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Kaiser/Tilt Speakerphone Quality

Just wanted to see what others thought about the speakerphone. I find mine to sound not very good when turned up all the way. It is not extremely loud, and has some breakup to it.
Curious how others feel.
Thanks.

hi there..
Well I find kaiser's speaker quality awful. It needs a lot more bass, and hopefully that's a software issue. It starts crackling and distorting the sound when it's all the way up. They could have put a better speaker, it's a business phone and speakerphone is an important feature.

rosemarycane said:
Just wanted to see what others thought about the speakerphone. I find mine to sound not very good when turned up all the way. It is not extremely loud, and has some breakup to it.
Curious how others feel.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That speaker cant hold a candle to the Stereo Speakers found in the MDA. That's one of my biggest gripes between the two.
Anything played at full volume through it sounds pretty bad. I keep the volume down a bit on all apps to make it sound a little better.
I am going to play around with the HTC audio manager application a bit, they have some presets like "Low Treble" or "Low Bass" that will maybe clear things up a bit.

Possible workaround for a noisy mic

The microphone for the Nexus 4 is very noisy. A user on another thread described a video he recorded
to sound as if it was "recorded underwater".
I looked up the Android SDK and the MediaRecorder object has access to the following audio streams:
CAMCORDER, DEFAULT, MIC, VOICE_CALL, VOICE_COMMUNICATION, VOICE_DOWNLINK, VOICE_RECOGNITION, VOICE_UPLINK.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/MediaRecorder.AudioSource.html
I noticed that while audio and video recorders sound bad on Nexus4, voice calls are of decent quality.
Not all phones have the hardware to handle all these so most sound recorders use MIC or DEFAULT.
I found the source code to the MIUI Sound Recorder and it was easy to add a setting that lets you
manually select which hardware stream to record from.
I ran some tests on the Nexus 4 and came to the following conclusions:
- MIC, DEFAULT and VOICE RECOGNITION are probably the same stream and sound bad.
- the CAMCORDER audio stream is the cleanest.
I propose that until Google and LG fix this issue ROM developers alter the Android API on Nexus 4 (only)
so that the CAMCORDER stream always overwrites MIC and DEFAULT.
I'm attaching the modified MIUI Sound Recorder with manual stream select if anyone wants to do
tests on their own. Here's an amplified view of MIC vs CAMCORDER.

-Mindroid- said:
The microphone for the Nexus 4 is very noisy. A user on another thread described a video he recorded
to sound as if it was "recorded underwater".
I looked up the Android SDK and the MediaRecorder object has access to the following audio streams:
CAMCORDER, DEFAULT, MIC, VOICE_CALL, VOICE_COMMUNICATION, VOICE_DOWNLINK, VOICE_RECOGNITION, VOICE_UPLINK.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/MediaRecorder.AudioSource.html
I noticed that while audio and video recorders sound bad on Nexus4, voice calls are of decent quality.
Not all phones have the hardware to handle all these so most sound recorders use MIC or DEFAULT.
I found the source code to the MIUI Sound Recorder and it was easy to add a setting that lets you
manually select which hardware stream to record from.
I ran some tests on the Nexus 4 and came to the following conclusions:
- MIC, DEFAULT and VOICE RECOGNITION are probably the same stream and sound bad.
- the CAMCORDER audio stream is the cleanest.
I propose that until Google and LG fix this issue ROM developers alter the Android API on Nexus 4 (only)
so that the CAMCORDER stream always overwrites MIC and DEFAULT.
I'm attaching the modified MIUI Sound Recorder with manual stream select if anyone wants to do
tests on their own. Here's an amplified view of MIC vs CAMCORDER.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I modified my kernel to fix this and I used your apk to test for both mic and camcorder and I don't notice the difference with my updated kernel.
http://faux.androidro.ms/mako/beta/mako-jb-kernel-004b06.zip
check for me to see if I really fix it or not since I am not an audio expert

Thank you, faux!
I've been meaning to try your kernel for a while so now I just have to.
Please treat my ideas about how Android exposes the audio stream as a speculation for now.
I didn't run any in-depth tests and I didn't trace the kernel code.
To my ears the MIC/DEFAULT streams are very noisy. The CAMCORDER one is noisy also
and but somewhat less so. They all sound bandpassed (probably a microphone limitation).
I'd like to know what other users think of the sound.

