BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Hi, I have been having issues with bass performance on my Asus Zenfone 6! I used to own a Samsung Galaxy s5, i could crank up bass boost all the way to 100% unless i went above 60% volume. The bass was super deep, its DAC support 192khz and 32-bit My Zenfone 6 also support high res 192khz at 32 bits, however even the slightest bit of bass boost causes DVC to go mad, turning DVC off it causes massive distortions at low bass boost of 30% no matter how low i put my volume. (Both devices use default audio settings and both devices have AudioFX or any sort system wide audiowizard disabled as well as me using the exact same pair of wired headphones for them) Its very frustrating, i cant seem to tune it to its full potential. I have tried literally anything the tweaking offer. What i find strange about the Zenfone, is no matter how low the volume, it cant handle bass boost at all, making the audio very flat. Both devices use the exact same settings and equaliser preset etc etc. My old S5 only get trouble at 100% bass boost around 60% volume, my Zenfone cant even handle 30% at 5% volume. Does this mean Asus went for an absolute trash DAC? or does it mean i need to apply different tweak. Some other music players seem to have more bass potential however nothing close to what im used to from my old phone. I hope anyone can be of help with this ❤ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Sounds like you are oversaturating the audio path somewhere by trying to boost bass to an unnatural extent. Is the Limiter on in the EQ screen, that might help but it's not a perfect solution as it can introduce other effects (such as volume dipping during peak moments). Try reducing the master Preamp Gain in the EQ by the same sort of amount you are boosting the bass sliders. Also check Settings > Audio > Replay Gain to make sure it's set the same way as your previous device. One of its functions is to reduce 100% digital level recordings to allow better processing - the original spec suggested a reference value of -14dB from full-scale, but it's fully adjustable in PA. Worth trying different audio output methods too, and check Settings > Audio > Audio Info to see what is actually occurring when it is playing. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 Thanks for the advice! ill give it a try shortly! ill post any updates on how it goes. At this point i use OpenSL or something on both. i have noticed that bass test files in wav format and 192khz do give good bass most of my mp3 files are 41khz (i guess mp3 doesnt go higher anyways but yea) i thought there has to be an issue with the resampling. Or my DAC is of reallt poor quality. Or even after disabling the audio wizard app which is responsible for system wide equalising of audio, it still gives issues, maybe there's something else as well that has to be disabled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Turning DVC on usually reduces the amount of processing that the device does, allowing a cleaner path from Poweramp to your output device. Settings > Audio > Audio Info will tell you what is actually being used. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 audio info is as follows: Track: mp3 16 bit 44.1khz 192kbps 2 channels Gapless Decoder is the builtin FFmpeg resampler Resampler SoX resample 97% cutoff DSP Float64/32 bit 48khz equaliser bands 10 (31-16k Q: 1,50) bass 50% treble 0% DVC on short crossfading buffers 2x (52ms, 2496 audioframes) latency 104ms Output OpenSL ES output 16 bit 48khz flags: 0x10 ALWAYS_UNITY_GAIN latency 104ms Output Wired Headset/AUX edit: ignote the last photo, its an accidental duplicate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 You could try using high-res output instead (e.g. 192kHz / 24bit), that might help give you some extra headroom if none of the other suggestions help. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 ive noticed high res 192kHz and above reduce the volume dramatically Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 15 minutes ago, BluefluffyFusky said: ive noticed high res 192kHz and above reduce the volume dramatically i tried toning it diwn to high res 48kHz which doesnt reduce volume, it seems to be the most stable choice so far along with preamp gain of -14dB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Yes, if you want to huge up the bass (is that a phrase?) you might expect to also need to reduce the overall processing gain to compensate by allowing a bit more headroom. