Root "AAC+ Fix" is not working

[bjamerican]

Despite several claims that the AAC+ decoding issues related to the new Stagefright platform have been resolved, I am still experiencing terrible audio quality in ALL builds of Froyo. I have tried FRG01B, FRG22D, LFY 1.4, LFY 1.5, LFY 1.6, SS 4.7, CM6, and several others. Many ROM developers claim to have implemented Google's "official patch" for Stagefright, but they all sound terrible.

What gives? Did Google screw up the supposed patch, or are the ROM developers not being honest when they claim that the patch has actually been included?

Compare the two attached samples and it becomes obvious what I am experiencing. These clips were produced by Slacker, operating in "cached station" mode. One clip was played back on ESE81, and the other on Liquid Frozen Yogurt 1.6 (FRG22D). Both recordings were made using the exact same levels and settings using an external 24-bit ASIO soundcard.

Notice on the ESE81 clip how clear and crisp the cymbals sound. Also notice the smoothness of the vocals.

ESE81_eclair.mp4 (Android 2.1)

In contrast, playback of the same content on FRG22D sounds distorted with watery symbols. On the vocals, hard "ssss" sounds resemble "sshhhhh" sounds.

FRG22D_froyo.mp4 (Android 2.2 - Liquid Frozen Yogurt 1.6)

I can't possibly be the only one noticing these quality issues!

 

[Fabolous]

Have you tried editing these four lines in your build.prop?

media.stagefright.enable-player=true
media.stagefright.enable-meta=true
media.stagefright.enable-scan=true
media.stagefright.enable-http=true

Change their values to false, and it should disable stagefright, no? It should revert back to opencore, I think. That's how it works on the DX, at least.

 

[bjamerican]

Have you tried editing these four lines in your build.prop?

media.stagefright.enable-player=true
media.stagefright.enable-meta=true
media.stagefright.enable-scan=true
media.stagefright.enable-http=true

Change their values to false, and it should disable stagefright, no? It should revert back to opencore, I think. That's how it works on the DX, at least.

I've tried this on almost every Froyo ROM out there. Changing these values in the build.prop file has had absolutely no effect on audio quality when using Slacker over a 3G connection or playing cached stations.

How could Google develop an entire audio platform and not notice this disgusting sound quality? Is everyone on the Android team deaf? Did they not test Stagefright at all prior to releasing it to manufacturers? This is an unbelievably huge oversight!

 

[sranger]

I have noticed that the sound quality is not as good with Froyo with either stagefright turned off or using a ROM with the patch that Google released. I personally think that this has something to do with Google's new download/streaming music service that is supposed to be coming out soon. I am not going to say they they purposely did this to hurt the competition, but these days you never know what a corporation is capable of...

The best ROM that I have found is ChevyOne's SS 4.7.2. It does not completely solve the distortion on the higher end of the audio range, it does seem to sound better in the low and mid range than any other Froyo I have tried...

I have also notice that the Audio from Pandora sounds fine when I stream from Wifi, the distortion is only when I stream from 3G. I have a Pandora One account and I know that they lower the quality a little when you are on 3G... ( Yes this is clearly stated on their site and I am tired of arguing about it so I added a couple of quotes from their site)

Here is a quote from their FAQ section:

"How can I improve the audio quality? Just press the "menu" button and then touch "Preferences." (You can do this from both the Now Playing and the Station List screens.) Then choose "High" under "Cell Network Audio Quality." We recommend you only do this when you have a strong connection to your cellular-data network. Note that both levels of audio quality are in stereo. WiFi connections automatically support higher quality audio.


IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have upgraded to Froyo (Android 2.2), you will experience audio issues while listening to Pandora. The Android team is aware of this issue and is working on a fix."


This quote is from the Pandora One FAQ:


"

• High Quality 192Kbps audio, one of the highest-quality streaming music bitrates available, for each and every song in our collection, when you listen to:
  
  • Pandora on your computer via our website and the Mini Tuner, or via the
  • Pandora One Desktop Application.
    
    Pandora mobile apps and in-home devices currently do not support High Quality 192Kbps streams, although we're very interested in expanding High Quality audio options at some point in the future "

 

[bjamerican]

I have also notice that the Audio from Pandora sounds fine when I stream from Wifi, the distortion is only when I stream from 3G.

