Audiophile audio player for Android Phones

[vivek.saikia]

Hi All,

I am searching for a audiophile grade music player for my Samsung Infuse mobile phone. The phone is currently running on Android 2.2 Froyo and soon is going to get an Android 2.3 Gingerbread upgrade.

The basic feature which I am searching for in the media player is Flac file playback ability with excellent sound quality.

Any pointers from the forum members will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[sandip_d]

Hi Vivek,
I have been using MIUI music player on my Samsung Galaxy and it has been an experience worth to mention. It plays flac but not HD flac. Another unique feature of it is, it automatically displays lyrics when connected to internet for a correctly tagged songs.(English). Sometimes it shows wrong lyrics one but I haven't checked the particular song in detail. I suppose based on tag information it catches the lyrics from its online database and then syncs it with song. If a song is not in their database then it won't display lyrics. Is your phone rooted?

 

[reignofchaos]

andless is your friend. Plays all the audiophile formats including high res depending on your phone's hardware. However for best audio quality, your phone has to be rooted. It then uses exclusive hardware access bypassing the android sound api.

 

[vivek.saikia]

Hi Vivek,
I have been using MIUI music player on my Samsung Galaxy and it has been an experience worth to mention. It plays flac but not HD flac. Another unique feature of it is, it automatically displays lyrics when connected to internet for a correctly tagged songs.(English). Sometimes it shows wrong lyrics one but I haven't checked the particular song in detail. I suppose based on tag information it catches the lyrics from its online database and then syncs it with song. If a song is not in their database then it won't display lyrics. Is your phone rooted?

andless is your friend. Plays all the audiophile formats including high res depending on your phone's hardware. However for best audio quality, your phone has to be rooted. It then uses exclusive hardware access bypassing the android sound api.

Thanks Sandeep and reigofchaos, I will try both the apps and will let my ears to be the judge.
I have even come across the Neutron Music Player. There is a free 7 days trial version. Need to check the sound quality of this one.

 

[abhi_jollyguy]

PowerAMP is the best application when it comes to music on android platform. You can buy the full version here:

http://powerampapp.com/

 

[vin_eme]

PowerAMP is the best application when it comes to music on android platform. You can buy the full version here:

http://powerampapp.com/

Absolutely agree with abhi. The best in the market


~Vince
_________________________
Sent from an android device

 

[anm]

do android phones send digital out like iphone can do? Are there any good apps to play music from a NAS?

 

[vivek.saikia]

PowerAMP is the best application when it comes to music on android platform. You can buy the full version here:

PowerAMP – Music Player for Android

Absolutely agree with abhi. The best in the market


~Vince
_________________________
Sent from an android device

Thanks Abhi and Vince!
Point taken. Will download the PowerAMP today and will try out the sound quality.

I have installed andless media player as suggested by reignofchaos. The SQ is quite good and almost near to my Cowon C2 player with no equilization!
I'm afraid, my phone may make my Cowon player redundant. hyeah:

FYI, I have installed the foobar2000 controller on my phone and it works like a charm! :yahoo:

 

[vivek.saikia]

do android phones send digital out like iphone can do? Are there any good apps to play music from a NAS?

I am not sure about digital out but there is a software on the Android phones which lets it
1. to play music files stored on a PC
2. to play music files stored on the phone on a PC
3. to control the music files playback stored on one server and played on another PC via the phone.

 

[prankey]

Instead of bothering about the "best android music player", you should look to install a kernel which uses Supercurio's Voodoo Sound. And install Voodoo control app from market. That is the only way you could get ultimate nirvana in SQ, no PLAYER would be able to achieve. Search forum.xda-developers.com for more info!

 

[reignofchaos]

Instead of bothering about the "best android music player", you should look to install a kernel which uses Supercurio's Voodoo Sound. And install Voodoo control app from market. That is the only way you could get ultimate nirvana in SQ, no PLAYER would be able to achieve. Search forum.xda-developers.com for more info!

Actually voodoo sound is useful only if the stock kernel of the phone does some equalization. Most don't. The big ticket phone which did brain dead equalization was the galaxy s and the voodoo sound kernel works best on that phone. On most others, there's not much or questionable benefit.

Plus you need to root your phone and also install a custom kernel with voids any warranty. Not recommended unless you have a galaxy s.

 

[madbullram]

+1 andless, I think its the best I have heard in my defy even the stock speakers sound good for phone now! Its become my shower music player...

 

[prankey]

Actually voodoo sound is useful only if the stock kernel of the phone does some equalization. Most don't. The big ticket phone which did brain dead equalization was the galaxy s and the voodoo sound kernel works best on that phone. On most others, there's not much or questionable benefit.

Plus you need to root your phone and also install a custom kernel with voids any warranty. Not recommended unless you have a galaxy s.

Its just a PHOBIA (I wont even call it a HOAX or MYTH) that installing custom kernel or "ROOTING" the phone will void the warranty! NONE of the Samsung OFFICIAL documentation or condition talks of voiding warranty through rooting. Even Samsung service center folks keep rooted and custom ROM phones!

