Does Mi 8 Have Hi Res Support? - Xiaomi Mi 8 Questions & Answers
Does xiaomi mi 8 have hi res audio support or bult in dac or somethingelse?
JonathanFreeze said:
Does xiaomi mi 8 have hi res audio support or bult in dac or somethingelse?
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Yep, all snapdragon devices do. You have to bypass the main audio codecs/OS hand-offs. Programs like PowerAmp is the best for this, and hits the hardware chip directly bypassing the MIUI system to give you 24Bit audio at 192khz. Phenomenal sound. If you also bump the audio amp levels in the OS mixer file, you can get super loud audio in combination. The combo is what i've run on every phone since the HD audio was built-in to the Snapdragon.
Agimax said:
Yep, all snapdragon devices do. You have to bypass the main audio codecs/OS hand-offs. Programs like PowerAmp is the best for this, and hits the hardware chip directly bypassing the MIUI system to give you 24Bit audio at 192khz. Phenomenal sound. If you also bump the audio amp levels in the OS mixer file, you can get super loud audio in combination. The combo is what i've run on every phone since the HD audio was built-in to the Snapdragon.
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Do you need to root your phone to achieve this ?
Not for hires audio using Poweramp.
To make louder audio output with mixer file tweaks yes.
JonathanFreeze said:
Does xiaomi mi 8 have hi res audio support or bult in dac or somethingelse?
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Click to collapse
I have been studying Android audio configuration files and experimenting with HD players for some time and I can say the Mi 8 sound incredibly well with good headphones using the USB-c adaptor included.
The problem with Android Audio is that, in general, Android Mixer will upsample everything to 48 KHz and apply Qualcomm, Android and Miui effects, such as companding, Dinamic Compresssion, and also echo cancellation to voice signal. This is not bad in general, since phone speakers are not of good quality and there is benefit to dynamics and also voice telephony is better with echo and gain which are automatic. But there are many other sound libraries such as dirac, virtualizers that are loaded automatically and used by apps.
The problem is that generic apps like Spotify, Chrome, our Youtube will upsample 44.1 Khz videos and music to 48KHz with fast resamplers, and it shows in both the speaker and headphones. Specific Hi-Res players like PowerAmp or Neutron take advantage of some profiles in android audio configuration files to present audio directly to the mixer without resampling and using high-bitrate. In reality, it is not a special codec or driver, they just use some profiles that are in most recent android phones. I discovered this a while ago and can attest that the Mi 8 sounds fantastic with both PowerAmp and Neutron, when configured correctly. I like Neutron best for better control and customization. It has a toggle for automatic samplerate adjustment and you can check that the output is as source, and use 64-bit codecs with up to 32-bit processing. For example, a same mp3 sounds much better in Neutron/PowerAmp than played in Whatsapp or a generic audio player. Neutron also has a manual hardware preamp gain apart from master volume that is really useful to contain clipping and use the hardware full amplification. Custom kernels have headphone preamps too to optimise power.
I recommend Ainur Narsil mod, it is a twrp/magisk module that tweaks some build.prop audio settings, and it modifies android audio configuration files such as audio_policy.conf and audio_effects.conf to remove these effects and add more samplerates to generic profiles on android. I have taken the time to study these files myself and have discovered that Miui default config does not take full advantage of our Mi 8 Qualcomm Snapdragon audio chipset. Out Mi 8 is capable of dual-sampling playback, that is, it is compatible with 44.1Khz and 48Khz (and multiples) playback so we don't need Android to upsample everything to 48Khz as a generic phone does. Of course, the mixer will upsample to 48 Khz when other sounds kick in (like notifications), but when you use PowerAmp/Neutron with HD output, you can get as close as bitperfect playback, since I think this profiles are direct-pcm and don't get generic effects here. (android audio configuration files such as devices and mixers are complex but a wonder to understand
I have tested Narsil, and while I don't think it improves when listening to Neutron/PowerAmp, it should help with the speaker and apps since it removes a bunch of android and miui effects. I have tweaked a bit further these audio configuration files after Narsil yesterday, and I am happy that it works the way I want. I have checked in terminal audio mixer info that it plays 44.1Khz without upsampling in a generic player. Narsil does just that also too.
