Voice Quality?

[skitbraviking]

I have had my Droid since Day 1 and have had a few glitches here and there and am now on Droid number two. One consistent problem has been the quality of calls. Two of my friends have noted its lacklustre sound quality: they start to get annoyed with me because I break up. (Needless to say, much of the time I have three or four bars when this happens.) Now normally I would blame this on their carrier (T-Mobile) but the truth is that my other friend, who also has Verizon, has said my sound quality is poor on his end. It's always on their end. Mostly I can hear them.

1) Has anybody had this problem and solved it?

2) Does anybody think the update will cure this issue?

3) I am seriously considering going back to the iPhone because honestly, the primary function, calling peeps, worked better on ATT.

Thoughts? Reflections?

 

[xliderider]

Try changing your vocode setting:

From the Call screen, press ##PROGRAM, Enter. Enter 000000 at the Activation code screen. Select the 04 Vocode option and select EVRC-B. Press the Home key at the bottom of the screen to exit. Your Droid will reboot to set the vocode setting.

If you get any errors when making outbound calls, you can try the older 13K vocode setting.

 

[skitbraviking]

This sounds dangerous. Can it brick my phone?

 

[skitbraviking]

Does anybody know if the above procedure is an official Verizon thing or could it harm my phone?

 

[Donkey Hodie]

If you follow the instructions given above, it cannot harm your phone. The ##PROGRAM gets you into the programming menu for the phone. There are lots of options there that can brick your phone but all you're doing here is changing the codec the phone uses. There are (if I recall correctly) 3 codecs stored on the phone and the default is EVRC. EVRC-B is a newer codec, you can read more about it here.

 

[subguy812]

I have had my Droid since Day 1 and have had a few glitches here and there and am now on Droid number two. One consistent problem has been the quality of calls. Two of my friends have noted its lacklustre sound quality: they start to get annoyed with me because I break up. (Needless to say, much of the time I have three or four bars when this happens.) Now normally I would blame this on their carrier (T-Mobile) but the truth is that my other friend, who also has Verizon, has said my sound quality is poor on his end. It's always on their end. Mostly I can hear them.

1) Has anybody had this problem and solved it?

2) Does anybody think the update will cure this issue?

3) I am seriously considering going back to the iPhone because honestly, the primary function, calling peeps, worked better on ATT.

Thoughts? Reflections?

Pull your battery for 15 seconds........put it back and then dial *228, then select option 2. It helped my issue!

 

[skitbraviking]

Pull your battery for 15 seconds........put it back and then dial *228, then select option 2. It helped my issue!

I have tried this before. I hope this works!

 

[Donkey Hodie]

There's no need to pull the battery before doing *228.

If you're having voice quality problems, I'd recommend the EVRC-B codec. It's not a "hack", Motorola installed it on the phone for a reason. It's easy to do, just follow the instructions above, if you don't see an improvement you can always follow the instructions above and re-select the EVRC codec.

If you're afraid you're going to screw up your phone, you can probably take it to a Verizon store and, assuming there's somebody knowledgeable there, ask them to change it.

 

[Noseeums]

It doesn't matter if you pull the battery for 15 seconds and do *228 option 2. It doesn't matter which vocoder you select. It doesn't matter if you turn on or off Voice Privacy. The Droid simply has terrible sound and speech quality. Yes, you can get marginally better speech quality with 13k or EVRC-B; however, your voice will still sound overly digitized, clippy, and unnatural compared to just about any other phone Verizon sales. Also, there is static in almost all of my phone calls.

I think the Droid has either a cheapo mic/speaker or bargain bin DSP hardware. I can only hope that the firmware update coming next month will improve it. The phone does just about everything else very well, but the sound quality is just really terrible from what I've grown accustomed to with Verizon for the past 10 years. I've got the early-adopter blues.

 

[skitbraviking]

It doesn't matter if you pull the battery for 15 seconds and do *228 option 2. It doesn't matter which vocoder you select. It doesn't matter if you turn on or off Voice Privacy. The Droid simply has terrible sound and speech quality. Yes, you can get marginally better speech quality with 13k or EVRC-B; however, your voice will still sound overly digitized, clippy, and unnatural compared to just about any other phone Verizon sales. Also, there is static in almost all of my phone calls.

I think the Droid has either a cheapo mic/speaker or bargain bin DSP hardware. I can only hope that the firmware update coming next month will improve it. The phone does just about everything else very well, but the sound quality is just really terrible from what I've grown accustomed to with Verizon for the past 10 years. I've got the early-adopter blues.

Seems like we have had similar experiences. You seem knowledgeable. What makes you so sure that it's a always going to be "overly digitized, clippy, and unnatural compared to just about any other phone Verizon sales?" Can an update really cure this?

