Can everyone try this: Faint Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

[Luke Kailburn]

Ugh..sad to report i've found a very odd issue with my ATT 920. After making an audible noise, say unlocking the screen, if you position the bottom of the phone right up to your ear there is a noticable buzzing/electrical sound that occurs for about 5 seconds. Admittingly, the room has to be very quite to hear the sound but it is distinct and occurs 100% of the time, I had my gf listen and she heard it as well. I first thought heard it while playing mahjong in a quite room one day, i thought maybe there was something weird with the game and began testing with other sounds and realized it occurs after every noise the phone makes i.e. unlock the phone noise. I tested with the volume at 5/30 and 30/30 and the buzzing noise was the same volume level. It's sort of like an interference noise kind of. Like if you've ever had a weird cross talk from a keyboard or mouse into your speakers. Its that sort of hum/buzzing sound but doesn't change. Always the same, about 5 seconds, and then off.

So far i can't tell that this is actually affecting anything. the speakers work as normal, all ranges of audio seem normal. It's just worrysome to hear that kind of buzzing noise because to me it means something in the hardware is not correct.

Has anyone else noticed this? Anyone want to go give it a test.

Luke

 

[WorzelGummage]

Re: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

You're right. There is a strange noise coming from the speaker. It's very faint but definitely there.

 

[Luke Kailburn]

Re: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

glad it isn't just me. well no i'm sorry you also have this "issue". Wonder how many others notice it.

 

[Jastow]

RE: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

Are you talking about a high pitched whine? I heard it too, but probably wouldn't have without ever reading this post. The bottom of the phone has to be inches from my ear in order to hear it. I guess there aren't many extremely quiet places I visit, so never noticed it before. It doesn't bother me, yet
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express

 

[Luke Kailburn]

Re: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

Yeah it is kind of a high pitched whine. It's very distinct. Always the same volume and length of time, and it doesn't fade out, it just cuts out at the end.

 

[clubbstudios]

Re: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

Yeah it is kind of a high pitched whine. It's very distinct. Always the same volume and length of time, and it doesn't fade out, it just cuts out at the end.

I know exactly what this is -- don't worry, it's not a hardware (or even software) malfunction! I will skip the technical jargon and try to explain as best I can (I'm not a music producer, I was just so bothered by this that I sat down with two of my friends who produce in Miami for a detailed explanation of WTF is going on here -- they both have Lumia 920s too! Anyway....):

You're hearing the horrific outro of an uncut audio file -- in this particular case, the notification and/or "tone" on the 920.

"What the heck!?" you might say. I'll explain... :angel:

• The hiss / whine / light buzz is essentially "white noise" - a combination of extremely low-volume background noise that produces what we normally refer to as static.
• • So, similar to hearing the fuzz in your noise-cancelling headphones with the volume turned up but without your music playing, you get lingering sound.
• Normally, a second or two is left at the end of any sound byte or track to aid in mixing.
  • This is similar to combining film, where you have extra material to lay over top when you are cutting and pasting your final reel.

So, Nokia generated these sounds and left some room to splice them -- for example, "Nokia Message has two beeps or dings."They made it like this:

Step One: [space][space]__|*beep!*|__[space][space] = one beep is recorded with two half-second blocks of dead space on each side (dead space = white noise = what you're hearing!)

Step Two: __|*beep!*|__[space]__|*beep!*|__[space][space] <--- duplicate the bee and delete one space in between = Nokia Message = two beeps close together...

Step Three: "scrub" or "clean" the track, removing excess gaps ^^^ But they didn't delete the space at the end! Lazyyyyy. You hear the "beep" or "ding" and then the "hisssss" because they didn't crop the end of the audio file!

• What's worse? The hiss is dead space that should have been cut off by the audio engineers that Nokia employs (they have an entire team of them, actually)...

So, want to test out which ones are too long? Simply click through the various alert/notification/ringtone options with your ringer volume set anywhere around about 25-30 (as I've tested on mine). If you listen closely, as you have done with your phone, you can audibly catch the tail ends of some extremely-poorly-produced sound files as they tail away with dead space.

• Example: ---> One tone in particular that's blatantly too long "Nokia Message" --
• you'll hear *ding! *ding!* *hissssss* with that annoying end noise lasting almost 3 seconds!!

I was pretending that they did not make this mistake because, when I thought about it, I was almost embarrassed for them.... However, I have such a wide range of forgiveness for Nokia because I love my darn Lumia 920 so effin' much that I simply cannot stay mad at them. It's a love-hate-love this phone situation for me!


