Sound Qualitiy (music) on the liquid (phones)

[Guest Lioncake]

First of all, as this is my first post, a "hello" to all of you...

I am new to the Liquid, and i think it´s really a bargain.

The only complain is the music quality with headphones: I tried different ear-plugs, but with none of them i got satisfying sound quality. Sound has no "punch".

Do you agree with me? What do you think: could this become better with future firmware-releases?

Is tuning possible?

If not, i will return the liquid, because sound quality is really important to me

Best regards,

Lioncake

[Guest Uberadri]

I agree, the sound quality is ok, but not good. It lacks bass and "punch". It's not dynamic enough or something. Also sometimes there is a electric background noise.

But this is very typical of all non-music/walkman etc. mobiles, so it was kinda expected.

[Guest fbsqual]

I think it's ok.I have nokia 5230(the costdown ver of 5800XM ). liquid has more clear but less bass than 5230. it's good enough for daily enjoy. BTW, My headphone is sennheiser OMX90.

[Guest Player9446]

with my senheiser cpx300 the sound is real s*** compared to ipod or sth :D

if acer doesnt fix that i gonna buy a nexus one

[Guest trispect]

I'm pretty satisfied to sound quality. There is enough base with decent headphones. I have tried with Shure e2c and with Shure SE310. Both are kicking very nicely with liquid.:D

[Guest pajn]

It's far greater then my old Nokia E51 so I'm pretty satisfied but it lacks a some mid and bass and is a bit crispy. But I think it's mostly because the f**king mp3 and ogg you have to play. If there was an flac player/other lossless it should be far more greater!

[Guest chingy1788]

Can't really help you here

if you are the music enthusiast, the Acer Liquid wont satisfy you

you really get what you pay for

Some Nokias, some Sony Ericcsons have high quality sound out put (High SNR, and a wide frequency range)

Can't leave out the Iphone either

If you want an android with high music quality, I suggest looking at the nexus one (hit and miss really, it hasnt actually been tested for sound quality)

same with the SE Xperia X10 (hit and miss again)

various MP3 playing Nokias have been reported to have good sound quality

The iphone has good sound quality, various SEs too

creative are rumoured to be releasing an android handset, I expect nothing but something with good sound quality from them

I have $5 in ear earphones from dealextreme, they satisfy me enough, I still hear some hissing, but I don't mind

my friend who loves his music, has a $50+ pair of what ever earphones, and will complain about any noise or lack of bass

Edited February 14, 2010 by chingy1788

[Guest fenrer]

I agree the sound is very lack luster, might want to consider adding a headphone amp, I have one of those Fiio E3 amps, you can get em from dealextreme for abou $6. Might give it a try tommorrow and let you know whether it makes a difference. btw my ksc75s sound pretty ordinary compared to when I used to use a shuffle.

[Guest skeve]

For me the sound quality is just awful. Comparing to 3 other phones using the same set of headphones, Liquid's sound quality is the worst: no bass, lots of electric noise whic you can hear when the music stops or even when it's a quiet part of a song...

So if you want to use a phone as your primary music player, you should consider buying something else :D

I was really disappointed with the Liquid in that area...

[Guest fbsqual]

For me the sound quality is just awful. Comparing to 3 other phones using the same set of headphones, Liquid's sound quality is the worst: no bass, lots of electric noise whic you can hear when the music stops or even when it's a quiet part of a song...

So if you want to use a phone as your primary music player, you should consider buying something else :D

I was really disappointed with the Liquid in that area...

I think u should update the ROM to 2.00.xx or ACR. The factory build's sound quality is extremely suck!

[Guest Lioncake]

I think u should update the ROM to 2.00.xx or ACR. The factory build's sound quality is extremely suck!

This is new to me! Have newer firmwares a better sound quality than the first released ones? Did someone a sound-quality comparison of the different firmwares?

If this is true, it would give me the hope of further improvement with the next firmware-releases….

[Guest Roter_Flieger]

Firmware does not affect sound quality - my Liquid has 2.000.16 EMEA-GEN1 and the sound output is terrible.

The reason is the frequency response of our Liquid. I measured the Liquids headphone jack using white noise - the result looks terrible, every sound engineer would be ashamed of something like that.

Basically, while the bass region is a little weak, there is a part around 2,5 kHz where the volume of the output signal is around 10 dB

above the rest - meaning that it is more than three times as loud. And, what a coincidence, this frequency region is the one that the human ear is most sensitive to.

Any way to tweak this? Tried to fiddle around with AudioFilter.csv but no results. A hardware modification would be best, I guess, but I will not open my device. :D

[Guest skeve]

I think u should update the ROM to 2.00.xx or ACR. The factory build's sound quality is extremely suck!

I already updated the ROM, nothing changed :D

[Guest Lioncake]

Firmware does not affect sound quality - my Liquid has 2.000.16 EMEA-GEN1 and the sound output is terrible.

The reason is the frequency response of our Liquid. I measured the Liquids headphone jack using white noise - the result looks terrible, every sound engineer would be ashamed of something like that.

Basically, while the bass region is a little weak, there is a part around 2,5 kHz where the volume of the output signal is around 10 dB

above the rest - meaning that it is more than three times as loud. And, what a coincidence, this frequency region is the one that the human ear is most sensitive to.