I spoke with a technical assistant today and he seemed pretty candid. He thought it may be the area in which I live, simply having bad signal. He also said Chicago was pretty tough in general. I honestly don't know. I have seriously considered trading it in for a Blackberry but I really like the rest of the phone. And yet, if it doesn't get better, I also don't want to be stuck with this choppy signal for two years. Poop!

 

[Noseeums]

Seems like we have had similar experiences. You seem knowledgeable. What makes you so sure that it's a always going to be "overly digitized, clippy, and unnatural compared to just about any other phone Verizon sales?" Can an update really cure this?

I spoke with a technical assistant today and he seemed pretty candid. He thought it may be the area in which I live, simply having bad signal. He also said Chicago was pretty tough in general. I honestly don't know. I have seriously considered trading it in for a Blackberry but I really like the rest of the phone. And yet, if it doesn't get better, I also don't want to be stuck with this choppy signal for two years. Poop!

I visit anywhere from 10-15 major cities and rural areas every week. It doesn't matter how good the signal is, the speech and sound quality are always the same. I really have no idea if the firmware update will fix this problem. To be honest, I'm not optimistic. My feeling on it is, if Motorola didn't make something as basic as voice call quality a priority from the beginning then it never will be.

Go try the HTC Eris at a Verizon store. Then try their Motorola Droid. Night and day difference in sound and speech quality. The person you call will tell you the same.

 

[skitbraviking]

I visit anywhere from 10-15 major cities and rural areas every week. It doesn't matter how good the signal is, the speech and sound quality are always the same. I really have no idea if the firmware update will fix this problem. To be honest, I'm not optimistic. My feeling on it is, if Motorola didn't make something as basic as voice call quality a priority from the beginning then it never will be.

Go try the HTC Eris at a Verizon store. Then try their Motorola Droid. Night and day difference in sound and speech quality. The person you call will tell you the same.

Ok, here's the 100 dollar question: Why is it good sometimes and other times it's sh*t?

 

[Noseeums]

Ok, here's the 100 dollar question: Why is it good sometimes and other times it's sh*t?

As far as voice quality goes I've never experienced the good times.

 

[DougFNJ]

Soobs, I have heard many people here say their voice quality has been exceptionally perfect. I have had the same experience you are talking about here though. I swapped 4 phones directly related to it, ever one has had the same thing. I called Verizon Tech support. 2nd level tech support called me back and said it is a known issue with the Droid, and it absolutely will be addressed with the 12/11 update. I don't know how it will, but I am hoping.

 

[Noseeums]

Soobs, I have heard many people here say their voice quality has been exceptionally perfect. I have had the same experience you are talking about here though. I swapped 4 phones directly related to it, ever one has had the same thing. I called Verizon Tech support. 2nd level tech support called me back and said it is a known issue with the Droid, and it absolutely will be addressed with the 12/11 update. I don't know how it will, but I am hoping.

Hey Doug,

I haven't exchanged my Droid, but I have tried different demo Droid phones from different Verizon stores. They all sound the same to me. Some may perceive them as excellent, but I don't and neither do the folks I've called with them.

Hopefully the tech knew what he was talking about. Often the muffled speech quality, clipping, and unnatural sound issue tend to get related to the echo issue (which I've only experienced once). I've seen that the echo issue is going to be addressed in the firmware update, but I haven't seen anything directly addressing the voice quality issue.

Oh well, time to play the wait and see game.

 

[skitbraviking]

Soobs, I have heard many people here say their voice quality has been exceptionally perfect. I have had the same experience you are talking about here though. I swapped 4 phones directly related to it, ever one has had the same thing. I called Verizon Tech support. 2nd level tech support called me back and said it is a known issue with the Droid, and it absolutely will be addressed with the 12/11 update. I don't know how it will, but I am hoping.

Right hand, do you know what left hand is saying?

When I spoke with tech support at Verizon today he said he'd heard nothing negative about the handset's voice signal but thought it may have to be a signal issue in my area. I wish these people would get their stories straight. This is just plain annoying. He was very cool about being realistic about their being able to provide service in my home and that if it was consistent, then maybe I should motor on over to another carrier. But if it's not Verizon's service, I'd really like to keep the phone and see how the upgrade pans out because the phone is pretty cool, if it would only work for voice regularly, too. Ugh!

 

[visualplastik]

The 13k setting seems to be much better the the evdo or evdoB so far.

 

[droidweasel]

i was having issues the first week or so,then it was gone. i dunno if im lucky or what...i heard a weird echo at first,now its perfectly clear. dont know what i did,but it works great now.

 

[skitbraviking]

The issues continue... Mostly at home, sometimes elsewhere. Back to Verizon I go, for another Droid. If this doesn't do it... Ixna on the oidrai.