Neutron Music Player v1.79.4 + NEON + X86 - audio player with professional settings for Android

Is a powerful audio player with incomparable, unrivaled sound quality.

Almost all types of audio files are supported. The program implements a unique audio engine that makes the sound clear and transparent. The richest settings allow even the most demanding user to customize the program for himself. Read the full news about the possibilities.

Peculiarities:

• 32/64 bit audio decoder
• 4-band graphic equalizer
• 44-zone spectrum analyzer
• personal settings for the frequency characteristics of the equalizer (parametric !!!)
• several informative widgets
• low consumption of RAM (about 20-22 MB)

Audio Formats: MP1, MP2, MP3, OGG, FLAC (8, 16, 24, 32-bit), WMA, AC3, AAC, M4A, M4B, M4R, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, MOV, APE, ALAC, WAV ( PCM 8, 16, 24, 32-bit big endian), ima4, MS-ADPCM, u-law, a-law), AU (PCM 8, 16, 24, 32, 64-bit Big Endian, u-law , a-law), iTunes inclusive, excluding DRM protection

Modular audio formats: MOD, IM, XM, S3M

• Audio crossfeeding when using speakers / headphones for better stereo signal perception, real-time RMS bar
• Fast UI responsiveness, SD card transfer capability
• CUE playlist, sort, shuffle, loops, album art, visual effect based on the music being played
• Sleep and wake timers

… and many many others.

The difference between the regular version and NEON:

• (ARMv7)

This is Standard version of Neutron. It supports devices having ARMv7 CPU.

• Neutron Music Player (ARMv7 + NEON)

Around 25% faster version of Neutron but suitable only for devices with ARMv7 CPU and NEON SIMD extensions. Example of such devices: Galaxy S, Galaxy S II. If your device can't handle this APK install standard one.

On my own: I have always considered PowerAMP to be the greatest creation for listening to music on Android until I tasted Neutron. A little advice. If instead of lossless you prefer to drive MP3 and other oak, compressed formats, coupled with the standard headphones supplied with the phone, instead of lossless, then Neutron is most likely not for you ((Do not lift the middle value of the slider low frequencies, it is enough to define it in the region of 60Hz. Achieved empirically. Otherwise, you can get an annoying "boom-boom" instead of soft, rich lows. Although there really is a taste and color ... I listen to heavy music, but for trance or pop music, maybe another option will do. If you see small artifacts in the middle frequencies in the form of barely audible crackling, do not torment the equalizer! In the settings, disable the use of the base audio driver! It is enabled by default during installation. Please be patient to adjust the frequency response of the Master EQ. Then it will simply be easier when you find the “golden mean”. Shl! Two versions of the program are provided: standard and NEON. The differences are a couple of lines above. Choose at your own discretion. About the devouring of the battery, in case of questions. In the settings you will find a built-in optimizer. Standard, quality, audiophile available. I will not say anything about this, but I did not notice any particular gluttony (audiophile, HTC One S, 2-core 1.6 GHz stone). Use your health!)

We've covered basic musical capabilities new firmware for Galaxy Note 5. Yes, now we can talk about full support by the flagships of the Korean company Hi-Res Audio. But the stock player is still far from the audiophile's dream limit. Let's see how our old friend Neutron Music Player gets along with the Note 5.

Resampler not shining with quality. The sound, despite the nominal 24/96 support, is not overwhelming. All this is a diagnosis of a stock player from Samsung. Therefore, feel free to download Neutron Music Player with the Neon add-on and try to fix the situation!

Test material for us today will serve as Motorhead, Massive Attack, and Belleruche. This approach will provide a fairly diverse and objective comparison. The predominance 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 proceed to setting it up. The task is well known to us - to minimize the gag in the form of all sorts of "enhancers" that the player can try to "stuff" into our music.

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

Next, we transfer Resampling to Audiophile mode. Thus, achieving the activation of the most accurate resampling at the cost of additional CPU load. And, as a consequence, increasing battery consumption. Everything in this life has to be paid for.