This is expected, at least with Slacker. Slacker (and probably Pandora) uses a different codec when you are connected though WiFi. It seems like the distortion is related to versions of AAC that utilize SBR encoding.

 

[dt_]

People are still complaining about this bug on Android's Google Code page.
Issue 9308 - android - eaac+ and aac+ decoding sound quality problems (Android 2.2) - Project Hosting on Google Code

I can't believe this isn't being taken more seriously by the Android developers

 

[bjamerican]

People are still complaining about this bug on Android's Google Code page.
Issue 9308 - android - eaac+ and aac+ decoding sound quality problems (Android 2.2) - Project Hosting on Google Code

I can't believe this isn't being taken more seriously by the Android developers

People are complaining, but it also seems that many people are claiming that the problem has been resolved in recent builds (LFY 1.6, SS 4.7, etc.). I'm hoping that people who are claiming the problem resolved are hard of hearing and experiencing a placebo effect.... every build of Froyo I have tried still sounds atrocious.

This needs to be resolved soon. While the sound quality is excellent on Bugless Beast 1.1, it isn't exactly "bugless" and is becoming a pain in the ass to use lately. I would love to have a phone that is capable of Flash and streaming audio!

 

[sranger]

People are complaining, but it also seems that many people are claiming that the problem has been resolved in recent builds (LFY 1.6, SS 4.7, etc.). I'm hoping that people who are claiming the problem resolved are hard of hearing and experiencing a placebo effect.... every build of Froyo I have tried still sounds atrocious.

This needs to be resolved soon. While the sound quality is excellent on Bugless Beast 1.1, it isn't exactly "bugless" and is becoming a pain in the ass to use lately. I would love to have a phone that is capable of Flash and streaming audio!

I can assure you that the problem is not yet solved in any of these ROMs. Some sound better than before the patch, but none of them sound as good as Android 2.1 did.... I have tested nearly all of them and there is still some distortion. It does seem to vary from song to song as to how bad the distortion will be. Some you barely notice and others sound horrable...

I did flash back to 2.1 and the distortion went away, so I know the problem lies with FROYO...

Google is aware that the problem still exists, but have gone into denyal mode after they released the supposed patch.... I too am suprized that more people are not complaining about this....

 

[VIO]

Just a thought, but "Fix" of stagefright doesn't necessarily mean that it is the same quality as opencore. IT is possible that While Stagefright was broken before even its fixed state could just decode worse then opencore for a trade off for speed in decoding.

Just thinking aloud, honestly I have such a poorly tuned ear that I can't hear the difference anyway

 

[dja1980]

bjamerican... thank you for posting this!

I have tried almost all of the ROMs that state they have this issue fixed and haven't had luck with any of them. I have even commented in the ROM threads but get the impression that I'm the only one still having issues. I was starting to think that maybe I have a defective phone.

I cancelled my car's XM subscription because my Droid replaced it... now I can't even bare to listen to it. It's so bad that I've temporarily switched to AM talk radio... I hope this is fixed soon!!!

 

[Dabrador]

I agree...thanks for posting this. I use both Pandora and Rhapsody and both sound noticeably worse compared to 2.1.

I'm REALLY hoping that BBv.5 will fix this...if IT ever comes out.

 

[dt_]

You know I was listening to Pandora today and you're right, the sound isn't as good as it used to be!
And as far as I know, I've got Stagefright DISABLED on Bugless 0.4. I turned that off a while ago and I was fine with teh audio quality. What's going on here? Am I just going crazy? Last.fm sounds significantly clearer than Pandora on my phone. :\

 

[ne0lyfeism]

Saw this thread yesterday and decided to start up Pandora as I hadn't listened to it in a quite some time, and man, the sound is AWFUL. I mean, it is absolutely PAINFUL to listen to this crap. No way in hell this thing has been fixed, and I'm currently running LFY1.6..

Man, they better fix this b/c streaming music is the norm now..

 

[althornin]

Yeah, the "fix" helped some, but many songs still sound worse.
I have reverted back to a 2.1 rom, and they sound fine (Slacker cached stations).
Slacker over WIFI sounds fine in froyo, uses different encoding.

 

[dja1980]

Well, here's another piece of the puzzle....