Notice that is not convenient to upsample 44.1 Khz content to 192KHz, it is best to play at native bitrate. Bitsample you can set to 24 or 32-bit playback, if your hardware supports it. Mi 8 supports 32-bit. But it will sound as good in 16-bit if the source file is 16-bit, altough mp3s can benefit in 24-bit.
najabi said:
I have been studying Android audio configuration files and experimenting with HD players for some time and I can say the Mi 8 sound incredibly well with good headphones using the USB-c adaptor included.
The problem with Android Audio is that, in general, Android Mixer will upsample everything to 48 KHz and apply Qualcomm, Android and Miui effects, such as companding, Dinamic Compresssion, and also echo cancellation to voice signal. This is not bad in general, since phone speakers are not of good quality and there is benefit to dynamics and also voice telephony is better with echo and gain which are automatic. But there are many other sound libraries such as dirac, virtualizers that are loaded automatically and used by apps.
The problem is that generic apps like Spotify, Chrome, our Youtube will upsample 44.1 Khz videos and music to 48KHz with fast resamplers, and it shows in both the speaker and headphones. Specific Hi-Res players like PowerAmp or Neutron take advantage of some profiles in android audio configuration files to present audio directly to the mixer without resampling and using high-bitrate. In reality, it is not a special codec or driver, they just use some profiles that are in most recent android phones. I discovered this a while ago and can attest that the Mi 8 sounds fantastic with both PowerAmp and Neutron, when configured correctly. I like Neutron best for better control and customization. It has a toggle for automatic samplerate adjustment and you can check that the output is as source, and use 64-bit codecs with up to 32-bit processing. For example, a same mp3 sounds much better in Neutron/PowerAmp than played in Whatsapp or a generic audio player. Neutron also has a manual hardware preamp gain apart from master volume that is really useful to contain clipping and use the hardware full amplification. Custom kernels have headphone preamps too to optimise power.
I recommend Ainur Narsil mod, it is a twrp/magisk module that tweaks some build.prop audio settings, and it modifies android audio configuration files such as audio_policy.conf and audio_effects.conf to remove these effects and add more bitsamples to generic profiles on android. I have taken the time to study these files myself and have discovered that Miui default config does not take full advantage of our Mi 8 Qualcomm Snapdragon audio chipset. Out Mi 8 is capable of dual-sampling playback, that is, it is compatible with 44.1Khz and 48Khz (and multiples) playback so we don't need Android to upsample everything to 48Khz as a generic phone does. Of course, the mixer will upsample to 48 Khz when other sounds kick in (like notifications), but when you use PowerAmp/Neutron with HD output, you can get as close as bitperfect playback, since I think this profiles are direct-pcm and don't get generic effects here. (android audio configuration files such as devices and mixers are complex but a wonder to understand
I have tested Narsil, and while I don't think it improves when listening to Neutron/PowerAmp, it should help with the speaker and apps since it removes a bunch of android and miui effects. I have tweaked a bit further these audio configuration files after Narsil yesterday, and I am happy that it works the way I want. I have checked in terminal audio mixer info that it plays 44.1Khz without upsampling in a generic player. Narsil does just that also too.
Notice that is not convenient to upsample 44.1 Khz content to 192KHz, it is best to play at native bitrate. Bitsample you can set to 24 or 32-bit playback, if your hardware supports it. Mi 8 supports 32-bit. But it will sound as good in 16-bit if the source file is 16-bit, altough mp3s can benefit in 24-bit.
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I completely agree, PowerAmp is absolutely worth much more than its very small cost which I believe is $3.99 or maybe $ 4.99 It's been a long since I bought it, maybe around 5 years ago and of course I still get free updates. As you know it has every feature that you could want including screensaver animation, ID3 tag editing, and of course the sound quality is untouchable, for listening to music alone, it's perfect.