Great things await us at Audio Hardware. Reduce the Hardware Latency value to 80 ms, disable the Dither option (after all, we are going to listen to FLAC 24/96 as well). We cut down 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. Everything. Only Hardware Gain, Audio Focus and CPU Wake Lock should be enabled. Do not pay attention to the value of the Frequency parameter. His indicator for Neutorn never worked for sure. We could be convinced of this in times.

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

I will not beat around the bush. The sound has changed. He has become better in all respects. From detailing to positioning tools. The vocals sounded incomparably more pleasant. I don't want to go back to the stock player anymore. Alas, I cannot reliably claim that this is the merit of UHQ Upscale. And any Samsung developments. The possibility remains that we are simply dealing with a very well working Neutron resampler of the current version.

A blind comparison with the Galaxy S3 pumped up according to the same recipe revealed some superiority of the "veteran" in volume and detail. Note 5 has a peak recommended value for armature headphone serves as mark 73. While S3 easily rises above 80. Some of the nuances of the tracks performed by S3 also sound more comfortable. More detailed and sophisticated.

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 not as catastrophic as before. However, I cannot give an unambiguous answer to the question of whether UHQ Upscale works for third-party players using the example of Neutron. The final point can only be put by one more test. This time with hardware decoding enabled. This will be discussed in the next article of the cycle. See you later! :)

If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press 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 the date of the 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 so long ago, I developed a special methodology for testing software audio players for Windows (more precisely, a methodology for testing their sound engines). Now in the corresponding section you can find a 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. So far, we do not have sufficient knowledge in the field of circuitry of Android devices, and there is no information on the network (in an accessible form) about the device of the Android OS sound subsystem, therefore the device for us is something like a black box. We only have an input (file input) and an output (analog headphone output). With the help of various input actions (that is, using files with different test signals), combining them with different settings Software / devices and analyzing the result at the output, we will be able to hypothesize 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 audio playback on Android. In particular, I received answers to some of my questions from the AIMP developer Artem Izmailov.

So, first of all, everyone Android devices there is 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 the device can receive audio data from applications. As a rule, this is 16 bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz (in my case 44.1). You can determine the hardware frequency for the 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, variants with native code and managed code are possible ( virtual machine Java).

How these features manifest themselves in practice - the test will show.

What functions are we testing

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

Thus, I will only touch on aspects of sound, apart from usability and other points. But here you also need 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 the elements of the audio path that can be used in certain cases:

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

Test signals

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

Hardware and software

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

Taking into account the wishes of the site users (in the comments to the test announcement), and also relying on a personal assessment of the quality factor, 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

To record the signal from the output of the device, we used sound card ASUS Xonar Essence STX (S / N for line input is 118 dB).

During the test, I used RightMark Audio Analyzer and.

Testing method (algorithm)

1. Pre-installation of tested players and copying of test samples to the device memory.
2. Reboot the device, clear RAM from unnecessary processes.
3. Launch of the first tested player (default settings).
4. Evaluation of the output loudness level (sinusoid 1 kHz –0 dBFS) at the maximum position of the knob, visual analysis of distortions using a spectrum analyzer.
5. Checking support for various audio formats.
6. Floating point decoding test (oversampled sample).
7. Familiarization with audio output settings, handlers, etc. Analysis of their quality using test samples.
8. Setting optimal sound output settings, testing RMAA.
9. Clearing the RAM and repeating steps 3–8 for the rest of the tested players.
10. Additional tests (resampling, bit conversion, MP3 and AAC decoding).

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

Preparing the device

For correct measurements of the volume level, in the MTK engineering menu, set the highest volume for the maximum position of the knob, as well as the highest gain level at which no clipping occurs (according to the results of preliminary tests). To do this, go to the Hardware-> Audio-> Headset mode section and set the desired value Max Vol., as well as Media / Level 6 / Value is ...:

Testing

Poweramp

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

It should be noted that by default in the player settings the function is enabled. Direct Volume Control (DVC)... When it was turned off, the signal level dropped by 4 dB (to –14.5). As it turned out, lowering the volume is performed by the key control, which is also enabled 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 the DVC turned on.

