Destorted sound sometimes

[Marp68]

I changed phone and installed the latest version of Poweramp. Sometimes the sound get distorted. It doesn't when using the default Samsung music player. I use both the EQ and the Tone, but not much. Without changing the EQ or Tone, I can get it to sound okej at the same volume by lower the preamp in the EQ and then raise the phone's volume, so it plays at the same volume. Then it seems to sound okej.

It seems to have something to do with the preamp. It not happens for all songs. I resintalled it once before and it seemed to sound better then. This time I only erased the Data and cleared the cache, but it didn't get better. Even though it should be more or less as reinstalling it.

The sounds get distorted both on the phone's internal speakers and in connected headphones. 

I have a Galaxy S10+ and play the music from my external 64 Gb card. 

[maxmp]

Start with Settings / Audio / Restore Defaults. This will reset it to standard definition output and will enable or disable DVC depending on your device. 

If you're using bluetooth, additional configuration may be needed to enable DVC to get best dynamic range for the Eq/Tone controls - see Settings / Audio / Direct Volume Control for the details.

Thanks!

[Marp68]

Thanks

There is no Restore defaults under Audio, but several under the different categories under Audio. I tried Restore defaults in the DVC catagory, but it didn't help.

What I noted is that it has to do with the preamp in the EQ. If I have it on 0 the sound gets distorted (EQ resetted). It doesn't matter if I lower the volume. But if I lower the preamp to -8 to -12, then it doesn't get distorted and I can also raise the volume more. Does that tell you anything?

Noticed another thing now. This thing with the preamp only happens with built in speakers, not with headphones. 

So, it seems that it only concerns the built in speakers, but it's not a volume problem but more of a preamp problem, since lowering the preamp and raising the volume doesn't create the same distorion problem. And the distortion does not occur on all songs.

Hope you have any answers

[andrewilley]

3 hours ago, Marp68 said:

There is no Restore defaults under Audio,

It's in Settings > Audio > Outputs.

It does sound like you are dealing with music files encoded at 100% digital levels, and then possibly boosting them further with EQ/etc. Have you tried using ReplayGain (assuming your music is properly tagged) which should default to about -14dB from digital maximum to allow headroom for further processing.

Andre

[Marp68]

On 5/25/2020 at 3:42 PM, andrewilley said:

It's in Settings > Audio > Outputs.

It does sound like you are dealing with music files encoded at 100% digital levels, and then possibly boosting them further with EQ/etc. Have you tried using ReplayGain (assuming your music is properly tagged) which should default to about -14dB from digital maximum to allow headroom for further processing.

Andre

Thanks. Will try this. Don't know exactly what you mean by "100 digital levels" though. That a track has been normalized when converting/recording?

[andrewilley]

100% digital level means that the sound reaches the maximum volume possible for the encoding - there are no more bigger numbers that the samples can go to.

Andre

[Marp68]

I think it actually helped. Thanks. 

Regarding 100 digital level. Is that the same as when you normalize a track to 0 dbfs? This I have used before to equal the different  output sound level when recording, ripping etc. Is that not a good idea then?

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, Marp68 said:

Regarding 100 digital level. Is that the same as when you normalize a track to 0 dbfs?

Yes. Doing that would encode the audio so the very loudest sounds in the track go up to the maximum digital level that can be stored - i.e. 100% volume. ReplayGain (if enabled) generally aims to bring those peak levels to -14dB from the absolute maximum (either by boosting or reducing the gain, as appropriate) to allow for some headroom for EQ/etc to be added later.  

Andre