ATIV S audio quality in vehicle

[hip cat]

I'm looking for some help with audio on my phone. I used to use an old, gen 1, IPod for music in my truck. It has a stock stereo system. The sound quality was much, much better with the IPod. I had never changed the setting in the IPod either. Now, I have the Samsung ATIV S. The sound quality is lacking, at best. It is low and, the bass is weak. I've tried playing with the audio settings, using the presets in the phone. I didn't try much with the manual equalizer in the phone. Is there a better equalizer app or, is there something I'm not doing right?

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

It could be a number of things to me.

What are your songs bitrates?

Are the songs wma/mp3/etc?

Can you hear a difference from your equalizer when on Bluetooth? (treble/bass/etc)

 

[hip cat]

I'm not sure the bitrates but, they are the same files that were on the Ipod. They are in MP3 form as well. I haven't tried it on bluetooth. I'm plugging in using a cord from the earplug jack on the phone, to an aux audio jack on the front of the stock deck.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Were these originally iTunes bought music? If so when it gets converted over to mp3/wma/ some loss in quality is considered.

It would help more if you find out the bitrates too. How are you managing them. You can find out right clicking them, then properties.

 

[hip cat]

Most are ones I have either directly ripped from a CD or, bought from Amazon.

Over half of them have 128 kbps. From there, the rest go between 192 and 256. A handful have 320.

I usually manage them through Winamp, to transfer the files over to the phone. I play them through Windows Media Player on my computer. That is also the program I use to rip the CDs. I'm not even sure I have most of the CDs anymore though. I've been transferring them over to new builds from a backup HD for a few years now.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Find the same song with 128kbps and one with 320 and see if you hear a difference through your deck. One set with wma and another with mp3.

Secondly, I would try and find someone with a WP and see if another WP device sounds the same. Maybe Samsung needs to update the equalizer.

 

[tofu.]

or it could just be the obvious...

cheap DAC implementation, resulting in crappy analog output

 

[ZenBot]

I can't really speak too much on SQ in a vehicle but I've been using the ATIV S w/ Zombies, Run! and I find the quality to be very comparable to what I get on my iPod touch (current gen) with the same headphones.

A lot of people who are apparently "in the know" feel that recent gen. iPods feature inferior components and SQ compared to early gen. units.
I also find the lack of equalization options in WP to be a real bummer.

Could it be that your old iPod featured the supposed "superior" DAC, a particular EQ profile that you can't match on the ATIV S, and maybe just the fact that it's different is displeasing? I know when I got my new car I was NOT happy with the stereo SQ. But now that I, and my ears, are used to it I had to re-rip a lot of stuff on my iPod 'cause I could hear the bit-rate limitations of the files.

 

[Butiulca Tudor]

even when u listen to music with sennheiser in ear the quality of the music sucks on any wp8 phone, i miss my old htc when i play music

 

[mshengu]

The sound is very low in my car too and the sound quality is poor even on 320kbps MP3 songs. Playing music with Bluetooth is even worse, lots of noise. Calls are excellent though.

 

[eric12341]

Try using a more superior audio format like wma pro or aac both offer significantly better sound quality than mp3 and are smaller in file sizes. Either that or you must have a defective unit.

even when u listen to music with sennheiser in ear the quality of the music sucks on any wp8 phone, i miss my old htc when i play music

Not true, the audio quality in my 8X is excellent even with the beats enhancement disabled. I can say that it's currently the best sounding phone I've owned.

 

[tofu.]

Try using a more superior audio format like wma pro or aac both offer significantly better sound quality than mp3 and are smaller in file sizes. Either that or you must have a defective unit.




Not true, the audio quality in my 8X is excellent even with the beats enhancement disabled. I can say that it's currently the best sounding phone I've owned.

"beats" on the 8x is just a glorified equalizer...

that being said, the analog out on my 8x sounded better to me than the 925. although neither are impressive.

still baffled why nokia has a license for aptx bluetooth since '10 or '11 and hasn't implemented it into any phones yet.


windows phone isn't winning popularity contests, nor are they paving the way in the app market; they're way behind in hardware, too. All they have going for them are multimedia capabilities (such as having the best smartphone photo/video camera ever made). Why not compliment that with some truly amazing audio output?