Audio problems? (Hissing, etc.)

[Larry 609]

Hi everyone,
Just bought my HTC 10 earlier in the week and have been fine tuning it since then. I've noticed that I'm having some issues when I play back audio on my Poweramp player. I set up the audio profile and have BoomSound on, and while the audio itself sounds pretty good, I noticed that there is some audible hissing when the volume of the music goes down, during fade-outs, or between songs on Poweramp. This also occurred on the Play Music app when I tried it out earlier to see if there was a difference. In addition to that, the playback also occasionally 'skips' or has gaps in it when played in PowerAmp too, although I haven't played songs long enough on Play Music to see if it does it there too.

When I turn off BoomSound, the hissing does go away, and I'm thinking this might've been the case for an older HTC phone I had somewhere down the line too (The M8 was my prior phone, and I don't recall this issue with that particular one). The gaps in play, I'm not sure about either way. None of it is interfering too badly with my overall experience, but if there's ways to work around it while keeping BoomSound on, I'd be interested in hearing them.

Any similar situations out there? Thanks in advance.

 

[isdaako]

No hissing for me. I'm using Rocket though.

 

[Larry 609]

Last night, I tried some Philips on-ear headphones and it seemed to get rid of the hiss when I played songs off of Poweramp. So maybe it's just a matter of getting better headphones? I mainly use a similar pair of JVC in-ear ones when I'm at work and on the go, but I'm willing to look for a better one at a reasonable price if it gets rid of any hiss for good. Any recommendations or a thread on here that might lead me in that direction, anyone?

I'm not sure if the skips would go away under the Philips ones, as I haven't played with it that long yet.

 

[isdaako]

Check this one out.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/htc-10/683894-great-earphones-android-devices.html#post5199710

 

[Larry 609]

A brief update on the skipping issue… after speaking to HTC Support over the phone, I’ve determined that it’s probably only happening when I’m playing tracks I purchased over iTunes on my music player (which are in the m4a format – or show up in Poweramp as ‘AAC’ on the bottom). After playing some songs off of Spotify and Pandora in-depth for the first time, as well as paying attention to what ones were strictly mp3 and m4a on Poweramp, I get almost no skipping when it isn’t iTunes-purchased tracks being played and get skipping almost every time if it is. Usually once or twice during a song.

I did a quick Google search and discovered that some prior HTC phones may have had this issue, although I don’t recall it being one on my M8 at all. I might try getting back to HTC Support about this, although I’m not sure what they’d be able to do about it in terms of a fix. Do others on here also have this issue if they play iTunes purchased tracks on their phone? A solution might be a stretch, but it’d be nice to know if this for everyone or just myself. The only thing that stinks about this for me is that the m4a tracks make up a sizable chunk of the songs on my SD card, and I’m not really in a mood to convert everything to lesser quality mp3s or purchase each individual CD, haha

Edit: For what it's worth, I've now had two regular mp3s that have skipped 2-3 times for me! Two of those on one of hte songs could be attributed to me refreshing a social media feed and Play store updates though. And out of the past ten songs I've kept track of, three of the ten iTunes-purchased tracks didn't skip at all. Ugh... who knows?

Edit 2: After playing with the Poweramp settings and increasing the buffer size and thread priority to the max levels, it appears that the m4a files are playing without skips now. I recall playing with those options before on prior HTC phones, so hopefully that takes care of these issues for now! Otherwise, I'll let you know if there are any setbacks. It did skip on the Google Play player as well, but if most of my listening is through Poweramp and any skipping on streaming services is virtually non-existant, then this shouldn't be an issue with the phone from now on.

 

[JoesJukebox]

My problem is a little bit different. I am using an S3, a SCOSCHE FMT4R (w/ 20 frequencies), being hooked to either a Bose radio, or the radio in an '05 Ford 500. I am getting a lisp sound on "S" that started recently. I am using POWERAMP. The audio program that came with my S3 doesn't do this. I uninstalled the POWERAMP (build 588), and Google Play will not allow another install. I still have the POWERAMP unlocker file in my phone. Any ideas, and thank you!

 

[Larry 609]

If I'm being honest here, FM transmitters were always a bit troublesome on my end in terms of overall sound quality. Most of the time, you'd get something decent out of it, but I've never had one that was completely 100% static free or gave really great audio. If there's a cloud situation for the music as well, maybe that's another thing to consider?