Very interesting.
I agree that N4 mic is so sensitive that it picks up a lot of background noises. I have been tweaking with mic volume to offset it.
If OP is true, then there's a hope for VoIP users who use Csipsimple. Without changing the kernel, csip can use CAMCORDER mode by changing the settings under media>audio troubleshooting.

The very high mic gain is the main issue with the sound quality. It needs to be adjusted from
the kernel driver which is not a trivial procedure. Gain from apps works on top of the hardware
gain and does not affect distortion that happens earlier in the signal chain.
One user put scotch tape on the mic to mechanically attenuate the sound and reported good results.

If the the sound system on the nexus 4 is built on top of ALSA, I.e. if the directory /proc/asound exists, then microphone levels can be adjusted in user-space. There is an app (ALSAMixer) available on the market that could be used here.

What would be the effect of covering the mic with something to reduce it's sensitivity?

chdloc said:
If the the sound system on the nexus 4 is built on top of ALSA, I.e. if the directory /proc/asound exists, then microphone levels can be adjusted in user-space. There is an app (ALSAMixer) available on the market that could be used here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if that will do it. The textbook audio recording chain goes like this:
microphone -> preamp -> analog-to-digital converter
If I'm not mistaken ALSA(the driver) will take over afterwards. We need a way to control
the hardware gain on the preamp. It's possible that preamp gain is permanently fixed by design.
On the other hand almost all modern preamps have automatic variable gain so it might just be
a matter of figuring out how to turn it on.
EDIT:
ALSAMixer doesn't work at all on my phone (stock 4.2.1 - rooted)
Do you know of any custom kernels for the Nexus4 that use ALSA?
donec said:
What would be the effect of covering the mic with something to reduce it's sensitivity?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aside from the ugly look it should work OK. I would suggest using some kind of soft thread fabric.
Wool is one of the best materials for sound absorption but you should try different materials.
The downside is that mechanical methods don't attenuate all frequencies linearly - they work much better
on higher frequencies so you will have to try and see what material works best.
If this works out it would be ideal to open the phone and plug the microphone hole on the inside with the proper material.

I don't have a Nexus 4, but I do know that the Nexus 7 uses ALSA. Have you checked for /proc/asound? If it exists, then you may need the proper ALSA libraries first.
Sent from my Nexus One using xda app-developers app

im starting to think LG just used cheap mics to keep cost down. From the buzzing to the sub par recording quality

-Mindroid- said:
Aside from the ugly look it should work OK. I would suggest using some kind of soft thread fabric.
Wool is one of the best materials for sound absorption but you should try different materials.
The downside is that mechanical methods don't attenuate all frequencies linearly - they work much better
on higher frequencies so you will have to try and see what material works best.
If this works out it would be ideal to open the phone and plug the microphone hole on the inside with the proper material.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have my Nexus 4 in a case and thought maybe I could improve the quality by placing a piece of cloth between the case and the phone.

Lockeskidney said:
im starting to think LG just used cheap mics to keep cost down. From the buzzing to the sub par recording quality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The specs for the microphone do not look bad either. http://www.knowles.com/search/prods_pdf/SPU0410LR5H.pdf is the spec sheet and it should be working to 116 dB, which is louder than I'd want to be in - though it is only the loud end of rock concerts. Noise also looks okay on the spec sheet, but you cannot expect Schoeps quality of course..
The underwater sounds I'm hearing with the sound recording tool remind me of processing, heavy compression andf such. Not what I heard on my camcorder tests, which had a pleasant sound.
Overload is more likelely to be caused by audio codec settings. A voice call has the mouth close to the mic, that is loud too, and works well. But applications like movie recordings crank up the gain to record sounds further away.