@JonathanFreeze,
Poweramp uses Dynamic EQ compression combined with the option over using Replaygain which equalises the volume across all tracks while the dynamic compression automatically adjust the sound loudness across the entire EQ spectrum, bringing out the sounds that are too quiet and taming the sounds that are too loud...a perfect balance which maximises loudness without hurting the quality by over compressing and squashing the dynamics.
In addition, it uses convolution reverb, and as @najabi mentioned you can choose to up sample based on what you are connecting to. Whether it's Bluetooth, USB C connected headphones, the built in speaker or a USB audio interface. Personally, I don't feel that it has any rivals and I also like to couple its use with Neutron when listening to music and Neutron is beneficial across the board for all of your audio uses. Our combined comments have only mentioned a few features that the Poweramp program offers. In fact, there are so many features that I could probably stretch this comment out to 2000 words or more talking about them.
Check it, you get to try it before buying! Btw, I just checked the price its $3.99 and it sounds great on the Mi8 : https://powerampapp.com/
Which by the way, although the Mi8 has a single speaker for external audio, the sound quality is very good : Here is an article with an in depth review of the sound quality : https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_8-review-1784p3.php
TLDR: Yes, the Mi8 has great sound, and we like it even better with Poweramp and Neutron.
Regarding Narsil,
@najabi I haven't tried it so I will definitely check it. Thank you very much for your vivid description.
Can someone confirm that it can stream audio using the LDAC codec please. I have read conflicting information on different sites. Thanks
Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk
LDAC and tidal masters, sounding amazing. Well happy
Sent from my MI 8 using Tapatalk
Related
Request: Sound Equalizer / Presets
Hi, I know it is annoying to start new threads But I have a request (if possible). Can a Sound Equalizer be ported to the android music player or presets such as Rock, POP, Classic, etc. if not, is there any particular 3rd party Music Player which brings a built-in EQ or Presets? I did a basic research about this and found nothing helpful. just people who wanted to unload their awful day and bad mood on me. sorry and thank you.
i don't think it is possible with android at the moment....
Need API to allow audio stream manipulation. Same issue as video codecs and why Coreplayer team bailed on trying to port their killer app to Android. Need direct hardware access for core functions such as audio and video. Anything else would be a stuttery cpu choking mess.
Thank you for your responses, guys. At least now I know I would have to stick to buying my headphones with internal amplifier and/or noise reduction if I want some significant changes in the music sound.
[HowTo] Tuning Up the BT Sound
Improve Bluetooth Audio on Your Galaxy S9 with Custom Codecs Many Samsung fans were excited when the Galaxy S9 kept the 3.5 mm headphone jack. While this is a rare delight in 2018, you also have the option for high quality audio playback over Bluetooth. When used with compatible headphones, the S9's new Bluetooth audio codecs can greatly improve audio quality. Starting with Android Oreo, Google added several higher quality bluetooth audio codecs. In essence, a codec is the algorithm your device uses to send audio information over the air. Each codec varies in quality and can only be used with compatible pieces of hardware, such as speakers or headphones. Previously in Android Nougat and lower, users had no option to choose which codec was used in cases where multiple were available on your audio device. For audio enthusiasts, this new flexibility is a big improvement. The Galaxy S9 offers SBC, AAC, aptX, Samsung HD, and LDAC codecs. While SBC is the default option, it's incredibly easy to change to any of the above options. Let's take a quick look at changing the codecs, then run down what each offers. Step 1 Enable Developer Options The first step is to enable Developer Options on your Galaxy S9. There is a quick and easy-to-follow guide on doing that for the Galaxy S9. Head to Settings –> About Phone –> Software Information and tap "Build Number" 7 times. Next, navigate back to Settings and select Developer Options. Step 2 Select a Bluetooth Audio Codec Select "Bluetooth Audio Codec" from the list of Developer Options. Next, you can select any of the aforementioned codecs from a popup that will appear. Of course, to