I haven't experimented with playing music files on my phone on other devices, but I know that going to Audio-Advanced Tweaks in Poweramp and making the Audio Buffer Size and Audio Thread Priority levels a bit higher got rid of the skipping. I still get the hiss between songs that I mentioned earlier, but like I said, I didn't get it with one particular pair of headphones. So I'm still planning to upgrade the cheap ones I'm using to some decent ones once I get the chance.

But yeah, maybe try playing actual music files off the phone and see if there's any difference that way (after checking the Poweramp settings). If not, then it might be something where the FM transmitter or cloud system would cause those issues.

 

[anon(9918034)]

I haven't experienced the hissing. I had a skipping effect when using certain music players for the music I have on my sd card. These are FLAC they skip on everything but VLC and play music app that I could find. I recommend VLC for just about every media type on earth.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[thisisjason]

Last night, I tried some Philips on-ear headphones and it seemed to get rid of the hiss when I played songs off of Poweramp. So maybe it's just a matter of getting better headphones? I mainly use a similar pair of JVC in-ear ones when I'm at work and on the go, but I'm willing to look for a better one at a reasonable price if it gets rid of any hiss for good. Any recommendations or a thread on here that might lead me in that direction, anyone?

I'm not sure if the skips would go away under the Philips ones, as I haven't played with it that long yet.

It sounds like it's not the quality of the headphones that's the issue, it's Boomsound introducing additional, unwanted noise into the audio signal. Your in-ears are sensitive enough to pick up that noise, while the Philips headphones aren't as sensitive so the noise is low enough to not be heard, but it's still there.

In-ears are usually (but not always by any means) higher sensitivity and lower impedance than full-size headphones, and in a lot of cases buying a higher quality set of earphones would actually make that noise more noticeable, not less, so it's not simply a matter of getting better earphones. You'd really need to look at the impedance and sensitivity of the JVC earphones and maybe try for a less sensitive alternative. You may also be able to get earphones with your preferred sound signature so that you can leave boomsound off and still be satisfied. What specific model are the JVC earphones and how much would you want to spend upgrading?

 

[JoesJukebox]

I had a Radio Shack FM transmitter over 25 years ago. This model has NO static problems until the two batteries are losing power. Do you own an S3 (SPH-L710)? I cannot use this phone as it is only on CDMA. I have a Samsung Focus S for my AT&T GoPhone account. This lisping S problem only started a couple of weeks ago. I went through all the frequencies, and everyone of them had the problem. I uninstalled the app, and tried to re-install, but G/Play would not do it. I had the Poweramp Unlocker file. I uninstalled that too, and lost it. I still have my PayPal receipt. Cloud system? I don't need that. All my mp3 files are from my vinyl recordings from the late '50's to early '70's. These files are at the 320 kps. I don't know what I have in the phone now, but I think it is the app Samsung installed. Yes, I am an old fart, but the Dave Clark 5 and the Beatles still sound great! EDIT: I went through an old post. My S3 's other audio app is SoundAlive.

 

[JoesJukebox]

A couple of hours ago I found a number for Google Play Store. A tech was very good at helping me with my problem. All my music is placed in a 32 G microSD card. Unmounted and removed it from the phone. He had me do a reset. A couple of months ago I had removed, what I thought, were apps I would never use. The Google Play Store was one. Once the phone was put back with all apps I was able to go back and get both Poweramp trial, and the Unlocker. For LARRY 609 if I had one little problem with that FMT4R it would have been returned to Walmart. I have had that transmitter for 7 months. My 2012 Escape has Bluetooth, but my 2005 Five Hundred doesn't. If you don't have Bluetooth I highly recommend this transmitter. It has 20 frequencies to use. If you live in a fairly large city it might not work well. Just remember buy it from Walmart, and if it doesn't do the job you can return it!

 

[Gus_Gutz]

I have a problem with the sound using QC3 Bose headphones. When NFC is turned on, I hear a constant thumping sound in one of the channels. This is my second phone and both have that thumping/heartbeat sound

 

[Larry 609]

I had a Radio Shack FM transmitter over 25 years ago. This model has NO static problems until the two batteries are losing power. Do you own an S3 (SPH-L710)? I cannot use this phone as it is only on CDMA. I have a Samsung Focus S for my AT&T GoPhone account. This lisping S problem only started a couple of weeks ago. I went through all the frequencies, and everyone of them had the problem. I uninstalled the app, and tried to re-install, but G/Play would not do it. I had the Poweramp Unlocker file. I uninstalled that too, and lost it. I still have my PayPal receipt. Cloud system? I don't need that. All my mp3 files are from my vinyl recordings from the late '50's to early '70's. These files are at the 320 kps. I don't know what I have in the phone now, but I think it is the app Samsung installed. Yes, I am an old fart, but the Dave Clark 5 and the Beatles still sound great! EDIT: I went through an old post. My S3 's other audio app is SoundAlive.