I had an opportunity to play with my step-dad's Droid 2 yesterday. Since I had his Droid 2 and my Droid 1 in the car with me for a 1 hour trip, I decided to do a Pandora comparison. I signed into both phones with my Pandora account and listened to the same "station" on both phones (both in "high" quality mode) through my car's stereo system. I cranked the volume on both, and guess what!!!

The Droid 2 sounded crystal-clear... CD QUALITY!!! My Droid 1 on the other hand, sounded horrible (as usual). What is up with this... I thought this was a Froyo bug? His Droid 2 sounded as good as mine used to when I had 2.1. Since the Droid 2 ships with 2.2, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't more a Droid 1 issue over Froyo. I wonder how Pandora sounds on other phones running 2.2.

 

[Fabolous]

Hrm, I'll bust out the Shures when I get home and do a comparison of my D1 and DX running 2.2.

 

[dja1980]

Fab, that would be awesome!

Do you ever use Pandora with your DX on a sound system... any issues?

When you do your comparison, let us know what ROM you're running on your D1. I've been playing around with UD8 this morning and noticed a small improvement... still doesn't match the D2 or D1 on 2.1 though

 

[bjamerican]

Well, here's another piece of the puzzle....

I had an opportunity to play with my step-dad's Droid 2 yesterday. Since I had his Droid 2 and my Droid 1 in the car with me for a 1 hour trip, I decided to do a Pandora comparison. I signed into both phones with my Pandora account and listened to the same "station" on both phones (both in "high" quality mode) through my car's stereo system. I cranked the volume on both, and guess what!!!

The Droid 2 sounded crystal-clear... CD QUALITY!!! My Droid 1 on the other hand, sounded horrible (as usual). What is up with this... I thought this was a Froyo bug? His Droid 2 sounded as good as mine used to when I had 2.1. Since the Droid 2 ships with 2.2, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't more a Droid 1 issue over Froyo. I wonder how Pandora sounds on other phones running 2.2.

Have you had a chance to try this comparison with Slacker? Some people are claiming that Pandora has implemented a "fix" by streaming audio in a format other than AAC+. I don't use Pandora, so I don't know if this is actually true (or even likely).

 

[dja1980]

Hmmm... I've never used Slacker. And, if Pandora has implemented a "fix"... I don't think it's working on my D1.

 

[Dabrador]

Hrm, I'll bust out the Shures when I get home and do a comparison of my D1 and DX running 2.2.

Any update on this comparison? The sound quality on my D1 is very annoying.

 

[dja1980]

I'm curious about this too!

I just restored to Lithium Mod from UD8... I'm curious if the "better" quality I was experiencing under UD8 was due to the ROM or Pandora's "fix" mentioned above. Going to test drive now...

 

[dja1980]

I can now confirm that the Pandora sound quality is "better" using UD8 compared to Lithium Mod... the first ROM I've found that makes a difference... IME. I use quotes on the word better because it still doesn't match the D2 or D1 on 2.1.

 

[Fabolous]

Sorry guys, I realized yesterday while trying this that I can't really compare my DX and D1 since I don't have service on my D1, and it's mp3 encoding over WiFi.

Though Pandora did sound very good on my DX, though my ears are far from audiophile sensitivity.

 

[bjamerican]

Glad to hear I'm not the only sane person who notices the awful audio quality in Froyo!

I finally got most of the bugs worked out of "Bugless Beast" 1.1 (Eclair) on my handset. It's mostly stable and streaming audio sounds great, but flash support and a snappier JIT compiler would be nice though!!!

 

[dt_]

Are you guys using Pandora 1.3 or 1.41? 1.41 has the fix Pandora claims to have implemented, while 1.3 still uses the AAC+ that sounded just fine in Android 2.1

IMO, we should try the following combinations:

• Pandora 1.3 - Stagefright WITHOUT Google Fix - TERRIBLE
• Pandora 1.3 - Stagefright WITH Google Fix - (???) Can someone try this?
• Pandora 1.3 - OpenCore - (???) can someone try this?
• Pandora 1.41 - Stagefright WITHOUT Google Fix - MEH (decent but not amazing) (can anyone confirm this?)
• Pandora 1.41 - Stagefright WITH Google Fix - MEH (decent but not amazing)
• Pandora 1.41 - OpenCore - MEH (decent but not amazing) (this has been my experience using Bugless Beast 0.4 (Froyo) with the stagefright turned off build.prop workaround)