decide which to enable, it helps to know what the advantages are to each codec. What Each Bluetooth Audio Codec Offers Here's a quick summary of the available Bluetooth codecs on the Galaxy S9 to help you choose which is right for you. Remember, though, most Bluetooth accessories only support certain codecs, so check the user manual on your Bluetooth headphones or speakers to make sure the option you choose is supported. SBC: the standard mandatory Bluetooth audio codec. Varies in quality with respect to the connected headphones or speakers. Bit rate ranges between 192 and 320 kbps, typically considered the lowest quality compression available. AAC: Popular codec used in most streaming services, like YouTube. Many Apple products also support this codec. Compression quality around 250 kbps for transmission. atpX: Qualcomm's proprietary codec, saves on data rate compared to the previous methods. Transferring quality of 352 kbps. LDAC: Sony's proprietary Bluetooth codec. Has a wide range of quality options from 330 kbps up to 990 kbps. The highest quality option supports 24-bit, 96 kHz audio. This is generally considered one of the highest quality codecs, but is not available on as many pairs of headphones as the previous codecs. Samsung HD: Samsung's Proprietary codec. No public information available on specific bitrate. Available on all Samsung audio hardware. Step 3 Configure Codec-Specific Options (Optional) In addition to manually switching codecs, there are a more Bluetooth settings of interest within Developer Options. If you went with the LDAC codec, for instance, there's an option to manually set the quality between the 330, 660, and 990 kbps modes. While this is nice for audiophiles, it is best to leave this to the system if you're unsure of your connection quality. If you're wondering whether or not your headphones support a particular codec, the technical specifications on the retail box or product page should have this information. At this point, nothing beats a wired audio connection, but it is encouraging to see Android and Samsung heading in the right direction.
Can you get it setting to stick? I go into dev settings, change it from sbc to aac (or anything else) leave dev settings, go back in and it is set back to sbc
Weird. I didn't recognized that. Maybe it's only possible with root....i don't know. I have to investigate this weird thing.
Xperience Z said: Weird. I didn't recognized that. Maybe it's only possible with root....i don't know. I have to investigate this weird thing. Click to expand... Click to collapse Terrible of them to give us the option but it not actually work
The codec is still set by the device you're using. It could be different in the S9 but on my Pixel 2 XL I can change codecs from the Bluetooth screen. If I set my P7 Wireless to use HD audio, when I go to developer options Bluetooth codec is already set to AptX. If I untick HD audio then Bluetooth codec changes to SBC
Hahaha wow. i chatted with the German Samsung Support 5 minutes ago: (German Model with Exy Core) Me: Hello, I have a technical question. If I activate the developer options in the mobile phone, I can determine the Bluetooth codec for the transmission manually. If I choose a codec (for example atpX or AAC), then I go out of the developer options and go back in, the codec is switched back to the standard codec "SBC ". How can I permanently change the codec? Samsung Support: I'm not allowed to tell you that. In the developer options you have unfortunately nothing to look or to do and may not be used. I'm sorry. Me: It is my device. I bought it. I'm allowed to do what I want do with it. If the users have nothing to do there, why did you implement/integrate it in the open-source operating system "Android"? Everybody can activate the developer options without opening the bootloader or messing around with the KNOX. So? "Supporter left the chat." Click to expand... Click to collapse Very unfriendly Support :crying:
That is terrible support! But I figured it out, I connected my bluetooth headphones that use aptx and I went in and it was set to aptx, and I could change it between aptx sbc and aac (ldac didn't work so these headphones don't have it apparently) So the phone goes off whatever the headphones talk in
Revenghost said: Can you get it setting to stick? I go into dev settings, change it from sbc to aac (or anything else) leave dev settings, go back in and it is set back to sbc Click to expand... Click to collapse It'll change to the selected codec once you connect the device, provided the device supports that codec. Can't change codecs unless a codec compatible device is connected.