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

Studies of the DVC function have led to some very interesting conclusions. This function (DVC) disables volume control by the device driver, and then begins to independently control the volume value. So, on HTC, enabling this function gives a volume increase of as much as 6 dB. It turned out that the driver deliberately lowers the maximum volume, making this 6 dB headroom available only for BeatsAudio EQ (this is where BeatsAudio is ridiculous - in fact, it's a ticked EQ + unlocking the entire volume range). By the way, for devices with BeatsAudio in Poweramp there is a special item to disable this function.

On Lenovo A516, the situation is somewhat different. In the process of preparing the device (the previous paragraph), we increased the volume level for the extreme position of the knob from 240 to 255. As I said, these values ​​are directly controlled by Poweramp in DVC mode. However, for some unknown reason, the player could not reach the maximum value of 255 points, at the extreme right position of the slider it corresponded to 244, and therefore the player gave the volume in DVC mode 3 dB lower than when this function was turned off and the value was manually set to 255. With the initial At the same value of 240 points, the player really increased the volume when the DVC was turned on, and without this function enabled, RMAA showed a rather peculiar signal distortion:

At first I took it for a little clipping, but then I realized that at the cuts, only multiple frequency components (higher harmonics) appear, moreover, in this case, the distortion is also manifested at a signal level of –60 dBFS. Then I remembered that this characteristic "skirt" around the pure tone is inherent in the jitter effect.

Why jitter appears in the system is a mystery. By the way, even in preliminary tests, I noted the instability of the RMAA readings, especially in those cases when third party programs- in such cases, the jitter increased.

Thus, when adjusting the volume control value manually, the DVC function is unnecessary. However, when it is turned off, a rather interesting situation is observed in the player itself: the preamp control starts to work only to decrease the level, and only when the tonality control and / or equalizer is turned on. The default preamp value (midpoint) 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, so if the files exceed the maximum level, clipping cannot be avoided using either ReplayGain, or using a preamp or limiter.

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

Key controls at maximum position

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

1 kHz slider set to minimum (–10 dB)

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

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

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

Summing up, I will say that the overall impression of the player is positive. main feature player - 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 processing parameters and sound output. We will now check what advantages these parameters will give us.

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

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

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

Going through the settings, I found a lot at first glance interesting features... So, for example, the oversampling option has two modes: Quality and Audiophilia... However, it is interesting that even in the audiophile mode, ultrasound is reflected in the audible area (although reflections are suppressed to some extent); in quality mode, multiple reflections occur in the audible area (with multiple oversampling) - fixed in version 1.79. It is also interesting that the low-pass limiter is for some reason called "LPF", although it is, on the contrary, a high-pass filter.

In the output settings, you can see the current processing bit (32 bits by default) and output (on Android it is only 16 bits), as well as the sample rate and output method. The player supports output via OpenSL and JNI, however, this did not affect the objective characteristics of the channel in any way (the RMAA results coincide up to a random error). It is also unclear why there is a 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 with each processing the rounding error accumulates). The same applies to deserting, which generally only makes sense for devices with a dynamic range> 96 dB.

Of the useful functions, the already mentioned auto volume control can be noted. By the way, in the same place, in the hardware 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 to decrease and increase the volume. That is, the hardware volume control function is not analogous to DVC, but simply switching to control exclusively the overall system volume.

As for the equalizer, it is parametric here: two shelving filters (low and high) with frequency and slope, and two bell filters, with frequency and quality. Of course, the approach to the implementation of 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, it should be noted support for floating point decoding, support for TAK and Opus formats, as well as auto volume correction. Among the minuses - not a very convenient equalizer and many options with dubious usefulness, heaped together on one settings page.

jetAudio

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

With the default settings, the signal level was –17.3 dB, ie 9.8 dB below the nominal. When the AKG function was turned off, the volume increased by 7.8 dB, to –9.5 dB, and it looks like this is the maximum for jetAudio (since turning off the remaining equalizer did not change the level).