jutezak said:
The specs for the microphone do not look bad either. http://dl-bacon.bbqdroid.org/GeebCM/EN_LG-E973_SVC_ENG_121127.pdf is the spec sheet and it should be working to 116 dB, which is louder than I'd want to be in. Noise also looks okay on the spec sheet, but you cannot expect Schoeps quality of course..
The underwater sounds I'm hearing with the sound recording tool remind me of processing, heavy compression andf such. Not what I heard on my camcorder tests, which had a pleasant sound.
Overload is more likelely to be caused by audio codec settings. A voice call has the mouth close to the mic, that is loud too, and works well. But applications like movie recordings crank up the gain to record sounds further away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice find! Thank you for sharing!
Microphones in general are almost never bad. It's the preamps and digital processing that add more to the mix.
Regarding the "underwater" sound I now suspect a lack of a Low Pass filter. Check out my other thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=36856100&postcount=18

jutezak said:
The specs for the microphone do not look bad either. http://www.knowles.com/search/prods_pdf/SPU0410LR5H.pdf is the spec sheet and it should be working to 116 dB, which is louder than I'd want to be in - though it is only the loud end of rock concerts. Noise also looks okay on the spec sheet, but you cannot expect Schoeps quality of course..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Human speech can generate 116dB SPL measured at 1-2" distance fairly easily. I just measured the level my speech at 1" distance (with a lab-grade device) and I did not have to shout to produce 116dB SPL. The spec sheet says that the microphone produces about 10% THD typically at 118SPL for a 1kHz tone.
jutezak said:
Overload is more likelely to be caused by audio codec settings. A voice call has the mouth close to the mic, that is loud too, and works well. But applications like movie recordings crank up the gain to record sounds further away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Distortion of the microphone signal is generated (or amplified) in at least four locations:
1. The microphone itself (analog or digital if the microphone is a digital microphone as many MEMS are; the above referenced Knowles mike is analog)
2. The amplifier (analog)
3. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) which is spec'ed with a maximum input voltage to generate a signal that hits "digital rail", i.e. 0dB FS (full-scale)
4. digital gain along the digital processing path
Potential "clipping" (i.e. signals producing 0dB FS at the ADC) can only be avoided if the analog amplifier (if there is one) can be controlled. By looking at the ALSA mixer settings for the Nexus 4 my only hope lies in the controls that are labeled "ADCX Volume" where X=[1,6], i.e. numid. I believe -Mindroid- shared his "idle" settings vs. settings during a call and only X={1,3}, i.e. numid={48,50} have changed. Give changing those two parameters a try...

I posted this in a different thread, but thought it would be useful here as well as a potential lead to a workaround:
Looks like the audio chip in question is a Qualcomm WCD9310.
It's used in a few other devices as well (eg: GS3 USA). If their audio runs fine, perhaps we could try running their audio drivers on our device?

External Speaker Distortion?

Is anyone else experiencing distortion with their external speaker? My ringtones begin to distort around 1/4 volume and very noticeable 1/2 and up. Does the same for notifications. Not as noticeable during videos and music but still present.
Just trying to figure out if mine is partying for the course or a dud. Thanks in advance for any input.
Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

If you hold your finger or hand very close to speaker, mine has distortion too.

Hand placement doesn't really seem to affect it...

no distortion at all on mine.

I noticed when playing louder videos or when im on speakerphone and the person is talking there is a bit distortion in the sound sort of a tiny bit of fuzz and i noticed this also on my egde plus and a bunch of store models as well can anybody confirm? I mean its not bad but still my phones are $700-$800.
Im Tmobile

My speakers sounds (imo) awful, it's distorted and warbly (sp?). For a phone with such good headphone audio I don't understand why the speaker (or in the surround sound mod) both speakers sound so bad. They both have that issue for external audio, haven't tested call audio yet because I never really take calls and the one I did I forgot to notice.

No issues here. Probably dirt getting in with the speaker, the grill holes are pretty sizable.

faaaaq said:
No issues here. Probably dirt getting in with the speaker, the grill holes are pretty sizable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not minutes after I opened the box. I THINK I may have a lead as to why it's bad. If you listen closely and FEEL the phone. It appears to me that the low notes are resonating with the glass back panel (or something/everything else, whatever it is) and causing vibrations that both warble and distort the sound and speaker(s). I could certainly be wrong, but that's what I'm hearing. As for a fix, I haven't a clue, if I'm wrong and it's software, I haven't a clue. I don't have near enough time to do non-guided digging into this. Only what little listening I do with speakers. (Considering I'd rather use what comes out of my CXN).

