noise, your brain will "cancel" the audio out. Also none of the HTC phones use Beats Audio for anything non-headphone related and even then you can turn it off. I felt a leap gap degradation in audio quality when I upgraded from GB stock to custom ICS ROMs because I recognize the thing that is being done when I hear the audio from the speakers and I can't help but remember my teachers saying " you hear that, NEVER do it". Also since we are talking about HTC EVO 3D I am forced to use a Sense 3/3.6 ROM if I want to keep 3D functionality so my choices are limmited. Developers should offer the option to completely disable xLoud (like Sony does anyway), I am OK with HTC's stock audio and I'm sure it's not just me. Forcing people to use it is equal to removing bloatware from a branded ROM to put back your own bloatware. There are alot of people who don't like Beats and they don't use it. Why shouldn't we have the same option for xLoud?
No one is forcing you to use it. Some people like xloud, i dont......so I disable it......All you have to do to turn off xloud is either freeze or uninstall the AudioEffectsService.apk through titanium backup. Doing so completely disables xloud including any background services related. End of story.
Sent from my PG86100 using xda premium
troyboytn said:
No one is forcing you to use it. Some people like xloud, i dont......so I disable it......All you have to do to turn off xloud is either freeze or uninstall the AudioEffectsService.apk through titanium backup. Doing so completely disables xloud including any background services related. End of story.
Sent from my PG86100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, seriously I wouldn't complain if what you said did the work. Infact I know that method and I did it and then I found out that it doesn't even do half the job. It looks like recently the function or something is built deep inside the kernel and since there is no menu to disable it or something, it will just stay forever active and the phone will just be unaware. It's not like how you would disable it on a Sony phone that comes prebuild with the function and killing the apk and the lines on the build.prop would do the job there's more stuff involved here that I can't control without having access to the kernel source. Seems like the same issue happens once you put bravia engine (or something that the mod depends on it on your kernel) too but that doesn't really bother me but there might be people that will complain in the future.
And the story continues from right where it was left.
VIRGIN KLM said:
No, seriously I wouldn't complain if what you said did the work. Infact I know that method and I did it and then I found out that it doesn't even do half the job. It looks like recently the function or something is built deep inside the kernel and since there is no menu to disable it or something, it will just stay forever active and the phone will just be unaware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh?
There's no way that xloud is built into the kernel of an HTC phone. Maybe beats, but not xloud. As I said previously, there will always be some sort of distortion in the audio from a smartphone as it's not really intended to be an audiophile's device. You need to get a dedicated audio player if that's what you want.
ramjet73
VIRGIN KLM said:
And the story continues from right where it was left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You seem to think you already know how people are going reply and that we don't appreciate the message you are trying to convey. So why did you take the time to write this thread, then read and respond to our replies? If you already know, don't waste forum space.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using Tapatalk 2
ramjet73 said:
Huh?
There's no way that xloud is built into the kernel of an HTC phone. Maybe beats, but not xloud. As I said previously, there will always be some sort of distortion in the audio from a smartphone as it's not really intended to be an audiophile's device. You need to get a dedicated audio player if that's what you want.
ramjet73
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not the case. You can clearly see in the changelogs of the kernels here that their is something like an xLoud dependecy or something added. In stock Gingerbread there's nothing wrong, nothing raising the bias of the audio, same goes with stock ICS. There's no clipping/tight dynamics on these versions because there is nothing HTC does to the audio DSP-effect-wise that will raise the dynamics above the headroom the hardware can output. HTC leaves the audio to pass-through untouched. It's just all the ICS based roms that use xLoud that have the issue of "forced" dynamics and eventualy clipping that shouldn't happen in normal conditions.
TKBoMo said:
You seem to think you already know how people are going reply and that we don't appreciate the message you are trying to convey. So why did you take the time to write this thread, then read and respond to our replies? If you already know, don't waste forum space.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry if I sounded like this, I apologize if I offended anybody, but my actual intention was to convince that, before I would do a whole post explaining what the tool does and attempt to say that some people are trusting blindly everything "big" they hear, be sure that I won't be wasting time of people who will make the effort reading. Also the fact that I have a degree in Audio Engineering means that I know what I'm talking about when I say it's not a personal preference thing and that it's not what you think it is. Plus I made sure before people would suggest me to do things things on a user like me and my current post count, I'd go a step further and gather knowledge that would help me trying to deal with the issue myself. I've done the tedious work of reading one by one every page of the most active ROMs here and I've gone through reading all posts that give directions on how to disable xLoud and none helped until I realised that in order to implement in on a device that does not come prebuilt with it you need to do some modifications deeper than just the user-space. I mean, my point is, is it really so hard to have a switch that enables/disables the function?
With that being said, I want to make sure everybody know that I'm very greatful to developers that do the tedious work to work for the device and to people that do their best to help others in the forum, I honestly am, but it's one of those momments I am like, "what the hell was/were he/they thinking?".