Dynamic range

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

Interestingly, additional tests showed that when 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 distortions. However, at the same time, all other players began to work with clipping.

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

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

The first group contains the effects of Bass Boost, Stereo Expansion, Reverb, Pitch and Automatic Gain Control (AGC). The latter function is nothing more than a compressor - not limiter. Even at maximum position, this processor reduces the volume of the 0 dBFS pure tone by 4 dB, while also increasing the level of quieter sounds.

X-Bass - an effect that is a banal bass boost. It has three versions, here is an example of how they work when the knob is set to 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 filter of a higher order (in fact, there is included the rejection of the lowest frequencies).

In the AM3D group there are effects of amplification of bass, treble, expansion of a stereo panorama and amplification of volume. An example of how Z-Bass + Z-Treble 50% works:

The bass boost peaks at 20 Hz, which is odd.

Z-Boost and Z-Surround are a normal maximizer (a compressor aimed at increasing the volume) and a stereo expander without adjustment (in jetAudio Sound Effects, the degree of expansion of the stereo panorama 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, in the description of the technology, of course, it tells about graduates and the unsurpassed playback quality provided by the technology developed by them, which implements the analysis (!) And processing of the recording in real time. Well, let's check what is true here and what is not.

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

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

What conclusions can be drawn? Firstly, it doesn't smell like real-time audio analysis, this is the most common equalization by convolution using a given impulse response. Secondly, there is no smell of fine frequency response correction here either. This is a normal boost in bass and treble 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 looks like the "experts" really tuned it manually, by ear (as indicated in the description of the technology), without worrying too much about equalizing the frequency response.

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

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

AIMP

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

The default volume level was –7.5 dB, which is similar to Poweramp without DVC; the RMAA readings also matched.

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

Oddly enough, the player hangs when trying to play Monkey's Audio Insane.

Verdict: the most common player with rather poor functionality.

VLC

Also a pretty basic 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 freezes at the start of playback, while 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 work and also hung when playing APE Insane. Verdict: the product is rather crude, and in general it looks pretty shabby so far. Of the pluses, we can only note the support for Opus.

DeaDBeef

An unremarkable player, chosen by me only at your request.

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 limiter. There is support for APE Insane and MPC. Supports ReplayGain (no gain setting).

PlayerPro + DSP Pack

Quite a functional player with a nice interface.

Signal strength 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 EQ with limiter and preamp, a bass boost control, a stereo panorama expansion control.

also in full version there is extended support for ReplayGain (with fine tuning).

The player left a positive impression.

GoneMAD

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

Decoding is done with a fixed point. The player has the ability to use both the built-in and its own customizable 10-band equalizer; has a configurable built-in limiter, which is located after the equalizer, but before bass booster and virtualizer (overload may occur in these).

There is basic support for ReplayGain.

The overall assessment is positive.

Additional testing

Additionally, I did some research on how players handle frequencies other than 44.1 kHz, as well as 24 bit. I also compared the work of MP3 and AAC decoders, or rather, the streams at their output.

The results showed that all players successfully decode high-res encoded FLAC. The lowering of 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 the desertion). Resampling situation: high-quality downsampling is performed by Neutron, Poweramp and GoneMAD; Neutron (in adiophile mode), AIMP and DeaDBeeF provide acceptable aliasing suppression, while jetAudio, VLC and PlayerPro do not apply anti-aliasing filters at all.

With regards to decoding MP3 and AAC: all players showed an identical result, only jetAudio excelled, in which some insignificant, but rather strange intermodulation distortions appeared on the MP3 from somewhere:

Outcomes

Sound subsystem Android

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

However, it should be noted that everything related to volume may be related to the peculiarities of this particular device, while on other phones these players can play without 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 receives gold from us. It has all the functions you need 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 all fairness, we should note some drawbacks of this player: not a very convenient parametric equalizer, the inability to maximize the volume using ReplayGain (there is no clipping prevention setting), as well as many settings, the use of which is highly questionable.

Poweramp ranks second. 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. Same, distinctive feature this player - the DVC function - is far from always useful, and when you turn it off, you lose the ability to increase the volume using preamp.

