A music player on a phone is an integral part of the life of every person who has a smartphone on Android OS. The most popular music player is probably iTunes, and we're starting to see various subscription services there, and then there are things like Spotify, so people can pretty much rent whatever music they want. The only problem is they are subscription services and for that you need internet to use them and your money. It is also worth noting that iTunes does not have the ability to listen to music in high quality, like, for example, Android players applications for listening to music in a set: .

External DACs were used during testing/listening:

An even shorter wire was also used to connect to a smartphone (Android) via OTG - USB.

Wire length - 31 cm. Price 350 rubles.

The shorter the OTG - USB wire, the better!

Important! When connecting the DAC + smartphone for the first time, wait 1-2 minutes for the DAC to install its drivers automatically. And then turn on the software. Description of connection.

We've selected what we think are the best music players, and now it's time to compare these apps against each other.

The length of the previous OTG - USB cable is 60 cm.

PlayerPro vs neutron music player vs Poweramp vs Onkyo HF Player

I hope this review will help you understand exactly which music player for Android is best for you.

Each of these music players offers a free trial to get used to the player on Android and see if you want to buy it or not. I believe no one should have to pay for these apps as long as you test them. It's good to start your research, but they all offer different capabilities and features, so I'd recommend giving it a try, and not purchasing the paid versions until you find one that suits you.

Poweramp is a good player, but a mess

The interface of the Poweramp player is good for working with music playback. You can quickly skip to the next track, pause and fast forward without any problems. I've got it working, the shuffle buttons are right on the home screen, so you don't have to go looking for them somewhere. This interface also includes the track name and various information at the very bottom of the screen.

Poweramp also has a strong support team, with a beautiful website and countless skin options, there's also " call or email support if you have any questions" You can go to their forum and chat with other users who have the same problems as you. Based on the site, their standard support team isn't the best, so use the forum for your full .

Poweramp is perfect for categorizing your songs. After I dropped a few songs on my phone and tablet, it found my music in just a few seconds and translated it into the proper genres and artist categories. You'll also notice that playlists are easy to create, and you can always see playlists in the settings tab on the main track screen. You can always songs.

Poweramp's mobile player also includes a queue option where you can easily place a bunch of songs to make your selection.

Minuses

The main reason why Poweramp is not for audiophiles is that the sound is not clear, there are many enhancers and other “features” and they affect the sound. The initial interface is just great, but as soon as you start looking at/changing settings and mixing options, everything is lost.

The Poweramp player has buttons and knobs for adjustments such as bass and tone. The only problem is that the average user never touches it. They could even play with them, but ultimately the sound quality is poor. But it’s better to leave these functions in place, or disable them altogether.

The second problem is the presentation of the songs. I tried to import ten songs, and some of them had album art. But this player did not see my covers. Every time, I only saw the boring Poweramp logo. Poweramp fails in this regard.

pros

Poweramp is a suitable music player for those who want to carry a music collection, but are not particularly keen on high-quality sound. If you plan to store your collection in the cloud, then you may want to choose a different solution. Poweramp is great, but you don't always see the album art. I still don't The application is also great for people who want to tinker with the equalizer and a bunch of many other modifications of possible settings, but because of this the sound is very distorted.

PlayerPro - the best player for Android smartphones

Playepro is the most intuitive music player for the average user. It pulls in all the content on your phone and immediately categorizes it so you don't have to worry. Player pro also offers video support.

"Neutron" neutron is the best Android player for your smartphone!

pros

Neutron is a music player that provides lossless file playback for those interested in an ideal listening environment, which is exactly what it's designed for! He sees our external DACs without problems, he described the connection, etc.

Unfortunately, this playback is dependent on your hardware! And it pleases! You get powerful functions to set time, clock and output methods, etc. Equalizer settings are easily accessible for those who want to find their ideal sound. The Neutron player is pleasant for those who like to tinker with very large settings.