VIRGIN KLM said:
It's not the case. You can clearly see in the changelogs of the kernels here that their is something like an xLoud dependecy or something added.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your arguments are getting irrational now if you are saying that kernels designed for the Evo 3D have specific modifications for xloud. If you are talking about any shaping of audio being done in the kernel, that's a much broader subject than what you started with in your OP and I think you will have a hard time getting much support in these forums for the argument that there should be no audio changes from the stock ROM in the kernel or anywhere else.
Good luck with your campaign because I think that idea will fall on deaf ears.
ramjet73
VIRGIN KLM said:
No, seriously I wouldn't complain if what you said did the work. Infact I know that method and I did it and then I found out that it doesn't even do half the job. It looks like recently the function or something is built deep inside the kernel and since there is no menu to disable it or something, it will just stay forever active and the phone will just be unaware. It's not like how you would disable it on a Sony phone that comes prebuild with the function and killing the apk and the lines on the build.prop would do the job there's more stuff involved here that I can't control without having access to the kernel source. Seems like the same issue happens once you put bravia engine (or something that the mod depends on it on your kernel) too but that doesn't really bother me but there might be people that will complain in the future.
And the story continues from right where it was left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you install Sony walkman you can disable it these mods are just files take them out and switch them out for stock
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2
ramjet73 said:
Good luck with your campaign because I think that idea will fall on deaf ears.
ramjet73
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see what you did there.
Everything on this site is FREE and at your own risk!
With that said, you have a choice to flash or install. Nobody is forcing you or I to flash anything!
VIRGIN KLM, I'm not defending xloud here BUT you said what you had to say and everyone who read it NOW knows!
Is that not enough?
I know you said something about getting XDA to remove it from the site BUT here's a little wisdom for you.....
Unless the app, mod, rom or the product in general is bricking devices or just malicious in general......I highly doubt that XDA will remove it JUST because it doesn't work.
There are plenty of things on XDA that don't work as they should BUT that's just the beauty of it all! If you find something that doesn't work, instead of acting like a whistleblower then why not fix it?
It sounds like you know what you're talking about and could be a very good asset to the xLoud guys....so WHY NOT help them out and fix the mod?
If you continue on with this rant you started, it will only throw mud on your argument and make you look like you're just jealous and you're working for a rival of xLoud.
Just my 2 cents.....
I'm finding this thread to be very informative. Thanks to Virgin KLM for starting it and laying down some knowledge.
I don't have any Audio Engineering degrees, but I do have 13 years experience running sound for live events and have 33 years experience with my ears . The 3D sounds pretty bad all around in my opinion. I've heard some pretty good sound systems and this ain't it. At least the mods bring the sound up to a decent level. But I still only run ROMs where the eq apps like DSP Manager actually work. I have to tweak the sound myself.
The thing about using cell phone reference speakers when mixing tracks is that I bet no one said, "Let's see how this sounds on the Evo 3D." Maybe an iPhone.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
ramjet73 said:
Your arguments are getting irrational now if you are saying that kernels designed for the Evo 3D have specific modifications for xloud. If you are talking about any shaping of audio being done in the kernel, that's a much broader subject than what you started with in your OP and I think you will have a hard time getting much support in these forums for the argument that there should be no audio changes from the stock ROM in the kernel or anywhere else.
Good luck with your campaign because I think that idea will fall on deaf ears.
ramjet73
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no campaign here, it's just my two cents to people that believe that they are improving audio when in reality they don't and they do the common mistakes you can see over and over on the internet and I'm just trying to help to iron out myths and missunderstandings of what those "improvements" do and what not, possibly not as good as I thought I would but apparently I do. It looks like the kernels pretty like double the effect or contribute to the whole DSP processing in some way or another but it's way too biased, which now seems like audio actually passes through 2 stages of dynamics compression, one from the kernel and one more from the phone's audio manager as a software side effectively killing any possibility to get rid of it simply rendering impossible to get rid of that supertight-compression effect.
Anyone that questions what I said above is free to go back to Gingebread stock with stock kernel and hear a ringtone on the ringtone settings at full volume and compare that to their xLoud featured ROM.
Flashalot said:
if you install Sony walkman you can disable it these mods are just files take them out and switch them out for stock
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It won't affect the system related audio which is basicaly what annoys me the most, but I was talking in general why forced xLoud is a bad idea.
Mazda said:
Everything on this site is FREE and at your own risk!
With that said, you have a choice to flash or install. Nobody is forcing you or I to flash anything!
VIRGIN KLM, I'm not defending xloud here BUT you said what you had to say and everyone who read it NOW knows!
Is that not enough?
I know you said something about getting XDA to remove it from the site BUT here's a little wisdom for you.....