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Titor Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 > mp3 16 bit 44.1khz 192kbps Oh yes, that's MP3, not lossless at 44.1kHz sample rate. I don't high res output at 24bit 192kHz sample rate would make the sound "better", the source file is not good to begin with. Using high res at 196kHz sample rate just upsamples the "44.1kHz shit MP3" (apologies for the language) all the way to 196kHz. Does it make the sound any better? Idts. Can you try with a lossless file instead of a lossy MP3? And.... About 32 bit depth, you don't want that much bit depth especially on a phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Titor Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 6 hours ago, BluefluffyFusky said: i have noticed that bass test files in wav format and 192khz do give good bass most of my mp3 files are 41khz (i guess mp3 doesnt go higher anyways but yea) yeah, uncompressed WAV files would obviously perform better than a lossy format (MP3). Some details are lost during the compression to MP3/other lossy formats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Titor Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Not sure if it would help but can you try playing with equalizer settings a bit? Especially around the bass frequency. (50-250Hz) range. See if setting bass frequencies up/down makes the sound better. Edit: when working with EQ, I usually start a built-in EQ preset (like Dance, Pop) then tweak the settings from there. Or just mix with other EQ presets. None of my custom EQ presets are completely original xD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 Yea i have tried wav files, those perform way better, i found that high res at 48khz actually performed better than OpenSL at 48khz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 Though i do believe the DAC Asus put in the Zenfone 6 has to be a very cheap one as my old S5's DAC can handle so much bass you can break your headphones and own eardrums at high volumes it has DVC enabled, however DVC never jas to level down the volume to give roo. for the intense bass. I suppose its just a lot more powerful if thats possible. What ever i try, i cant make my Asus match up with my old S5's audio performance which is a big shame towards Asus honestly, beaten by a 5 year old phone that sold for less money. However i do know audio wise Samsung was always pretty neat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 Lol.. i found an wav file.. might just be 44.1Khz but.. it has a whapping 1441kbps xD wav rocks lol best mp3 i found had 320kbps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Titor Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 8 hours ago, BluefluffyFusky said: Lol.. i found an wav file.. might just be 44.1Khz but.. it has a whapping 1441kbps xD wav rocks lol best mp3 i found had 320kbps Yeah, MP3 is a lossy format, it's not meant to have that high bitrate. And 1441kbps bitrate means the wav file is uncompressed/lossless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 MP3 is lossy, but that's not the issue being discussed here - and above about 200k bitrate it's pretty close to the original material for most cases. However PA unpacks any format back into an uncompressed bitstream before starting to process it, it doesn't try to process the still-compressed data. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxmp Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Some ASUS devices have kind-of compressor/limiter always enabled, which noticeable cuts everything beyond 0dB pre-volume. It may make sense to limit everything near real 0dB (max volume), but those devices do that for way lower volume and that looks like a bug/oversight. You can notice this behavior as loudness pulsating around basses when you up basses via Bass tone or equalizer. I have few asuses (but non ZF 6), and couple of them show this behavior (e.g. ZF5). From all OEMs, also LG does this for a few models. As a result, equalization on 3.5 output requires preamp reduction on these devices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 1 hour ago, maxmp said: Some ASUS devices have kind-of compressor/limiter always enabled, which noticeable cuts everything beyond 0dB pre-volume. It may make sense to limit everything near real 0dB (max volume), but those devices do that for way lower volume and that looks like a bug/oversight. You can notice this behavior as loudness pulsating around basses when you up basses via Bass tone or equalizer. I have few asuses (but non ZF 6), and couple of them show this behavior (e.g. ZF5). From all OEMs, also LG does this for a few models. As a result, equalization on 3.5 output requires preamp reduction on these devices. Oooooh! Thanks for the info! Kind of a shame, maybe i can figure out if its some sort of app or service that i can disable. Perhaps getting a different ROM might fix this? (Think of LineAge OS) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 @BluefluffyFusky I thought you'd already tried reducing the preamp gain, as I suggested back in https://forum.powerampapp.com/topic/20589-bass-is-terrible-when-headphones/?do=findComment&comment=93611 ? Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluefluffyFusky Posted January 21, 2021 Author Share Posted January 21, 2021 yea i did! it does help a bit i have it on -14dB as you suggested. Obviously it makes everything quieter but it does allow the bass to come through more! Sadly still not in a way i can say the bass boosted as good as my old phone did, but yea. Im afraid it wont get any better. It was a "budget" flagship phone anyways, like, ut had the best cpu, lots of ram and a fancy camera etc. that for roughly €650 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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