You won't get video support, but the Neutron app supports any file type for songs and audio clips. You can choose to move a song to your queue, or you can build a playlist for your upcoming trip. You can also scan devices at any time using the Quick Scan button located in the top right corner. Neutron backgrounds are also supported, so you can jump into your phone and do whatever you want while listening to your favorites.

I didn't notice any downsides to the Neutron player.

Neutron – Neutron is my favorite music player for Android, but it offers a lot for those interested in a powerful audiophile player. All the features and functions of Neutron are just awesome.

And by the way, I completely forgot, to use it 100% you need a powerful smartphone: at least 4 cores and 1GB of RAM, or better yet 8 cores and 2-3GB of RAM. Neutron's player includes two large arrow buttons that are apparently designed to help people quickly move from one page to another. It sounds very good.

The fact is that not all software audio players are useful for connecting an external DAC and a smartphone; some, having better functionality, do not always see the external DAC as a source in the Android OS, even in the newest 5.0. or 5.1.

However, the situation is not so hopeless. The DAC+smartphone experiments would have continued for a long time, but

I was helped by chance, namely by an audiophile friend who recommended the Onkyo HF Player. Thanks to my sound friend Alexander who helped me out with this.

A little about Onkyo HF Player for Android.

This is a software player for iPhone from a major Hi-Fi manufacturer that can play flac and high-quality files quite well.

Onkyo took advantage of the opportunity of FLAC and other HD resolutions, seduced the developers and offered an alternative player that even plays DSD files!

The Onkyo HF Player shell consists of 2 parts. I'll cover the free basic one. The design is similar to the standard iOS audio player, even the playlist is similar.

By the way, Onkyo has a multiband equalizer from 32 Hz to 32 kHz with many presets, prepared by famous and not so famous guitarists. The equalizer operation can be HD accurate and regular SD mode.

There is even a customization of the Onkyo HF Player for branded models:

• Onkyo ES-HF300/CTI300,
• Onkyo ES-FC300,
• Onkyo IE-HF300/CTI-300
• Onkyo IE-FC300.

By the way, the Onkyo iOS player retains 2 important ones.

Tracks on Onkyo HF Player will be played back with a micro-pause. By the way, you can enable the crossfader in the Onkyo HF Player settings.

The second point is better, but not so critical for your ears - the presence in HF Player of displaying the lyrics of the song embedded in the file.

The second part of the Onkyo HF Player is called HD and is available as a patch for which you need to pay $10, but I can’t talk about it, so I didn’t buy or test it. If Onkyo kindly provides for testing on the site , then I will definitely tell you in all the details.

I immediately liked the design and controls of this software player Onkyo HF Player for Android, it’s like a real Hi-Fi player - nothing extra, silver
with black, although the controls are not for everyone, but I also liked it, after 2-3 minutes.

Conclusion

Portable tube headphone amplifier "Svarog"

I hope you're starting to see why each of these apps are leaders in the Android music player app market.

PlayerPro is the best option for those who want a beautiful interface and acceptable playback. All Android players are very good when it comes to playing music and finding your favorite tracks. PlayerPro gives you the added benefit of playing videos.

Poweramp is filled with modern features that make it seem too cluttered. However, I would guess that most ordinary people will choose .

Onkyo HF Player is good for listening, but has fewer settings, like Neutron and PlayerPro, but in terms of sound quality it is still .

Neutron Neutron is very similar to a power amplifier, and looks like a custom music player. I personally think that the interface for some is less attractive in Neutron, I personally liked it, but this Neutron is the best smartphone player for . And the sound is more neutral.

Hope this review helps you.

Open a Word document, point to any link and press CTRL + left mouse button - the link will open in the browser, go and download, all files have been checked - there are no viruses!

Neutron Music Player is a rapidly gaining popularity music player for the Android operating system, which is distinguished, among others, by very high sound quality, as well as the ability to fine-tune it. For these purposes, the player even has a convenient built-in equalizer with support for the pre-listening function. Moreover, this player allows you to apply all kinds of sound effects to your compositions, which will make the sound very clear and unique in the truest sense of the word. It is thanks to all of the above that Neutron Music Player has gained immense popularity.