Rule n5 5. Create a thread topic or post a message only once, this includes external links & streaming media. As a large forum, we don't need unnecessary clutter. You're free to edit your message as you like, so if you do not receive an answer, revisit your message and see if you can describe your problem better. Not everyone is online at the same time so it might take a while before you receive an answer. You can bump your unanswered question once every 24 hours Duplicate threads and posts will be removed Always post in an existing thread if a topic already exists, before creating a new thread. Use our search function to find the best forum for your device. Links to an external source are only allowed if relevant to the topic in hand. A description must be included, no copy & pasting from the original source. Self-promotion is forbidden, this includes blogs, social media and video channels etc. Random links will be removed. Since this thread is a copy/paste from original source, is now closed!
How to enable bluetooth audio codec "aac" on note 5 without a custom rom.
Hello guys, I have a Note 5 and want to listen to music via my Bose QC 35 II. As these headphones only support SBC, which is quite basic and the slightly better AAC codec, no Aptx streaming is possible. It is sad that the good sounding aptx is not available, so i wanted to get the best out of it and try to listen with the aac codec. Unfortunately, it is only possible to manually change the bluetooth codec in Android Oreo. Is there a way be it an additional app or similar actions to manipulate the bluetooth audio codec even in Android Nougat? Thanks in advance
Yunna.xD said: Hello guys, I have a Note 5 and want to listen to music via my Bose QC 35 II. As these headphones only support SBC, which is quite basic and the slightly better AAC codec, no Aptx streaming is possible. It is sad that the good sounding aptx is not available, so i wanted to get the best out of it and try to listen with the aac codec. Unfortunately, it is only possible to manually change the bluetooth codec in Android Oreo. Is there a way be it an additional app or similar actions to manipulate the bluetooth audio codec even in Android Nougat? Thanks in advance Click to expand... Click to collapse You should probably change the subject of this thread to "How do you..." as your current subject implies you actually know how to do it, while you are actually asking how to do it. Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
see my post here for a similar issue that I was able to workaround fairly easy TLDR: You need root, edit your build.prop (using text editor, some app from the play store, etc) and change the following key: persist.vendor.bt.a2dp_offload_cap by removing -aac from the string. I'm sorry if it looks like I'm spamming I just encountered this issue on a lot of forums with no result and I do hope that this will help some
V4A problem
Hello. I was looking for the best audio experience for this phone. I installed v4a and tweaked a bit, but whenever I apply a convolver it introduces a small lag in audio output. I can clearly see the lag while I reproduce a video on YouTube, the voice and the video are not synced. So which setting do you use? Are there any lag free convolver? I tried Dolby pro logic II, srs 2.1, dolby surround and pro logic. The other setting I use are viper bass, viper clarity and spectrum extension.
What Music Player do you guys use?
I mainly have been using Google Play Music cause of the cool Media Controller that is colored by the album and liked it but others have been using others such as PowerAMP or Samsung Music, etc and wanted to see what you all recommend for music playing and also Samsung Sound Effects such as Surround/Dolby Atmos, Concert Hall, Audio Preset, etc. Current Config Player: Google Play Music (cause Album colored Media Controller) Sound Effects: Surround/Dolby Atmos: Off UHQ Upscaler: On (Bit and Bandwidth Upscale) Concert Hall: On Preset: Normal Adapt Sound: Custom
Spotify. Dolby atmos on. Custom sound on. Depending where I play. I got profiles to use on my car ICE, wired headphones and BT headphones. I find dolby atmos improve spotify by far.. Before it spotify sound quality sucks Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
I've been going back and forth between PowerAmp and N7.
So far trying PowerAmp and sounds the same until I switch to this preset. EQ: Speakers (Loud) Reverb: Off Resampler: SoX 99.0% Output: Hi-Res, Sample 384kHz from 48kHz Buffer: Normal DVC: ON MusicFX: OFF Any PowerAmp users want to share their profiles or suggest changes to mine?
I just use the stock Samsung Music Player that comes bundled with the Samsung OS. It is pretty good and plays whatever I want. Seeing as I keep all my music stored locally on my microSDcard.