I've been experiencing music playback issues with my S5 (Verizon) for a while now. They don't happen under the Samsung Music app but I refuse to use it as that app drains my battery way too quickly (almost 10% with just 30 minutes of music listening). I have since tried various other apps but none of them really work all that well. Doubletwist is way too slow and syncing takes forever, PowerAMP has been quirky (at best) and sometimes takes a good 90 seconds before it responds to a button press, and the Google Music sometimes skips/pauses when playing back music (PowerAMP did this too).
My music files mainly consist of 320kbps CBR Lame (3.99) files encoded with foobar2000 (my CD rips) and 256kbps VBR mpeg-4 LC-AAC files from my iTunes days. Both Google Music and PowerAMP skip when I'm playing music through headphones or over Bluetooth, mainly with the Bluetooth receiver in my car (Belkin Bluetooth 2.1+EDR) or with my UE Boom (though Google Music doesn't really have an issue with the UE Boom). PowerAMP is the worst of the offenders despite me increasing its audio buffer and priority to maximum levels. Doubletwist never skipped but it was like trying to run Windows Vista on a Commodore 64.
The recent upgrade to 4.4.4, along with the Bluetooth fix that Samsung sent out, seems to have smoothed Google Music out at least but it still encounters issues and it's mainly with the AAC files. Does anyone have any insight as to what's going on or a suggestion for a better music app? I'm not really tied to anything so long as it integrates with the KitKat lock screen and I can control it with my Moto 360.
My music files mainly consist of 320kbps CBR Lame (3.99) files encoded with foobar2000 (my CD rips) and 256kbps VBR mpeg-4 LC-AAC files from my iTunes days. Both Google Music and PowerAMP skip when I'm playing music through headphones or over Bluetooth, mainly with the Bluetooth receiver in my car (Belkin Bluetooth 2.1+EDR) or with my UE Boom (though Google Music doesn't really have an issue with the UE Boom). PowerAMP is the worst of the offenders despite me increasing its audio buffer and priority to maximum levels. Doubletwist never skipped but it was like trying to run Windows Vista on a Commodore 64.
The recent upgrade to 4.4.4, along with the Bluetooth fix that Samsung sent out, seems to have smoothed Google Music out at least but it still encounters issues and it's mainly with the AAC files. Does anyone have any insight as to what's going on or a suggestion for a better music app? I'm not really tied to anything so long as it integrates with the KitKat lock screen and I can control it with my Moto 360.