But, in addition to providing high quality sound and the ability to fine-tune it, the program can also be praised for its convenient built-in tools for cataloging music and dividing tracks by genre, artist and album. When you launch Neutron Music Player for the first time, the application will automatically scan your portable device's memory and SD card, detecting all music files. Another useful feature of the player is the ability to set a program shutdown timer. With all this, the application is completely free and compatible with older versions of Android.

We looked at the basic music capabilities of the new firmware for the Galaxy Note 5. Yes, now we can already talk about full support for Hi-Res Audio by the flagships of the Korean company. But a standard player is still far from the ultimate dream of an audiophile. Let's see how our old friend Neutron Music Player gets along with Note 5.

Not a great quality resampler. The sound, despite the nominal 24/96 support, is not amazing. All this is a diagnosis of the standard player from Samsung. Therefore, feel free to download Neutron Music Player with the Neon add-on and try to correct the situation!

Our test material today will be Motörhead, Massive Attack, and Belleruche. This approach will provide a fairly diverse and at the same time objective comparison. The dominance of any genre would certainly have a detrimental effect on accuracy.

Having decided on the material and adding it to the player’s library, we begin setting it up. The task is well known to us - to minimize the gag in the form of all sorts of “improvers” that the player may try to “stuff” into our music.

Personally, as you can see, I prefer to leave the absolute minimum of options activated. This provides a consistently high volume level of Replay Gain, protects your ears from excess volume with Automatic Gain Protection and is responsible for the operation of the player in the background Service mode. No equalizers, crossfade or other settings, as they say, from the evil one.

Next, switch Resampling to Audiophile mode. Thus, achieving the activation of the most accurate resampling at the cost of additional load on the CPU. And, as a result, increasing battery consumption. You have to pay for everything in this life.

Great things await us at Audio Hardware. We reduce the Hardware Latency value to 80 ms, disable the Dither option (after all, we are going to listen to FLAC 24/96). We turn off the same Generic Driver, which is the basis of the standard Android system mixer. Thus, we are trying to ensure that Neutron works with Samsung drivers. And thus UHQ Upscale. All. Only Hardware Gain, Audio Focus and CPU Wake Lock should remain enabled. Don't pay attention to the value of the Frequency parameter. His Neutorn indicator never worked accurately. You and I could verify this at the time.

That's all. Let's start testing. Klipsh X7i will help us with it. Their musical capabilities are quite sufficient for such a task.

I won't beat around the bush. The sound has changed. He has improved in every way. From detailing to tool positioning. The vocals sounded incomparably more pleasant. I don't want to go back to the stock player anymore. Alas, I cannot reliably say that this is the merit of UHQ Upscale. And any Samsung developments. There remains a possibility that we are simply dealing with a very well-functioning Neutron resampler of the current version.

A blind comparison with the Galaxy S3, upgraded according to the same recipe, revealed some superiority of the “veteran” in volume and detail. For Note 5, the peak recommended value for reinforcement headphones is 73. While the S3 easily rises above 80. Some nuances of the tracks performed by the S3 also sound more comfortable. More detailed and refined.

But be that as it may, this cannot be compared with the results of a standard player. The level is fundamentally different. There is a gap with the upgraded S3, but it’s not as catastrophic as before. However, I cannot give a definite answer to the question of whether UHQ Upscale works for third-party players using Neutron as an example. Only one more test can put the finishing touches on this. This time with hardware decoding enabled. This will be discussed in the next article in the series. See you later! :)

If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

2014-11-22T00:40

2014-11-22T00:40

Audiophile's Software

ATTENTION: As new information becomes available, the article is updated and supplemented (see date of last update).

Copyright Taras Kovrijenko 2014

Full or partial copying of the text is allowed only with the written permission of the author.