Nevertheless, you can just switch back to stock ROM/kernel to "restore" the warranty.

Samsung might have taken guidelines from Supercurio (like it did for Galaxy S2 while choosing that dreaded, good for nothing subsystem from Yamaha) and implemented on Infuse, however, there are still some benefit Voodoo kernel gives like DRC control on Microphone (needed for video recording in noisy environment) and setting digital volume to max, oversampling before DAC stage which stock kernel on Infuse might have not implemented.

 

[reignofchaos]

Its just a PHOBIA (I wont even call it a HOAX or MYTH) that installing custom kernel or "ROOTING" the phone will void the warranty! NONE of the Samsung OFFICIAL documentation or condition talks of voiding warranty through rooting. Even Samsung service center folks keep rooted and custom ROM phones!

Nevertheless, you can just switch back to stock ROM/kernel to "restore" the warranty.

Samsung might have taken guidelines from Supercurio (like it did for Galaxy S2 while choosing that dreaded, good for nothing subsystem from Yamaha) and implemented on Infuse, however, there are still some benefit Voodoo kernel gives like DRC control on Microphone (needed for video recording in noisy environment) and setting digital volume to max, oversampling before DAC stage which stock kernel on Infuse might have not implemented.

Samsung may not but other vendors like SE and Motorola explicitly prohibit rooting/custom firmware and there's a warranty void clause for it. Not that it bothers me but for some others, it might be an issue.

Yes the galaxy s2 has a terrible dac compared to the original wolfson based dac for the galaxy s.

 

[akhil7j]

Earlier i was using the cracked version of PowerAMP but then realized its worth buying. It plays, FLAC, APE, WAVE, even Cue files. The equalizer of this player is really powerful. Buy a $20 earphones and play music on PowerAMP. Thats the best way. I use Sennheiser CX 400 II earphones with my Galaxy S and Galaxy S2. The sound is excellent. Though Galaxy S has better audio quality because of Wolfson DAC and S2 has degraded quality because of poor Yamaha DAC..

 

[vivek.saikia]

Earlier i was using the cracked version of PowerAMP but then realized its worth buying. It plays, FLAC, APE, WAVE, even Cue files. The equalizer of this player is really powerful. Buy a $20 earphones and play music on PowerAMP. Thats the best way. I use Sennheiser CX 400 II earphones with my Galaxy S and Galaxy S2. The sound is excellent. Though Galaxy S has better audio quality because of Wolfson DAC and S2 has degraded quality because of poor Yamaha DAC..

+1 to that!
I have installed PowerAMP and I am simply loving the sound quality and the feature it provides. I am surely going to buy the full version.

 

[hydra]

Here's some bad news for people planning to use an Android Phone (or other device) as a source: Developer Explains Why Android Sucks for Some Audio Apps

A relevant excerpt from the above webpage:

1. Android OS provides just one API for volume control. The problem is, there is a need for at least two types of volume control: overall output volume and media/music volume. This means manufacturers have to implement their own way of controlling the media/music volume. Unfortunately, each manufacturer does this differently, and there's no way of finding out how they did it until you test each individual model. To make matters worse, Samsung used an inefficient way to control the hardware and media volumes, and deliberately feeds some of the hardware output to the microphone input. This creates audio mayhem.

2. Android OS is shockingly inefficient in dealing with real-time audio. The operating system adds about a seven second delay, and the hardware adds a further five or six seconds, making the default delay 12-13 seconds overall. We have managed to reduce the real-time delay to around half a second (500ms) or less, which we believe is is the best achieved on Android to date. [Ed. note: the iPhone version doesn't include perceptible delay.]

3. Hundreds of screen size and resolutions make it impossible to have a one-size-fits-all UI graphics set. [Ed. note: Obviously, this complaint isn't exclusive to audio app developers, and we've heard it plenty of times before.]

 

[gobble]

I use Sennheiser CX 400 II earphones with my Galaxy S and Galaxy S2. The sound is excellent. Though Galaxy S has better audio quality because of Wolfson DAC and S2 has degraded quality because of poor Yamaha DAC..

Whats the dac in samsung Note?

--G

 

[utkarsh]

Whats the dac in samsung Note?

--G

Galaxy Note has Yamaha YMU823 audio CODEC

 

[ariancabef]

Let me offer you my experience,

I've tested with my audiophile ears next ones:

Walkman (Best sound, shame of a more complete range of options, ex. folder nav)
Andless (same awesome pure sound as Walkman, but too simple (almost poor: not covers, albums, artists... nothing) interface and options)
PlayerPro (Very good app, good sound, but comercial )
Poweramp (Very good app, good sound, but comercial )


Others
N7, quite good and innovative app but, not astonishing sound quality
Apolo (Cyanogen stock native app), Good sound, no folder navigation.


Walkman has been a great surprise.

My (awesome) phone:
HTC Explorer Pico, Cyanogenmod 10, TWR recovery, Head Set Inear vsonic gr02