Server Version#: 1.41.4.9463
Plexamp Version#: 4.11.5
When I play music via plexamp on my new Oneplus 13, the sound is thin and without bass. The whole thing sounds so bad that it becomes unusable. The situation is the same when playing via a Bluetooth speaker.
As far as I can tell, only the plex apps (plexamp and also the normal plex app - I’m mainly concerned with the plexamp app) are affected. When I play music via the Plex web app (browser), Spotify, Symfonium, Youtube and so on, the sound is fine as it should be.
What I have tried:
Equalizer: no matter what I set the sound remains thin
Changed audio interface between AAudio + OpenSL ES (including reboots + app cache cleaning) - no improvement
What kind of music are you playing (FLAC, MP3, WAV, AAC,…)?
Did you rip this music from CD’s, download it from Napster 25 years ago, or a more modern reputable source?
Weather you’re streaming or have the music downloaded to your phone is the bit rate being lowered? This is where I think your issue might be.
When you say…
you’re listening to this on a computer setup or stereo system (not your phone)? If true, you can see how they would sound completely different yes?
The quality of your music files can cause a drastic difference in the listening experience.
For example on the left is an MP3 that I downloaded who knows how many years ago and on the right is a CD rip of the same song. One can clearly see that the left is less full than the right. That’s missing information/sound that you’ll never hear in the MP3 vs FLAC. Even my kids can tell a difference is quality files.
@MarkV1320
My lib consists of, well everything (CD-Rips, Napster, Amazon digital deliveries)… but and nearly only mp3s (128-320kbits).
The plex web app, where the sound is ok, is also run on the phone.
I stream from a local plex instance in local network in original quality.
It seems to me like the audio isn’t cut at the top but at the bottom (bass level)…
@elan:
Yes, I also tried restarting without any effect.
What’s strange though is that only plexamp and plex app are showing this behavior right now. I tried to test an arbitrary wave editor app (lexis audio editor in that case) - and even there the sound is ok.
Do you know any other apps might be affected by this?
In the end, the quality of the output directly on the phone doesn’t really matter, because nobody seriously listens to music like that, but my problem is that the poor quality is maintained when streaming to bluetooth speakers.
I’m only writing this here because plexamp really is one of the best players imho
However I understand having all these superior features need custom audio processing.
Side questions:
I really like how plexamp on the phone allows me to remotely control plexamp on my desktop.
If I’d use e.g. a Wifi speaker like a Sonos as streaming target with plexamp, will the speaker then grab the music directly from the plex server (removing features like gapless playback, etc. - but at least having good sound) or will it still stream “through” plexamp?
Is there any (affordable) hardware available that has plexamp headless installed?
good point to check if the settings are really applied.
Tested it, also restarted the phone - just to be sure - the plexamp settings are applied (at least the knobs are still off, etc) - unfortunately still the same.
For Holo audio: I already disabled it before (no effect).
OReality cannot be deactivated - it has 4 presets where I have to select one - which also makes no difference at all.
However there is a grayed out sound effect selector with value “OReality” in the Android sound effect settings. Above is a speaker selector showing “This device”. So I connected headphones…
2 things are noticable:
I now can deactivate OReality (only temporarily for the headphones).
Plexamp sound is as in any other app - bass, and everything is ok, even if i switch on the settings like loudness sweet fades etc. again. Even if i activate OReality again the sound stays fine - for headphones.
So I tested my (admittedly small and not very good) bluetooth speakers again:
I can also disable OReality there (temporarily)
They also sound ok (at least there is no difference between plexamp and plex webapp)
Not sure what happened when I tested that before writing this ticket. Maybe something psychologically (hey the phone sounds bad, hey on the bluetooth speaker it also sounds bad). To my own shame, I guess I never did the plexamp vs plex web test on the bluetooth speaker.
So thank you Otto for pointing me into the right direction!
Conclusion
Plexamp (and Plexapp) on Oneplus 13 sounds really bad when using the phone speakers.
When using headphones or bluetooth speakers the sound is ok.
For me that’s not an issue because I don’t want to listen to music on my phone speakers.
Thank you all for your support I really appreciate that!!