Introduction

Not long ago I developed a special method for testing software audio players for Windows (more precisely, a method for testing their sound engines). Now in relevant section you can find detailed analysis of almost all popular players - from foobar2000 to iTunes and WMP.

As practice has already shown, in the Android OS there are various options for sound output, not to mention its processing by the players themselves. While we do not have sufficient knowledge in the field of circuit design of Android devices, and there is no information on the Internet (in an accessible form) about the design of the Android OS sound subsystem, therefore the device is something of a black box for us. We only have an input (input file) and an output (analog headphone output). Using various input influences (that is, using files with various test signals), combining them with various software/device settings and analyzing the output result, we can build hypotheses about the structure and characteristics of various parts of the audio path.

Some features of Android OS

In the process of preparing this test, I still made some inquiries regarding sound playback on Android. Among other things, I received answers to some of my questions from AIMP developer Artyom Izmailov.

So, first of all, every Android device has a “native” sampling rate and bit depth supported by hardware. It is with this data format that the DSP/DAC works, and only in this form can the device receive sound data from applications. As a rule, it is 16 bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz (in my case 44.1). You can determine the hardware frequency for a device using the Audio Buffer Size program.

Secondly, there are two output methods in the system: using the AudioTrack class and using the OpenSL interface. Moreover, in the first case, options with native code and managed code (Java virtual machine) are possible.

The test will show how these features will manifest themselves in practice.

What functions are we testing?

The purpose of this testing is to examine the playback quality of the most popular Android players, and also, if possible, to form at least an approximate idea of ​​the structure of the Android OS sound subsystem.

Thus, I will only touch on aspects of sound, in isolation from ease of use and other issues. But here it is also necessary to decide What exactly we will explore in terms of sound reproduction. In order for the test to be complete, it is necessary to test all elements of the audio path that can be used in certain cases:

1. Decoder- testing using uncompressed PCM 16 and 24 bit formats, compressed lossless formats FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), WavPack, TAK, Apple Lossless (ALAC) and lossy formats MP3, AAC, OGG Vorbis, Opus, Musepack (MPC) The formats listed were chosen due to their popularity and/or effectiveness.
2. Testing useful processors- ReplayGain, preamp, limiter, volume control. These processors are needed to control the volume level and therefore may be needed both for scaling and for signal compression (in noisy rooms). It is also possible (but not required) to test the equalizer and some other processing functions.
3. Testing resamplers and bit depth converters included in the audio path. To do this, signals with different bit depths and sampling rates will be supplied to the input. In this case, theoretically, depending on the settings, either handlers built into the player, or Android services or device hardware handlers can be used.

Test signals

• Pure tone 1 kHz with level 0 and –6 dBFS (16 bit 44.1 kHz) - checks the maximum output level and compressors;
• 60 Hz tone modulated at 1 Hz with filtering of higher derivative harmonics;
• previous signal encoded in lossy formats with a level of +6 dBFS - to check floating point decoding and functions that operate on volume levels: ReplayGain, preamp, limiter, volume control;
• standard files with a set of RMAA test signals (combinations of bit depth 16, 24 bits and sampling frequencies 44.1–96 kHz) in all tested formats (PCM, lossless, lossy);
• music files in various formats.

Hardware and software

The test uses a Lenovo A516 mobile phone running Android 4.2.2, with completely updated system software.

Taking into account the wishes of site users (in the comments to test announcement), and also based on my personal assessment of quality, functionality and popularity, I chose the following eight players for the test:

Poweramp 2.0.9
Neutron Music Player 1.79.1
AIMP 0.9 RC2 (beta)
DeaDBeeF 1.21
jetAudio Plus 4.4.0
VLC 0.9.10 (beta)
PlayerPro 2.91 + DSP Pack
GoneMAD Music Player 1.6.6

An ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card was used to record the signal from the device's output (signal-to-noise for the line input is 118 dB).