A couple of hours ago I found a number for Google Play Store. A tech was very good at helping me with my problem. All my music is placed in a 32 G microSD card. Unmounted and removed it from the phone. He had me do a reset. A couple of months ago I had removed, what I thought, were apps I would never use. The Google Play Store was one. Once the phone was put back with all apps I was able to go back and get both Poweramp trial, and the Unlocker. For LARRY 609 if I had one little problem with that FMT4R it would have been returned to Walmart. I have had that transmitter for 7 months. My 2012 Escape has Bluetooth, but my 2005 Five Hundred doesn't. If you don't have Bluetooth I highly recommend this transmitter. It has 20 frequencies to use. If you live in a fairly large city it might not work well. Just remember buy it from Walmart, and if it doesn't do the job you can return it!

Sounds like your musical tastes are just fine! Mine are all over, personally, but I do enjoy those types of artists every so often too.

I have a slightly older car at the moment, although at some point I'll probably make the jump to a more current model. But now that you mention all that, I might not be opposed to trying out a transmitter at some point here. Like you said, in the worst-case scenario, I could just return it. Would be nice to have some sort of 'shuffle' alternative in my car again though!

It sounds like it's not the quality of the headphones that's the issue, it's Boomsound introducing additional, unwanted noise into the audio signal. Your in-ears are sensitive enough to pick up that noise, while the Philips headphones aren't as sensitive so the noise is low enough to not be heard, but it's still there.

In-ears are usually (but not always by any means) higher sensitivity and lower impedance than full-size headphones, and in a lot of cases buying a higher quality set of earphones would actually make that noise more noticeable, not less, so it's not simply a matter of getting better earphones. You'd really need to look at the impedance and sensitivity of the JVC earphones and maybe try for a less sensitive alternative. You may also be able to get earphones with your preferred sound signature so that you can leave boomsound off and still be satisfied. What specific model are the JVC earphones and how much would you want to spend upgrading?

Interesting (and thanks for the heads up). I haven't purchased anything yet in terms of replacements, but wouldn't mind trying out a few recommendations. I'm flexible in terms of pricing, although anything above $50 would need to be a bit more considered? I do enjoy the in-ear aspect of my current regular use headphones, but am open to something else if that's not possible.

I have four current JVC headphones that I use for home/work/travel/working out. I believe the work and travel ones are this below...

JVC Gumy Plus In-Ear Headphones Black HAFX5B - Best Buy.

Both of the ones I own do have hissing. My home one is similar to that model, but has a pause/play button attached to the wire. It skips as well.

The working out one is below and I can't recall if it has hissing or not.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU5281643

Not the best quality headphones out there, as the pretty cheap price hints at. But they got the job done well for the M8 when I needed it, and even work pretty well now aside from the hissing during quiet periods of playback.

 

[thisisjason]

Sounds like your musical tastes are just fine! Mine are all over, personally, but I do enjoy those types of artists every so often too.

I have a slightly older car at the moment, although at some point I'll probably make the jump to a more current model. But now that you mention all that, I might not be opposed to trying out a transmitter at some point here. Like you said, in the worst-case scenario, I could just return it. Would be nice to have some sort of 'shuffle' alternative in my car again though!



Interesting (and thanks for the heads up). I haven't purchased anything yet in terms of replacements, but wouldn't mind trying out a few recommendations. I'm flexible in terms of pricing, although anything above $50 would need to be a bit more considered? I do enjoy the in-ear aspect of my current regular use headphones, but am open to something else if that's not possible.

I have four current JVC headphones that I use for home/work/travel/working out. I believe the work and travel ones are this below...

JVC Gumy Plus In-Ear Headphones Black HAFX5B - Best Buy.

Both of the ones I own do have hissing. My home one is similar to that model, but has a pause/play button attached to the wire. It skips as well.

The working out one is below and I can't recall if it has hissing or not.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU5283242

Not the best quality headphones out there, as the pretty cheap price hints at. But they got the job done well for the M8 when I needed it, and even work pretty well now aside from the hissing during quiet periods of playback.

At that price I'd recommend SoundMagic E80 earphones

https://smile.amazon.com/SoundMAGIC...546577&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=SoundMagic+PL-50

They're higher impedance (64 ohms vs 16 ohms), which will hopefully prevent the audible hissing