Sorry for the ridiculously-long post, but I figured I might as well share the info now that I had it.
Hope this helps!!
Nick

 

[Luke Kailburn]

Re: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

Hey Nick,
Thank you for your explanation. And I sampled the Nokia Message and of course can easily see what you are saying. There is obvious dead noise at the end of the audio file. However, this is NOT the issue I am discribing. Lock yourself in a quite room and play the Nokia message again. there is about 2 seconds of dead noise on the audio file, but then there is about 7 seconds of this very low volume whine sound. The sound i am describing does not change with the volume of the phone, so it is not part of the audio file itself. Furthermore it happens even with audio sounds from games(although you'd never hear it unless the game made no other sound afterwords). I have a mahjong game that has no background music or sounds, just sounds when you tap on tiles or make a pair so this is where i first noticed it since i could tap on a tile and do nothing else that would produce other noises.

Give it another listen and let me know.

Thanks,

Luke

 

[Luke Kailburn]

Re: Buzzing electrical sound from speaker after any audio playback

I'd like to see more people test this.

I had a friend here in town with a 920 test as well and he also heard the whine. To me it sounds like there is actually some kind of constant interference bleeding over into the speaker, and is there whenever the speaker is 'powered' and the software in the phone is written to cut power to the speaker if there is not other input after the 8 seconds or so(i'll take a stop watch next time). I was paying close attention to it while i was texting. tap a letter and it sounds like the speaker turns on, then plays the keyboard sound, then has about 8 seconds of very low volume whine while the speaker is still powered, then cuts off and is silent. tap a key again and repeat.

 

[iMiah]

I am experiencing this as well noticed last night for the first time. My wife's Lumia has the same issue.

 

[Luke Kailburn]

bump

 

[Zolotoy]

I have the same. If you press a power button and unlock the phone you get this noise. Also if you press power button again to turn the phone off and immediately press power again you dont need to unlock - the noise is right there.

 

[ttsoldier]

This thread. Wow.

Facepalm.jpg

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Omg, that very same noise been around since wp7.0. Get over it, unless you're new to wp's. You also here that noise with headphones on too.

Nothing serious, but annoying

 

[Luke Kailburn]

Omg, that very same noise been around since wp7.0. Get over it, unless you're new to wp's. You also here that noise with headphones on too.

Nothing serious, but annoying

Actually yes this is my first Windows phone.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Actually yes this is my first Windows phone.

Congrats on being a non-conformist. Anyway that noise has been in windows phones since 2010 when 7.0 was released. I'm guessing that's the way it works, but I do understand not wanting to hear it. you hear it also when doing voice activations using tell me and somehow I believe its tied to that.

 

[nohra]

This thread. Wow.

Facepalm.jpg

So, Ambassador, is this a normal phenomenon?

Nevermind, answered below

 

[WorzelGummage]

So, Ambassador... is this a normal phenomenon?

Well, according to those above who have been around WP for a while, yes, it is normal. That is pretty unbelievable if it is considered normal and sort of presents a WP phone as being amateurish in the smart phone game. You can sort of forgive the OS for some of its limitations and lack of features but this hissing sound, no that's unforgivable.

 

[nohra]

Thanks, unfortunate that it makes the buzzing, but as long as it's normal then at least there's no actual malfunctions.

I first noticed it with Angry Birds, and after that noticed it with other things including the lock button, unlocking phone, etc.

thanks for the reply Worzel!

 

[bj7859]

So I just purchased a "new" unlocked Lumia 920 from Newegg.com and it has this buzzing/hissing/electrical noise as described above. While I completely understand the explanation given, I feel like this isn't normal. I got the 920 almost the day it came out and I have had the same one in an otterbox for 2 years+. Recently the vibration motor stopped working, so I bought a new phone because I LOVE the 920. My problem here is that my old phone has NEVER had this issue. I have the two phones next to each other with identical settings, and one hisses and pops while the other is silent. My older Lumia is 100% silent even in a quiet room held directly to my ear. I'm curious to know if a certain batch of them are bad or what? If I can't resolve this issue, it's going back to Newegg because I'd rather have a phone that doesn't vibrate than have a clicking and popping sound machine in my pocket. Any thoughts on the matter?

FYI the original phone with no strange noises is Hardware Revision number: 6.0.0.0
while the new phone with the noises is Hardware Revision number: 6.0.0.1

These can be found in settings > about > more info

Please share which revision number you have and whether you have this problem or not. Perhaps we will find a correlation!

 

[donnybrook]

i've just started reading this thread...i have a 1020 and just recently i noticed reverb of this sort when recording video...i then listened and found the noise was being made at a low level by the phone itself when i started recording video, and worse, of course, it is heard on the video...ruining the use of this phone for video...can anyone help in shutting this speaker/mic noise off so i can record video? it is not necessarily uniform, but can go in and out, and doesn't vary with turning sound down/off before recording. it just started happening, did not do this prior to putting the lumia black update on, tho don't know if this has anything to do with it...thanks