During the test I used the programs RightMark Audio Analyzer And .

Testing methodology (algorithm)

1. Pre-installation of tested players and copying test samples into the device memory.
2. Reboot the device, clear the RAM from unnecessary processes.
3. Launch the first tested player (default settings).
4. Estimation of the output volume level (sine wave 1 kHz –0 dBFS) at the maximum position of the control, visual analysis of distortions using a spectral analyzer.
5. Checking support for various audio formats.
6. Floating point decoding check (over-level sample).
7. Familiarization with audio output settings, handlers, etc. Analysis of their quality using test samples.
8. Setting optimal audio output settings, testing RMAA.
9. Clear RAM and repeat steps 3–8 for the remaining players being tested.
10. Carrying out additional tests (resampling, bit depth conversion, MP3 and AAC decoding).

At the end of the test, I will present a summary table of results for all eight players.

Preparing the device

To ensure correct measurements of the volume level, we will set in the MTK engineering menu the highest volume for the maximum position of the control, as well as the highest gain level at which clipping does not occur (based on the results of preliminary tests). To do this, go to the Hardware->Audio->Headset mode section and set the desired value Max Vol., and Media/Level 6/Value is...:

Testing

Poweramp

The output level for a 1 kHz sine wave was –10.5 dB, there was no clipping.

It should be noted that by default the player settings enable the function direct volume control (DVC). When it was turned off, the signal level dropped by 4 dB (to –14.5). As it turns out, the volume is reduced by the tone control, which is also turned on by default. When it was turned off, the volume increased by exactly 7 dB - to –7.5, which is three dB higher than the volume with DVC turned on.

In the future, we will take the volume level provided by Poweramp - –7.5 dB - as nominal (the maximum possible for the device).

Studies of DVC function have yielded some very interesting findings. This function (DVC) disables volume control by the device driver, and then begins to independently control the volume level. So, on HTC, enabling this function gives a volume increase of as much as 6 dB. It turned out that the driver specifically lowers the maximum volume, making that 6dB of headroom available only for BeatsAudio EQ (that's where the ridiculousness of the BeatsAudio feature lies - it's essentially a tick EQ + unlocking the entire volume range). By the way, for devices with BeatsAudio, Poweramp has a special option to disable this function.

On Lenovo A516 the situation is somewhat different. In the process of preparing the device (previous paragraph), we increased the volume level for the extreme position of the control from 240 to 255. As I already said, these are the values ​​that are controlled directly by Poweramp in DVC mode. However, for some unknown reason, the player was unable to reach the maximum value of 255 points, with the slider at the far right position it corresponded to 244, and therefore the player gave a volume 3 dB lower in DVC mode than when this function was turned off and the value was manually set to 255. At the original At the same value of 240 points, the player actually increased the volume when DVC was turned on, and without turning on this function, RMAA showed a rather peculiar signal distortion:

At first I took this for a small clipping, but then I realized that when cutting, only multiple frequency components (higher harmonics) appear, and in this case, distortion also appears at a signal level of –60 dBFS. Then I remembered that this characteristic “skirt” around a pure tone is characteristic of the jitter effect.

Why jitter occurs in a system is a mystery. By the way, even in preliminary tests I noted the instability of RMAA readings, especially in cases where third-party programs were running in the background - in such cases the jitter increased.

Thus, when adjusting the volume control value manually, the DVC function is no longer needed. However, when it is turned off, a rather interesting situation is observed in the player itself: the preamp control begins to work only to reduce the level, and only when the tone control and/or equalizer is turned on. The default preamp value (mid position) becomes –6 dB.

Now let's move on to more detailed testing of the decoding and processing functions. Unfortunately, the test showed that the player performs lossy decoding in a fixed-point format, therefore, if the files exceed the maximum level, clipping cannot be avoided either using ReplayGain, or using a preamp or limiter.