Unless the app, mod, rom or the product in general is bricking devices or just malicious in general......I highly doubt that XDA will remove it JUST because it doesn't work.
There are plenty of things on XDA that don't work as they should BUT that's just the beauty of it all! If you find something that doesn't work, instead of acting like a whistleblower then why not fix it?
It sounds like you know what you're talking about and could be a very good asset to the xLoud guys....so WHY NOT help them out and fix the mod?
If you continue on with this rant you started, it will only throw mud on your argument and make you look like you're just jealous and you're working for a rival of xLoud.
Just my 2 cents.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not my point at all. I simply said that it would be nice and kind if there was an EFFECTIVE way to leave unmodified the audio as HTC calibrates it with professional equipment and I do trust them in that aspect and they really don't need anything messed with that side of the phone. Just a simple Turn ON-OFF function, I mean is it such a big deal? Oh and I don't demand anything, it's a suggestion and I tried to elaborate why I give such suggestion.
coal686 said:
I'm finding this thread to be very informative. Thanks to Virgin KLM for starting it and laying down some knowledge.
I don't have any Audio Engineering degrees, but I do have 13 years experience running sound for live events and have 33 years experience with my ears . The 3D sounds pretty bad all around in my opinion. I've heard some pretty good sound systems and this ain't it. At least the mods bring the sound up to a decent level. But I still only run ROMs where the eq apps like DSP Manager actually work. I have to tweak the sound myself.
The thing about using cell phone reference speakers when mixing tracks is that I bet no one said, "Let's see how this sounds on the Evo 3D." Maybe an iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done a breakdown myself. At the mastering studio I've been working they have 3-4 random phones when they master an Album as reference speakers. Also, I bet it's not something you hear the first time in your life, HTC and Sony phones have pretty like the best quality AD-DA converters in the mobile phone industry, and iPhones use the same ones as iPods which is famous for being one of the cheapest and worst quality out there, but that's an audiophile thing and it's not really worth mentioning. The fact that when you over compress dynamics in an audio output is a bad idea does not take an audiophile to understand that, I provided a whole tutorial how to archieve the result and hear yourself what you're missing.
VIRGIN KLM said:
Anyone that questions what I said above is free to go back to Gingebread stock with stock kernel and hear a ringtone on the ringtone settings at full volume and compare that to their xLoud featured ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done that. Additionally, the ROM I currently use does not have xLoud until I add it with AC!D. All that I can say is, I could care less about superior audio quality. I do however, care about being able to hear my ring tone from across the room and over the tv. Without xLoud the volume of the sound is much lower than after I add it. After xLoud being added, I turn the volume down on some apps. With xLoud I can hear YouTube and watch the video at the same time. I don't mind a quality loss (to a degree) for increased sound. The speaker in the 3D is horrendous, I need xLoud to enjoy my phone.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using Tapatalk 2
TKBoMo said:
I have done that. Additionally, the ROM I currently use does not have xLoud until I add it with AC!D. All that I can say is, I could care less about superior audio quality. I do however, care about being able to hear my ring tone from across the room and over the tv. Without xLoud the volume of the sound is much lower than after I add it. After xLoud being added, I turn the volume down on some apps. With xLoud I can hear YouTube and watch the video at the same time. I don't mind a quality loss (to a degree) for increased sound. The speaker in the 3D is horrendous, I need xLoud to enjoy my phone.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's the ROM you're using?
VIRGIN KLM said:
What's the ROM you're using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
P.A.C.Man 4.2.2 currently. But it has been true on every ROM I have used until being introduced to xLoud on Viper3D.
Sent from my Evo 3D CDMA using Tapatalk 2
Posting here only because I don't have enough posts to post under Droid DNA Development threads yet. If someone would move it there would be great thx.
My issue is with AOKP's sound in the latest build for our lovely Droid DNA. All sound files I play seem to make the bass overload in the phone and my DNA's speaker makes that sound you'd hear from the system of a 1984 Honda Civic blasting 3 6 Mafia. It's an annoying distortion that interferes with the sound quality. Also, is there a setting in AOKP that I'm overlooking?
I dropped phone recently so it COULD be hardware damage, I just wanted to see if anyone else was having this issue. Thank you and keep up the good work every1.
Toralhin said:
Posting here only because I don't have enough posts to post under Droid DNA Development threads yet. If someone would move it there would be great thx.
My issue is with AOKP's sound in the latest build for our lovely Droid DNA. All sound files I play seem to make the bass overload in the phone and my DNA's speaker makes that sound you'd hear from the system of a 1984 Honda Civic blasting 3 6 Mafia. It's an annoying distortion that interferes with the sound quality. Also, is there a setting in AOKP that I'm overlooking?
I dropped phone recently so it COULD be hardware damage, I just wanted to see if anyone else was having this issue. Thank you and keep up the good work every1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed the bass was a little on the high side. I'll look into it for the next build. I've been balancing a certification course with work and family time so I don't have a lot of time to devote to this. Which is why builds are so infrequent.
