Hello everybody, I want to share with you my guide on how to solve that terrible audio crackle on the galaxy S3 devices (US only- Qualcomm chip). This may work on other devices with audio issues, but I can't confirm it. This whole process requires you to have a rooted device, and a few bucks for a crucial (but awesome) app. You can be running touchwiz or an aosp based rom for this, it doesn't matter. You will need to install a custom kernel for this to work.
1. The first thing you're going to want to do is make a nandroid backup, just in case anything goes wrong
2. Locate the appropriate kernel for your device which includes "faux sound" enhancements. My personal favorite is KT747 kernel. MAKE SURE IT'S FOR YOUR SPECIFIC VERSION AND MODEL!
3. Boot into recovery and flash the kernel. Wipe cache and dalvik cache, and fix permissions.
4. Go to the play store and download this app. This will allow us to modify the gain.
5. Open Faux Sound and select the preset "quality". This is the perfect level for digital audio gain (Samsung set it too high). Select always apply on boot.
6. You're done! That was easy wasn't it?
WHAT THIS DOES/WHY YOU SHOULD USE IT: This is a software solution for a SOFTWARE PROBLEM. The US versions of the galaxy s3 have a higher gain level than most phones, which seems to bring out the defect especially if you use low impedance headphones. Most galaxy s3 devices have this issue, even yours probably. The international version had this issue as well, which was apparently related to the processor (the US edition doesn't seem to be related to the processor) and was fixed by a software update. For US galaxy s3 devices, this issue hasn't been resolved by Samsung. You may have picked up a phone that didn't have this issue, which is likely just luck. I bought my galaxy s3 back in December of 2012 and it had this problem (which means the issue wasn't officially fixed by Samsung on purpose). Even the new unit sent to me early October of this year has this issue. What this fix does is drop the gain level digitally, which completely removes the crackle found on lower volumes. The galaxy S3 volume control is digital (yes, amazingly enough). Due to the high analog volume gain setting, when the volume reaches low levels the sound becomes "crushed" digitally into a garbled mess. All phones which use the snapdragon s4 used in the galaxy s3 have this issue to some extent (like the HTC one x). For the time being, this is the best way to solve the issue. I've contacted the creator of Faux Sound for better gain controls on the analog slider. If there is a better way to fix this, I will update this guide.
IMPORTANT: Apps like Audio Manager tend to add unnecessary hiss (I have no idea why, but there's a thread on this), so please uninstall them. An EQ app like DSP manager WILL ALWAYS add a slight hiss, but you can't notice it during music or normal playback. This is just the way an EQ works, I can't do anything to solve it. Because this changes the gain, you will lose some volume. It isn't an extreme loss at all, you should still have plenty of volume. If you have any issues or need help finding a kernel for your phone, I will do my best to help. As always, if this helped you, please hit the "thanks" button on this post. This is my first official guide on this particular forum, and I thought that I would write a guide on this because I've dealt with this problem for months.
1. The first thing you're going to want to do is make a nandroid backup, just in case anything goes wrong
2. Locate the appropriate kernel for your device which includes "faux sound" enhancements. My personal favorite is KT747 kernel. MAKE SURE IT'S FOR YOUR SPECIFIC VERSION AND MODEL!
3. Boot into recovery and flash the kernel. Wipe cache and dalvik cache, and fix permissions.
4. Go to the play store and download this app. This will allow us to modify the gain.
5. Open Faux Sound and select the preset "quality". This is the perfect level for digital audio gain (Samsung set it too high). Select always apply on boot.
6. You're done! That was easy wasn't it?
WHAT THIS DOES/WHY YOU SHOULD USE IT: This is a software solution for a SOFTWARE PROBLEM. The US versions of the galaxy s3 have a higher gain level than most phones, which seems to bring out the defect especially if you use low impedance headphones. Most galaxy s3 devices have this issue, even yours probably. The international version had this issue as well, which was apparently related to the processor (the US edition doesn't seem to be related to the processor) and was fixed by a software update. For US galaxy s3 devices, this issue hasn't been resolved by Samsung. You may have picked up a phone that didn't have this issue, which is likely just luck. I bought my galaxy s3 back in December of 2012 and it had this problem (which means the issue wasn't officially fixed by Samsung on purpose). Even the new unit sent to me early October of this year has this issue. What this fix does is drop the gain level digitally, which completely removes the crackle found on lower volumes. The galaxy S3 volume control is digital (yes, amazingly enough). Due to the high analog volume gain setting, when the volume reaches low levels the sound becomes "crushed" digitally into a garbled mess. All phones which use the snapdragon s4 used in the galaxy s3 have this issue to some extent (like the HTC one x). For the time being, this is the best way to solve the issue. I've contacted the creator of Faux Sound for better gain controls on the analog slider. If there is a better way to fix this, I will update this guide.
IMPORTANT: Apps like Audio Manager tend to add unnecessary hiss (I have no idea why, but there's a thread on this), so please uninstall them. An EQ app like DSP manager WILL ALWAYS add a slight hiss, but you can't notice it during music or normal playback. This is just the way an EQ works, I can't do anything to solve it. Because this changes the gain, you will lose some volume. It isn't an extreme loss at all, you should still have plenty of volume. If you have any issues or need help finding a kernel for your phone, I will do my best to help. As always, if this helped you, please hit the "thanks" button on this post. This is my first official guide on this particular forum, and I thought that I would write a guide on this because I've dealt with this problem for months.
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