The preamp slider in the settings adjusts the volume level within a range of ±6 dB for DVC: on and from 0 to –12 dB when DVC is turned off. The tone controls allow you to increase the bass volume (5 kHz) by about 6 dB:

Tone controls at maximum position

The equalizer has 10 bands (from 31 Hz to 16 kHz), with an adjustment range of ±10 dB.

1 kHz slider set to minimum (–10 dB)

As you can see, bell type equalization is used (“bell-shaped”, there is also “shelf”), the filter quality factor is equal to two (the bandwidth at a filtering frequency of 1 kHz is 0.5 kHz).

As already mentioned, the player has expanded support for ReplayGain (source selection, gain for tracks with/without RG tags, clipping prevention).

The limiter test showed that it does not completely cope with clipping, although it somewhat reduces it. Thus, I would not recommend using a limiter in this player.

To summarize, I will say that the overall impression of the player is positive. The main feature of the player is the presence of a direct volume control function, which, however, will not be useful on all devices. Provided there is no clipping in the source files, the player provides excellent playback quality.

Neutron

Perhaps the most sophisticated player in terms of the number of parameters for processing and sound output. Let’s check now what advantages these parameters will give us.

First of all, this player immediately pleased me with its support for the progressive formats Opus and TAK (which are not supported by Poweramp).

NeutronMP has ReplayGain enabled by default, as well as auto volume control. Decoding lossy into floating point format was immediately detected - the player detected clipping within a second and automatically lowered the volume.

With default settings, the player gave an output signal level of –7.6 dBFS - 0.1 dB below the maximum (as it turned out, auto volume control worked).

Going through the settings, I found many interesting functions at first glance. So, for example, the resampling option has two modes: Quality And Audiophilia. However, it is interesting that even in audiophile mode, ultrasound is reflected into the audible region (although the reflections are suppressed to some extent); in quality mode, multiple reflections occur in the audible area (with multiple resampling) - fixed in version 1.79. It is also interesting that for some reason the low-pass filter is called “low-pass filter,” although it is the opposite of a high-pass filter.

In the output settings, you can see the current bit depth of processing (32 bits by default) and output (on Android it's only 16 bits), as well as the sampling rate and output method. The player supports output via OpenSL and JNI, however, this did not affect the objective characteristics of the path in any way (RMAA results coincide within a random error). It is also unclear why there is the possibility of 64-bit processing. Such a huge bit depth makes sense only in studio mastering, when dozens of filters are applied to the recording (since the rounding error accumulates with each processing). The same applies to dezering, which generally only makes sense for devices with a dynamic range of >96 dB.

Among the useful functions, we can note the already mentioned auto volume control. By the way, there, in the equipment settings, there is an option to control the hardware volume. When this option is disabled, the player has its own volume control, located at the very end of the DSP chain (before converting to a fixed point) and allowing both lowering and increasing the volume. That is, the hardware volume control function is not an analogue of DVC, but simply switches to control exclusively the overall volume of the system.

As for the equalizer, it is parametric: two shelving filters (low-pass and high-pass), indicating frequency and slope, and two bell-type filters, indicating frequency and quality factor. Of course, the approach to implementing an equalizer for such software is non-standard, but I still doubt the convenience of such a solution for the end user.

Let me summarize. Among the advantages of the player, we should note support for floating point decoding, support for TAK and Opus formats, as well as auto volume correction. The downsides are the not very convenient equalizer and a lot of options with dubious usefulness, piled up on one settings page.

jetAudio

Also a very interesting specimen. Perhaps the leader in the number of patented sound improvement technologies, which we will now look into.

With default settings, the signal level was –17.3 dB, i.e. 9.8 dB below nominal. When turning off the AKG function, the volume increased by 7.8 dB, to -9.5 dB, and it seems that this is the maximum for jetAudio (as turning off the remaining equalizer did not lead to a change in level).

Dynamic Range

The measurement results for jetAudio are not encouraging: the same jitter is present that was in other players before the volume control value was adjusted.

