Music quality, tinny / low bit rate sounding sound

[stuartsjg 2]

Hello, I often watch TV or movies on the app and it works brilliantly. Local or remote network, WiFi or mobile gives me no issues.

 

Was getting sick of music on my car mp3 player so played a playlist on emby via line in. I was amazed how bad the audio was. It was like 64k with a tinny/over compressed or badly decoded quality.

 

I thought it was a mobile bandwidth issue but video playback of 2mb was OK and audio quality on Lan was unchanged.

 

Phone audio is fine, playing a video gives me crisp clear sound, playing an mp3 from the phone or using Spotify is also clear.

 

Playing audio by pc browser gives me good quality, again when both local and remote so I'm sure it's the app.

 

As far as I can see there are no audio settings which I can adjust.

 

Any help would be good.

[Luke 37008]

that's strange. it really shouldn't happen. we're using vlc for audio playback and it can handle anything without any server transcoding required. can you provide me with a sample file? thanks.

[stuartsjg 2]

Hello,

 

I've not been on this in a while as i hadn't been using my phone really for music but as i had upgraded to a new Sony Z5 ive revisited this issue.

 

I have hooked my phone output to the PC linein and recorded some samples music.   Please see this google drive link for files https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-bFMQNJGSS-LUNSSURscWZGV0U&usp=sharing

 

I've tried to pick music which its most noticeable on, its audible on anything but some types of music more and less so.   I don't hear anything like this playing back video files, only audio.  

 

I've recorded the same track always played from the Z5 from the Emby Android App, from browser and the same song streamed from Amazon purchased Music.  Ive also included the source file which emby is using from my server.   Recordings were all done at the same levels on phone and Line in.   Recording files are WAV 16-bit Stereo to ensure no extra MP3 conversion changes how its heard.

 

If you have a listen to any of the emby app files you will hear a harshness/roughness.   I don't know if this is perhaps a settings issue somewhere.   Its only the Andorid app i hear this on, no issues with browser or Roku playback.

 

For reference, my general listening environments from Android is either; listening in car is a Bose sound system and i either use AKG K550 headphones or Sennheiser Momentum headphones.   Source was Sony Z1 and from yesterday is the Sony Z5.

 

Any help would be appreciated as i find i cannot really use the App for music.

[Luke 37008]

We use vlc for playback, and perhaps it's just not handling those files very well. We may update libVlc soon so that could end up helping this.

[stuartsjg 2]

Hiya, when you say "those files" do you mean mp3 and flac or the specific ones I've demoed here?

 

I've just played about 25 tracks from a wide range of music types (probably mostly mp3 and flac) and it's audible on them all.

 

Some tracks, for example electronic music like Black Eyed Peas is hard to hear but on some parts you hear it.

 

Trying other players, eg playing on mediamonkey sounds fine. Tried vlc player and I don't get the same distortion there either.

 

I look forward to any future android app update. Let me know if any info I can give you would be useful.

[afash73 0]

I'm having problem with video streaming to milk vr. It's a virtual app. I'm hearing buzzing sound or low volume playing movie. I have no problem on kodi or app itself reading directly from sd.

[ep0ch 1]

I have just purchased Emby for Android and I have to agree, the sound is extremely bad when playing music - like an 8-bit 22khz 64kbps mp3. And my sources are in flac, mp3 and vorbis.

 

I've tried this on a Samsung Galaxy S IV and Nexus 7 2013 both with the same problem.

 

If I use Chrome on these devices and access Emby via the web interface the audio quality is a million times better.

 

Please investigate

[Luke 37008]

Maybe we'll just not use vlc for audio anymore

[ep0ch 1]

I can't imagine VLC having this issue built in, unless Emby has it misconfigured? Anyway let me know if you need any testing. Thanks

[Luke 37008]

It's following the vlc app to a T. We do not have it misconfigured.

[esp1818 6]

I have the same problem. It sounds like it's playing at a very low bitrate. If I play it through Chrome it sounds much better. When it's playing through the android app it says that it is transcoding when I look at the "Manage Server" page and when I stream through Chrome it says it's direct streaming. There is no transcoding log though. Also when I use the VLC app natively and play music over the network it sounds fine.

 

[stuartsjg 2]

Sounds like others are hearing the same thing as I had been. It's a shame, I use the app alot but for music I need to go to chrome or use vlc player app.

 

I've not yet found a file type or format which sounds good, I'll need to remember if I tried .wav files.

 

Some tracks it's less noticeable on only due to that track perhaps being of an electronic or synth type track.

 

Others reporting the issue, are you on Android or a Sony phone too? Wondering if it's some Sony thing?

 

Can't try on my wife's iPhone as it won't detect my emby subscription and wants me to buy again.

 

Not sure if it will get fixed as few appear to have the problem or perhaps few notice. I know it sounds fine on any cheap headphones as they sound worse!

 

Great app and service otherwise.

[ep0ch 1]

I did a little more testing...

 

So on Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy S4, Emby for Android (paid version used) has poor sound.

 

On a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 the sound is fine with Emby for Android (trial version used)

 

Downloading one of the .flac files onto the S4 and playing with VLC sounds fine.

 

My test track is Adele's Hello in flac - it's just very obvious in the piano at the beginning when it is being played incorrectly.

[ep0ch 1]

I did a little more testing...

 

So on Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy S4, Emby for Android (paid version used) has poor sound.

 

On a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 the sound is fine with Emby for Android (trial version used)

 

Downloading one of the .flac files onto the S4 and playing with VLC sounds fine.

 

My test track is Adele's Hello in flac - it's just very obvious in the piano at the beginning when it is being played incorrectly.

 

Seems that my redmi note is running 2.5.73 whereas the nexus 7 and S4 are using stable.

So this issue is possibly fixed in 2.5.73. I'll revert my redmi note to stable and do another test tomorrow.

[Luke 37008]

Well there's no change in 2.5.73 related to this. I am still thinking of just switching back to the native player. Please subscribe to the open beta i may post it to there soon:

 

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/24350-android-open-beta-testing/

 

Thanks.

[Luke 37008]

Please try 2.5.83 which I've just posted to the open beta. If you have the android system web view version 48 or higher installed, the app will now use the native audio player. Please let me know if it sounds better.

[esp1818 6]

I just tested it out with the 2.5.93 and it sounds much better to me now.

[Luke 37008]

Well done, thanks.

[stuartsjg 2]

Hi,

 

Just updated to 2.5.93 too and what an amazing difference - not found any problems playing anything yet.   Great effort on the team, thanks for the continued support.

 

App pretty much perfect as far as i can see for what i use it for - Only thing on my wish list is being able to instruct several devices to play the same thing but i know this is in other threads.