Distortion
I too have distortion on my external speakers. Exactly the same symptoms..
I will be very interested in hearing about a fix.
Cheers

Speakers - question about distortion

I have noticed that the speakers on the XZ1C seem to distort very readily when playing certain kinds of sounds. I notice it especially when playing piano music, such as:
https://youtu.be/E4jTZFgkGaE
It would be helpful if someone else could play that same music, and let me know whether they hear the distortion that I'm hearing. I hear the distortion generally starting at about 70% volume.
I naturally don't want to send the phone to Sony for a possible repair if this is expected behavior from this particular model. Thanks in advance!

pseudonym58 said:
I have noticed that the speakers on the XZ1C seem to distort very readily when playing certain kinds of sounds. I notice it especially when playing piano music, such as:
https://youtu.be/E4jTZFgkGaE
It would be helpful if someone else could play that same music, and let me know whether they hear the distortion that I'm hearing. I hear the distortion generally starting at about 70% volume.
I naturally don't want to send the phone to Sony for a possible repair if this is expected behavior from this particular model. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is quite a lovely song. No, I don't hear any distortion, even at max volume. Before you try a possible repair, try running a different ROM or an audio mod. I'm running Resurrection Remix and don't hear anything out of the ordinary. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "distortion" though.

xmanfit0 said:
...I'm not quite sure what you mean by "distortion" though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. By "distortion" I mean the change in tone when the music is very quiet versus a kind of a rattling additional sound on the louder notes. This is apart from the sound of the piano itself, which even though it becomes more brilliant as it gets louder, never becomes harsh.
I'm hoping that somebody who listens to this music on an XZ1C can say that they don't hear anything that sounds like a speaker that has been previously overdriven and now distorts at higher volume. I'm aware of course that this is a small device with tiny speakers, but I don't hear the equivalent problem on an Xperia X Compact.
I don't actually believe that the distortion is limited to piano music, but the nature of the "clean" piano sound is such that any kind of imperfections are brought out.

I hear that distortions on volume approximately 70% and more in speakers when piano plays louder tones.
Odesláno z mého G8441 pomocí Tapatalk

I hear it as well-the kind of distortion a blown speaker makes-a sort of dry "rattling" from the driver being stressed. My phone is only a couple weeks old, so I would assume it's just an inherent flaw of the driver design.

Thank you all. I think I have my answer and will not bother sending the phone to Sony. I am otherwise happy with the device, so I can live with this design flaw. My guess is it might possibly have something to do with the coating used as water-proofing.

Video noise

Does any one else notice a strange noise that's very faint when playing back a video recorded on the phone? Can hear it more through headphones. Hard to describe. It's like a slight clicking or interference noise. Have to listen hard to know it's there without headphones.

Anyone checked theirs for me please? Need to know if I need to return. Cheers.

Im not sure if i understood you correctly, but i lowered media volume to 0, and played video from a gallery - couldn't hear anything.
BUT What i noticed earlier, when you open Camera app, and put a phone to your ear (like when you are on a call) you can hear some white noise, like a sea

It's when you've filmed a video on the phone and playing it back. Only when recording zoomed out. When you soon in it stops. Not sure how to upload a sample video. Sounds kind of like crickets.

Tcukcufc said:
Does any one else notice a strange noise that's very faint when playing back a video recorded on the phone? Can hear it more through headphones. Hard to describe. It's like a slight clicking or interference noise. Have to listen hard to know it's there without headphones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, I am with Huawei P30Pro Android 10, I just wanted to share my experience with you about the noise. I heard it, too! I wanted to record a very low noise from an amplifier (I was nearby the speaker, so the zoom was 1x), like if it has hum or some tweeting noise from the speakers when it is not playing any music and the volume is on Max. And then I have noticed the same ticking noise when I played the recorded video on my computer. I thought it is some problem with the computer. But then I played it on my phone, for security, and I heard it again, but I had to increase the phone volume, otherwise is not so noticeable. So I thing, when you have this noise, too, it should be produced somehow from the phone by video recording and it should be some kind of common issue, not only by your phone.
I hope this info help you. So, the problem is not only in your device! In mine, too, and probably in everyone's else!
Best regards

It's Radio interference. Probably from gps/lte/wifi antennae etc. Turn airplane mode, ticking is gone. You're welcome!