Interestingly, additional tests showed: with an increase in Max. Vol. in the engineering menu by one step (from 120 to 121), jetAudio gave the nominal volume level and the absence of any additional distortion. However, at the same time, all other players began to work with clipping.

Now let's get acquainted with the handlers of this player.

jetAudio has a very good 10-/20-band equalizer with a range of ±10 dB, which is also a set of bell (and extreme shelf) filters with a quality factor of 2. The player has a record number of sound effects, divided into three groups: Sound effects jetAudio, AM3D sound amplifier, Bongiovi DPS.

The first group contains effects for bass boost, stereo widening, reverb, pitch and automatic gain control (AGC). The last function is nothing more than a compressor - Not limiter Even at its maximum setting, this handler reduces the volume of a 0 dBFS pure tone by 4 dB, while also boosting the level of quieter sounds.

X-Bass is an effect that is a banal bass boost. It has three versions, here is an example of their operation with the regulator position at 50%:

By the way, the third version is turned on with a special checkbox in the settings, with a warning about possible “brakes”, and, apparently, is a higher-order filter (in fact, it includes discarding the lowest frequencies).

The AM3D group contains effects for bass and treble enhancement, stereo panorama expansion, and volume enhancement. Example of Z-Bass + Z-Treble 50%:

The peak of the bass boost is at 20 Hz, which is quite strange.

Z-Boost and Z-Surround are a simple maximizer (a compressor aimed at increasing volume) and a stereo expander without adjustability (in JetAudio Sound Effects, the degree of stereo expansion is adjustable).

But the most interesting thing is of course Bongiovi DPS. As far as I understand, the idea of ​​the technology is to adjust the frequency response of the headphones used by turning on the appropriate preset. However, the description of the technology, of course, talks about certified specialists and the unsurpassed quality of playback provided by the technology they developed, which implements analysis (!) and processing of recordings in real time. Well, let's check what's true and what's not.

Here are the frequency response graphs for the Sony Senheiser HD280 Pro preset, taken using the frequency dialing and floating sine method:

And here is a graph of the frequency response of the headphones themselves from Personalaudio.ru:

What conclusions can be drawn? Firstly, there is no real-time audio analysis here; this is the most common equalization by convolution using a given impulse response. Secondly, there is no smell of fine correction of the frequency response here either. This is the usual rise in low frequencies and high frequencies with peaks at certain points (the graphs of other presets are very similar in shape and differ only in the location of the peaks). So it seems that the “experts” really tuned it manually, by ear (as indicated in the description of the technology), while not caring too much about equalizing the frequency response.

As for decoding and floating point, the player decodes lossy into fixed point format, so clipping cannot be avoided. All sound effects, except for the preamp and the actual JetAudio Sound Effects, are in the chain after the AGC (including the equalizer), and therefore it is also impossible to automatically eliminate clipping that occurs in them.

My verdict: visually attractive, but, as far as the sound path is concerned, a rather poorly constructed player. I do not recommend for use.

AIMP

This is the simplest audio player built on the basis of BASS libraries. Supports MPC and Opus formats.

The default volume level was -7.5 dB, i.e. similar to Poweramp without DVC; The RMAA readings also coincided.

Of the effects, there is only an 8-band equalizer with a limiter turned on and, for some reason, a preamp that follows it. Lossy decoding is performed in a fixed-point format.

One of the strange things is that the player freezes when trying to play Monkey's Audio Insane.

Verdict: the most ordinary player with rather meager functionality.

VLC

Also a fairly simple audio/video player.

Volume level and RMAA results are similar to Poweramp DVC:off. VLC has three audio output modes: AudioTrack (Java), AudioTrack (native code), OpenSL ES. After choosing the second method, the player froze when playing started, but the other two methods gave a completely identical stream.

Decoding is done with a fixed point. There is a 10-band equalizer.