Any way to tweak this? Tried to fiddle around with AudioFilter.csv but no results. A hardware modification would be best, I guess, but I will not open my device. :D

Thank you, Roter_Flieger, for your good analysis. I am no expert regarding soundshaping, but in my opinion, this behavior could be partially compensated with an equalizer. So all we need is a player with integrated euqualizer ( did not find one on the market). Am i right?

[Guest trispect]

Thank you, Roter_Flieger, for your good analysis. I am no expert regarding soundshaping, but in my opinion, this behavior could be partially compensated with an equalizer. So all we need is a player with integrated euqualizer ( did not find one on the market). Am i right?

There is one. Audio player WithEQ. It is not free though.

[Guest maxisma]

There is one. Audio player WithEQ. It is not free though.

That is possible with the AudioFilter.csv in /system/etc (If existing). We should get in contact with Meltus.

[Guest skeve]

That is possible with the AudioFilter.csv in /system/etc (If existing). We should get in contact with Meltus.

Do you by any chance have any info about the meaning of all the options in this file? Or maybe you know where one could find it?

[Guest Lioncake]

Because this info is hidden in the other thread: Sound will be much better with the 2.1 firmware:

Really? Compared to the old ROM, the new one sounds for you really better? Or is this just a general statement regarding sound of the Liquid (i mean, the sense of the sound is also a matter of personal taste).

This is really important for me, because with the actual sound is would return the Liquid, despite the apart from that great features of the phone...

the one in 2.1 is way better

[Guest designgears]

My sound is fine and Im only using $20 sony headphones... bass is a tad weak but that is all..

[Guest baley]

I am not an expert in that but I found the sound to be utterly appalling with the default headphones! However when using it with some more expensive set (well 30 quid!) and an updated ROM (2.x) the sound seems to be much better.

I am currently using the Angio's 1.4 Rom

[Guest Roter_Flieger]

Ok, this thread is very old but I decided to post in it again - for those who are curious.

Since the leak of 1.100.05, my Liquid is also running Eclair. I discovered that the sound is much better so I measured again.

From what I can see, I must admit that Acer did their homework. The frequency bump at 2.5kHz is gone, the bass section is now at the right level and the frequency response is now as straight as it should have been from the beginning. Still, there is background noise but finally, I can use the phone as a replacement for my cheap (but decent sounding) MP3 player. Kudos Acer.

Oh, and for AudioFilters.csv...

This is pure speculation now, therefore I will use the word "believe". I believe that AudioFilters.csv does nothing on our Liquid and is something that only works on HTC phones. Why?

First: At least in Donut AOSP sources, there is not a single line of code referring to an AudioFilters.csv. I have not checked for Eclair though.

Second: Why is it a CSV file? Android makes heavy use of XML files. Almost everything that is not managed by SQLite is stored in XML files. And for the EQ they suddenly use the old comma-seperated-values? This smells like a third-party (i.e. HTC) add-on.

Third: I fiddled a lot with my AudioFilters.csv. I have altered a lot of values, tweaked here and there and did my measurements after each tweak. Guess what? I was unable to measure any single change. Unfortunately, the human ear can be easily fooled so if you want to hear a difference, it is likely that you hear it although it is not there. Only measurements can give you a clear proof - and in my case they proved that AudioFilters.csv had no visible effect on sound output.

This is just my $0.02... :)

[Guest m106]

Wow interesting results, thanks!

[Guest thenext1]

Just buy a pair of bluetooth (stereo) headphones.

Sound quality is perfect on those.

[Guest Roter_Flieger]

Just buy a pair of bluetooth (stereo) headphones.

Sound quality is perfect on those.

Compared to my AKG K141 Studio, I dare to doubt that. :)

As I said, compared to Donut, with Eclair, the sound is ok out of the box and does not need any more tweaking.

[Guest malez]

Ok, this thread is very old but I decided to post in it again - for those who are curious.

Since the leak of 1.100.05, my Liquid is also running Eclair. I discovered that the sound is much better so I measured again.

From what I can see, I must admit that Acer did their homework. The frequency bump at 2.5kHz is gone, the bass section is now at the right level and the frequency response is now as straight as it should have been from the beginning. Still, there is background noise but finally, I can use the phone as a replacement for my cheap (but decent sounding) MP3 player. Kudos Acer.

Oh, and for AudioFilters.csv...

This is pure speculation now, therefore I will use the word "believe". I believe that AudioFilters.csv does nothing on our Liquid and is something that only works on HTC phones. Why?

First: At least in Donut AOSP sources, there is not a single line of code referring to an AudioFilters.csv. I have not checked for Eclair though.

Second: Why is it a CSV file? Android makes heavy use of XML files. Almost everything that is not managed by SQLite is stored in XML files. And for the EQ they suddenly use the old comma-seperated-values? This smells like a third-party (i.e. HTC) add-on.

Third: I fiddled a lot with my AudioFilters.csv. I have altered a lot of values, tweaked here and there and did my measurements after each tweak. Guess what? I was unable to measure any single change. Unfortunately, the human ear can be easily fooled so if you want to hear a difference, it is likely that you hear it although it is not there. Only measurements can give you a clear proof - and in my case they proved that AudioFilters.csv had no visible effect on sound output.

This is just my $0.02... :)

Thank you for graphical spectrum representation. I am really sure that csv files do their effetct. You tell to have heard any change, that is strange. Are you sure you have killed /system/bin/mediaserver after changing the file ? (without this it is not taken into account). Each time if have modified files, i have heard changes on headphone. I don't know if it affects speaker.

Edited May 18, 2010 by malez