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Help Why is the Music Quality on My Note 3 So Bad?

cyberrico

Member
Jul 23, 2011
53
5
There's no hissing or distortion, it's just flat. The bass doesn't pound at all. On my computer with my gaming headphones (not even expensive ones) music roars at my very soul. On my Note, it's just ho hum.

First I thought it was my headphones so I bought some better ones. Not fantastic but the most popular headphones on Amazon. There was an improvement over the garbage I was using but still no major improvement. So I bought even better headphones. No difference.

Then I messed with the equalizer in Play Music. This was a vast improvement but it was inconsistent from song to song. Some songs blared too loud, others didn't change much at all. So then I tried another music player. No difference.

Any suggestions?
 
There's no hissing or distortion, it's just flat. The bass doesn't pound at all. On my computer with my gaming headphones (not even expensive ones) music roars at my very soul. On my Note, it's just ho hum.

First I thought it was my headphones so I bought some better ones. Not fantastic but the most popular headphones on Amazon. There was an improvement over the garbage I was using but still no major improvement. So I bought even better headphones. No difference.

Then I messed with the equalizer in Play Music. This was a vast improvement but it was inconsistent from song to song. Some songs blared too loud, others didn't change much at all. So then I tried another music player. No difference.

Any suggestions?

Try Power Amp - probably the best music player out there. The equaliser in it has options to make presets and is extremely comprehensive.

As for some songs blaring and others not changing much this is because some are recorded quieter than others. There is a PC app (not used for ages and I'm not at my PC) that can re record all your collection at one level so this problem will not reoccur, but I can't recall it's name.
 
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Try Power Amp - probably the best music player out there. The equaliser in it has options to make presets and is extremely comprehensive.

As for some songs blaring and others not changing much this is because some are recorded quieter than others. There is a PC app (not used for ages and I'm not at my PC) that can re record all your collection at one level so this problem will not reoccur, but I can't recall it's name.

Yup. I'll continue to back up every/any post mentioning PowerAmp! Been using it for 4 years on Android, now, and it's still so awesome. Only thing they could do to make it even better is SYNC options.
 
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It's amazing what a good equalizer app can do to the quality of music output.

I personally encode at nothing less than 192 Kbps, I try and go for 256 Kbps whenever possible. Most of the MP3s I do get are from Amazon.com and they encode at 256 Kbps VBR. Even then I need a good equalizer to bring back what the MP3 encoding took out during the encode process.

Not only that but not all MP3 decoders are equal. Some are better than others.
 
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It's amazing what a good equalizer app can do to the quality of music output.

I personally encode at nothing less than 192 Kbps, I try and go for 256 Kbps whenever possible. Most of the MP3s I do get are from Amazon.com and they encode at 256 Kbps VBR. Even then I need a good equalizer to bring back what the MP3 encoding took out during the encode process.

Not only that but not all MP3 decoders are equal. Some are better than others.

I concur. All my mp3's, I have set for the highest quality possible (which is part of the reason I always require a microSD, since my preference is to have a file, rather than relying on the cloud). Makes for such a great listening experience and I rarely (if ever) worry about audio quality...another reason I've become somewhat obsessed with bluetooth playback (over wired playback). There was much talk, early on, about there being sound degradation on bluetooth audio playback, but I have yet to experience that...especially using PowerAmp.
 
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Just a tip, for PowerAmp (and to go along with the theme of increasing sound quality). If you are like me, I connect to several different bluetooth devices throughout the course of the day (morning & evening commute-bluetooth adapter in car; work week-LG Tone+ & Sony MW1; Nightime-Panasonic BT speaker/V-tech BT home phone). All the different devices benefit from different BT profiles, so with PowerAmp, I've optimized (using the equalizer) for each device. It provides for the best experience listening to music.

What's great is that PowerAmp has a quick toggle on the player itself (one of the icons on the top right, in the player itself), that allows me to quick change the audio profile.

Now, for those that use Tasker (which, I'm afraid is still a little intimidating for me, even though I have purchased the full version), I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way to set it up so that the profile switches automatically, depending on where you are.
 
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For someone like me who is old(er) and (getting) wrinkly only newer recordings on CD's from a decent Hi-Fi system sound really good. Even huge "lossless" WAV audio files aren't quite as good, sounding "squashed" and slightly "mudddy" on the same equipment as the CD they were ripped from. Mp3s have to be ripped from CD at 320kbps to be acceptable to my spoilt ears. I won't buy downloads any lower quality.
 
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For someone like me who is old(er) and (getting) wrinkly only newer recordings on CD's from a decent Hi-Fi system sound really good. Even huge "lossless" WAV audio files aren't quite as good, sounding "squashed" and slightly "mudddy" on the same equipment as the CD they were ripped from. Mp3s have to be ripped from CD at 320kbps to be acceptable to my spoilt ears. I won't buy downloads any lower quality.

It's understandable. All the ripped music I have is done at the highest quality, even if I have a few that are at lower.
 
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Just a tip, for PowerAmp (and to go along with the theme of increasing sound quality). If you are like me, I connect to several different bluetooth devices throughout the course of the day (morning & evening commute-bluetooth adapter in car; work week-LG Tone+ & Sony MW1; Nightime-Panasonic BT speaker/V-tech BT home phone). All the different devices benefit from different BT profiles, so with PowerAmp, I've optimized (using the equalizer) for each device. It provides for the best experience listening to music.


^^ this too. I love knowing that it is configured for my Bluetooth devices and headphones differently and that I can quickly switch my EQ profile from my car to my kitchen Bose system to the Jambox in my bathroom so easily.
 
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