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using xda app-developers app
Ty
Thank you for your prompt response.
Since the work you provide here is mostly free of charge, I don't think you need to make any explanation for a delay in ROM updates.
Also, since I finally took the time to register here I thought I'd mention that the CAPCHA image verification here is ridiculous. I'm lucky if 1 out of 10 is legible most of the time.
Just recently upgraded from the Note 3 to our beloved v10, and I love the change myself. Never did like TouchWiz anyway. I am no stranger to customization and tinkering under the hood with the phone's capabilities, and I was curious on whether or not anyone had any leads into modifying our mixer_paths.xml file to make sounds from the left channel route by default to the top speaker. I will be looking into making it work as best as I can, but I was interested if anyone else has tried and succeeded before I go wild on attempting to make it happen.
Loving this closely knit (such a seemingly minute number of people makes it feel more intimate doesn't it?) community so far, and I am looking forward to see what all we can do as far as development is concerned. I believe that with an official CM, we will see some old favorites make their way into our phone. I can only venture a guess that we will undoubtedly see some Slim and PA variants in the very near future as well as some custom stock builds. Currently running the listed debloated and debranded stock and enjoying it. Who knows, maybe we will get some custom kernels to play with and make the short battery life issue I keep seeing about an end-user issue as opposed to the current belief that it is a manufacturer issue.
The way I see it, as I do with each phone I get, is that we pay a decent chunk of money for these devices; let's see what these bad boys can do. [emoji12]
"Land your plane" tldr; Anyone successfully make this phone play audio out of both the top and bottom speaker by default, thus giving us true stereo sound when listening to media?
stereotripical said:
Who knows, maybe we will get some custom kernels to play with and make the short battery life issue I keep seeing about an end-user issue as opposed to the current belief that it is a manufacturer issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had horrible battery life when I first got my V10, but I did 2 factory resets (One was an accident) and the battery life is great now.
Reset and DO NOT allow google to restore the phone, manually install the apps and sync them.
Myself and quite a few others think that the restoring of data from a different phone is what is causing the bad battery life on our phones.
I normally can get 5 hours screen on time in a day if I need to.
I usually have 2.5 hours screen on time and end the day with ~40% battery remaining.
As far as stereo sound out the earpiece... That speaker is much quieter than the bottom speaker and I do not think it could ever be made to work as you want.
You might be able to get it to output to both speakers at once, but I do not think the top one would ever be loud enough to hear.
Good luck trying though, please prove me wrong.
stereotripical said:
Just recently upgraded from the Note 3 to our beloved v10, and I love the change myself. Never did like TouchWiz anyway. I am no stranger to customization and tinkering under the hood with the phone's capabilities, and I was curious on whether or not anyone had any leads into modifying our mixer_paths.xml file to make sounds from the left channel route by default to the top speaker. I will be looking into making it work as best as I can, but I was interested if anyone else has tried and succeeded before I go wild on attempting to make it happen.
Loving this closely knit (such a seemingly minute number of people makes it feel more intimate doesn't it?) community so far, and I am looking forward to see what all we can do as far as development is concerned. I believe that with an official CM, we will see some old favorites make their way into our phone. I can only venture a guess that we will undoubtedly see some Slim and PA variants in the very near future as well as some custom stock builds. Currently running the listed debloated and debranded stock and enjoying it. Who knows, maybe we will get some custom kernels to play with and make the short battery life issue I keep seeing about an end-user issue as opposed to the current belief that it is a manufacturer issue.
The way I see it, as I do with each phone I get, is that we pay a decent chunk of money for these devices; let's see what these bad boys can do. [emoji12]
"Land your plane" tldr; Anyone successfully make this phone play audio out of both the top and bottom speaker by default, thus giving us true stereo sound when listening to media?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been working on this on and off since I got the phone... Came from note3, with a quick stop at the nexus6... Had the stereo mod on my note as well (shinto kernel). I work on it, (found nothing yet...), then forget for a bit, and try some more... But yes, feel free to go all out... I just don't have the time or patience anymore... Lol
Zdeuce2 now with golden rays of sunshine
ZDeuce2 said:
I have been working on this on and off since I got the phone... Came from note3, with a quick stop at the nexus6... Had the stereo mod on my note as well (shinto kernel). I work on it, (found nothing yet...), then forget for a bit, and try some more... But yes, feel free to go all out... I just don't have the time or patience anymore... Lol
Zdeuce2 now with golden rays of sunshine
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did it go?
Somebody managed it for the LG G3 so I added the same line of code to our mixer_paths.xml file but it didn't work.
Heres the thread for the G3: http://forum.xda-developers.com/sprint-lg-g3/general/mod-play-media-sound-rear-speakers-t2964956