In general, the player showed rather unstable performance and also froze when playing APE Insane. Verdict: the product is quite crude, and in general it still looks pretty poor. One of the advantages that can be noted is the support for Opus.

DeaDBeef

An inconspicuous player, chosen by me only based on your requests.

The signal level and RMAA readings are standard, decoding is performed with a fixed point, there is a simple 10-band equalizer with Preamp and without a limiter. There is support for APE Insane and MPC. Supports ReplayGain (no gain adjustment).

PlayerPro + DSP Pack

Quite a functional player with a nice interface.

The signal level and RMAA readings are standard, decodes with a fixed point. Most processing functions are only available after installing and activating the DSP Pack. The full version includes a 10-band equalizer with limiter and preamp, low-frequency gain control, and stereo panorama expansion control.

Also in the full version there is expanded support for ReplayGain (with fine tuning).

The player left a positive impression.

GoneMAD

Powerful, paid player with support for Opus and Musepack formats. Volume level and RMAA readings are standard.

Decoding is done with a fixed point. The player has the ability to use both built-in and its own customizable 10-band equalizer; has a customizable built-in limiter that comes after the equalizer, but before bass amplifier and virtualizer (they may experience overload).

There is basic support for ReplayGain.

The overall assessment is positive.

Additional testing

Additionally, I conducted research into how players process frequencies other than 44.1 kHz, as well as 24-bit. I also compared the operation of MP3 and AAC decoders, or rather, the streams at their output.

The results showed that all players successfully decode high-res encoded in FLAC. Reducing the bit depth is performed by discarding the least significant bits (except for Neutron; however, due to the limited dynamic range, it was not possible to evaluate dethering). Resampling situation: high-quality downsampling is performed by Neutron, Poweramp and GoneMAD; Neutron (in audiophile mode), AIMP and DeaDBeeF provide acceptable aliasing suppression, while jetAudio, VLC and PlayerPro do not use anti-aliasing filters at all.

Regarding MP3 and AAC decoding: all players showed identical results, only jetAudio distinguished itself, in which minor but rather strange intermodulation distortion appeared on MP3 from somewhere:

Results

Android audio subsystem

First of all, we should draw conclusions about the Android system as a whole. Firstly, different output methods do not affect the content of the audio stream in any way. Secondly, the situation with volume control turned out to be very interesting. In most cases, when the volume was lower than nominal, distortion very similar to jitter appeared in the graphs. This is where the differences between players like Poweramp and jetAudio come into play, as they set the output volume differently.

However, it should be noted that everything related to volume may be related to the characteristics of this particular device; on other phones, these players may well play without introducing any additional distortion.

Comparison of players

As promised, here is a summary table of the results:

And here is a table with data from the Google Play store:

Thus, Neutron gets the gold from us. It has all the functions necessary for high-quality audio playback: floating point decoding, auto volume correction; and also supports all current formats (including the most high-tech TAK and Opus). But, in fairness, some disadvantages of this player should be noted: a not very convenient parametric equalizer, the lack of the ability to maximize volume using ReplayGain (there is no clipping prevention setting), as well as many settings, the benefits of which are very doubtful.

Second place goes to Poweramp. The player has a fairly well-thought-out sound path, high-quality processors, and an excellent resampler. Of the minuses, it is worth noting the lack of floating point decoding and Opus support. Also, a distinctive feature of this player - the DVC function - is not always useful, and when it is turned off, the ability to increase the volume using the preamp disappears.

Third place was shared by the players GoneMAD and PlayerPro, which can be fully recommended for high-quality music playback.

The outsiders of the test were the rather strange player JetAudio and the extremely unstable VLC.

Formula for high-quality sound for Android

And now directly to practice. How to get the best sound quality on Android?- you ask. The answer will be as follows:

1. Adjust the gain level in the engineering menu, setting the maximum possible level at which clipping does not occur, and also remove all processors like Beats Audio from the system.

A complete, detailed test of the sound subsystem and popular audio players for Android OS.