JunBringer

I use my smartphone for all of my mobile music listening needs, which is quite a bit. Anytime I drive anywhere, go for a walk, get groceries, go the the gym etc I use my smartphone to listen to music. I've had a Htc Evo 4G, Htc Evo 3D, Samsung Galaxy Note LTE and now the Nexus 4 and the audio quality and volume on the Nexus 4 is easily the worst one. I love the phone in general but I can't seem to get the audio to sound good. I use the headphone jack and plug right into my Scion xB which has a decent Pioneer system built in and even with PowerAmp it sounds mediocre. With my earbuds it sounds better, but still not nearly as good as the Note.

I had already planned to get a Note 2 before the Nexus 4 was announced and I may end up doing that and use two devices, meaning the Note 2 will be just a wifi device and I'll use it for music. I'm hoping they put out a 64GB version internationally so I can snag one.

Either way, does anyone else feel this way about the audio quality?

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Banished Angel

If you're rooted I'd find a copy of Beats Audio from an HTC phone and throw that on there. I used Beats when I had my Evo V 4G (Evo 3D) and it sounded so much better with it turned on.

JunBringer

Thanks for the heads up, I was contemplating that actually. I haven't read about anyone using it on the Nexus 4 yet, so maybe I'll be one of the first.

Banished Angel

Let me know if you get it working. Hopefully it's as simple as installing the apk, but I'm no ROM developer. I know Beats Audio is on the software side though. There's nothing special in the hardware of HTC phones to get it to work.

burtonvdp

I don't own one but there are a few articles talking about this problem already... I think pocketnow has an article. I can't remember the others.

nycnyc

I actually like the audio quality on mine, although I don't have much in the form of other phones to compare it to. I also use poweramp. I also don't use it to output music to an external speaker, just with my headphones. I've been wondering if GSMarena is going to put out a review on the N4 though, since they usually do RMAA tests on phones to measure the audio quality of phones. I might just not have very high standards for audio quality lol.

NeXuS4

This is my first tier one phone (my previous were Samsung Admire and LG Motion) so I don't have a point of reference except compared to those phones this sounds a lot better.

JunBringer

I think you have to flash it, otherwise I'd have installed the apk already.

With poweramp it does sound pretty good in headphones, but it's not quite there for my car speakers. I still need to tweak a bit though.

Banished Angel

Okay I flashed a zip for Awesome Beats V3 in CWM:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1728391

The app is now installed on my phone, I went into Settings > Sound > Music Effects > Awesome beats and set it as default. I enabled Awesome Beats through the app and I went to play music on Poweramp, but I can't tell a difference when I switch it on and off. I could definitely tell a difference on my Evo 3D, which leads me to believe Awesome beats isn't being used correctly. Any advice?

Mitchturbo

Best advice: lol buy a pair of audio beats headphones. These beats by Dr.Dre really improve anything you stick them in. *wink* ;-)

Banished Angel

I have studio headphones. I think they sound a tad better than Beats haha.

My concern is when i'm listening to music in my car and with cheap earbuds out on the go. For that, Beats Audio would be handy.

JunBringer

Does it make the music any louder? I really have to crank up my stereo on my car on the Nexus 4.

I also noticed for a fraction of a second once I hit play that it is louder and then it goes back to being kind of quiet, as if whatever they have on the device to make it quiet takes time to start up.

Banished Angel

I haven't had any problems with low sound. In fact I forgot I turned bass up and when I plugged it into my car the subs started shaking all the mirrors. I'm like oops, better turn that down a bit ha.

JunBringer

Yeah I'm thinking it's not really an audio quality issue but more of a volume issue. I'll have to read around on XDA a bit.

JunBringer

So I turned off the EQ on the stock music app and it's a bit louder, but still a bit quieter than my Galaxy Note was. Volume+ didn't work either.

Banished Angel

I've been using Poweramp and after fine tuning the EQ it's more than satisfactory for my needs. I gave up on the Beats audio hacks.

acint24

I use spotify and have the low volume issue with headphones. Any solutions?

JunBringer

Yeah I used Poweramp on my previous 3 phones but I don't have enough storage on the Nexus to do that very often. I only have the 8GB so there's only room for like 2 or 3GB of music after everything else.

Banished Angel

Ta da!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2025486

BigCiX

Power Amp & a nice pair of earbuds/earphones

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ppaul1219

Do you mind Me asking What kind Amp And where can I buy it

spriteboost

i think power amps a program in the play store

ppaul1219

Thank you my main phone is an iPhone5 Got this Nexus4 To play around with android it's kind of new to me .

JunBringer

This is what he was referring to, it's a great app in every way. I'd buy it again.


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxmpz.audioplayer&hl=en

ppaul1219

Thank you! for your reply the reason Wy I was asking on the iPhone I have high quality headphones but I can never get Them loud You have to buy an external Power amp Reason why I was confused this sounds like it's an app I will definitely give it a try

JunBringer

I flashed this last night and it works great! Much louder and the quality is much better. Google Music never sounded this good on any of my previous devices, I'm very satisfied. Thanks for the heads up dude!

Banished Angel

Does anyone find that playing music physically stored on the phone drains way more battery than it should? I've had my phone off the charger for 40 minutes with 10 minutes screen on time and I've played music for approximately 10 minutes (2 songs). The screen accounts for 20% of the battery drain so far and Mediaserver accounts for 30%. The phone is still at 94% battery and i'm aware the first 10% is never accurate, but the fact that 10 minutes of music uses 1.5x the battery power than 10 minutes screen on time is concerning. Is this normal?

MT Rotor

You bought a nexus 4 to play around with? I'd toss an iPhone and daily a nexus 4 any day of the week

ppaul1219

I politely respect your opinion but I disagree. I think they're both great phone. @ the end of the day it's which 1 suits you better when I said play around I was not knocking the phone. I literally had the phone for about a week and a half so far there's things I like and dislike from each phone without getting in specifics I will admit I am still learning though imo there's no such thing as a perfect phone .

nycnyc

Hmm, that's interesting. I didn't know that playing music that's on the device was what Mediaserver was on the battery consumption breakdown. But its usually pretty high on mine as well, although I don't think I've seen it hit 30%. I just checked right now and its at 20%, which is about as high as I've seen it. Its usually around 15-18% and always in the top 3-4 battery consuming activities (makes sense though since it is what I use the phone for the most aside from browsing the web and checking score).

JunBringer

On my Nexus 4 it seems to be normal, but for Android in general no. It's usually second to the screen for battery usage from what I remember and yeah it was all stored locally. It's kind of odd.