Bad audio quality

Hey everybody,

Does anyone else think the Fairphone’s audio quality is quite bad?

Even lossless audio files sound like a bad encoded MP3… You can improve the sound slightly by playing with the EQ settings in the particular audio apps (e.g. built-in music player, Spotify, etc.), but basically switching from an iPhone 4 to this was a huge downgrade for me in terms of listening to music.

I have to say I don’t feel the same with the FM tuner - that sounds quite okay. Perhaps the Fairphone DAC is just not that good… A shame…

Morning.

I agree about the audio quality. I previously had a Sony Experia Tipo, a very cheap and outdated phone. I used and use the Poweramp app to mainly listen to lossless FLAC audio and the audio quality has noticeably dropped from the Sony to the Fairphone.

Before, I only ever changed EQ settings if I was listening to specifically bassy music. Unfortunately, I’ve had to mess around the EQ settings to improve a very flat and wooly standard sound. It’s a shame, because being able to use my phone as a music player saves me from having to cart my MP3 player around.

Still worth buying my Fairphone though.

@ThatMartinGeezer

Are you using headphones or just the speaker?

EDIT: I never used the default music app, but I did now to see if there were any differences with a 3rd party app. I’ve noticed that the sound from Double Twist (the app I use to play music) is a lot, a lot better than the original app. Maybe try that out and see if it makes a difference :slight_smile:

Hi Robin. Thanks for getting in touch

I’m using Sennheisser IE80 headphones, which are the same headphones I used on my last phone. I haven’t tried the music player that comes with the phone, as I had Poweramp before so have just kept with that. I will try the double twist player to see if that makes any difference and I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.

I am guessing that’s it’s the phone that’s influencing the music quality as my headphones, music player and music files have all stayed the same and it’s only the phone that’s changed.

Still like the phone though and would still recommend it to other.

Have you tried with another headphone?
Or better yet with more?

I have tried several sets and have noticed that with some the sound is indeed kinda “muffled”.

Also, and this was already a known problem from a discussion in the old board, have you tried plugging and unplugging the jack several times?

In the end a file is a file and a player plays like it is, it doesn’t really add much to the quality doesn’t it?
Or does it? :wink:

Hi. I think the bad audio quality is caused by the latest firmware update to cherry 1.6. I used headphones on earlier versions, than not for a while and now again on the new version. Somewhere in between the audio quality was lost.
I can’t exclude of course that I myself tampered with the studio settings of the headphone output. Can I reset those somewhere.
The headphones work just fine elsewhere, e.g. PC.

Hi,

have you tryed to use Poweramp? As much I understood they don’t use the system librarys to play the music, they will be use self programmed algorithms and they offer some options about how the music should be played.
Maybe it will be possible to hear the music in acceptable quality with this app.

Of cause this would be just a workaround (if it helps) but maybe it will make the to find a real solution a lite nicer.

regards,
Shiny