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

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

The quality sound formula 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 no clipping occurs, and also remove all handlers like Beats Audio from the system.

Full, detailed test sound subsystem and popular audio players for Android OS.

The music player on the 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 services - subscriptions and there are the likes of Spotify, so people can pretty much rent whatever music they want. The only problem is 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, as, for example, Android players are applications for listening to music in a set:.

When testing / listening, external DACs were used:

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

The length of the wire is 31 cm. The price is 350 rubles.

The shorter the length of 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. Connection description.

We have selected the best music players in our opinion, and now it's time to compare these apps against each other.

The length of the old OTG - USB wire is 60cm.

PlayerPro vs. neutron music player vs. Poweramp vs. Onkyo HF Player

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

Each of these music players offers a free trial to get used to your android music player and see if you want to buy it or not. I believe that no one should pay for these applications as long as you test them. It's a good place to start your exploration, but they all offer different options and features, so I would recommend trying the trials and not buying. paid versions until you find the one you want.

Poweramp is a good player, but messy

Poweramp's interface is good for working with music playback. You can quickly skip to the next track, pause and fast forward without any problem. I work it out, 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 title of the track and various information at the very bottom of the screen.

Poweramp also has a strong support team, with a beautiful website and countless heaps of cover options, as well as “ 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. Judging by the site, their standard support team isn't the best, so use the forum for your complete one.

Poweramp is perfect for categorizing your songs. After dropping a few songs onto my phone and tablet, it just took a few seconds to find my music and translate it into the proper genres and artist categories. You will also notice that playlists are easy to create, and you can always see the playlists in the settings tab on the main track screen. You can always songs.

The Poweramp mobile player also includes a queue option where it's easy to place a bunch of songs in order 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 / changing the settings and mixing options, everything is "write it up".

The Poweramp has buttons and knobs for adjusting bass and tone. The only problem is that the average user never touches this. They could even play with them, but in the end it has no sound quality. But it is better to leave these functions in place, or turn them off altogether.

The second problem is the presentation of songs. I tried to import ten songs and one of them had an album cover. But this player didn't see my covers. Every time, I only saw the boring Poweramp logo. Poweramp fails in this regard.

pros

Poweramp is the right music player for those who want to carry their music collection but are not particularly prone to high sound quality. If you plan on storing your collection in the cloud, then you can choose a different solution. Poweramp works great, but you don't always see the album art. I never do The app is also great for people who want to mess around with the equalizer and a bunch of all sorts of other modifications of possible settings, but because of this, the sound is very distorted.

PlayerPro is the best player for a smartphone on Android

Playepro is the most intuitive music player for the average user. It pulls all the content on your phone and categorizes it right there 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 delivers lossless file playback for those interested in the ideal listening environment, which is exactly what it is for! He sees our external DACs without any problems, he described the connection, etc.

Unfortunately, this playback depends on your hardware! And it pleases! You get powerful functions for setting time, clock and output methods, etc. Equalizer settings are readily available for those looking to find their perfect sound. The Neutron player is enjoyable 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 do moving songs to the 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 upper 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 did not notice the minuses of the Neutron player.

Neutron - Neutron is my favorite Android music player, but it offers many options for those interested in a powerful audiophile player. All Neutron features and functions are great.

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 8 cores and 2-3GB of "RAM". The Neutron player includes two big buttons with arrows that are obviously meant to help people move quickly 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 with better functionality do not always see an external DAC as a source in Android OS, even in the newest 5.0. or 5.1.

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

helped by a case, namely an audiophile friend who advised Onkyo HF Player. Thanks to my sound friend Alexander helped as inappropriate 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 files of the highest quality well.

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

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

By the way, Onkyo has a multi-band equalizer from 32 Hz to 32 kHz with many presets, prepared by well-known and not-so-famous guitarists. Equalizer operation can be accurate HD and normal SD mode.

There is even an adaptation of the Onkyo HF Player to the branded models:

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

Incidentally, Onkyo's iOS player retains 2 important ones.

Tracks on the Onkyo HF Player will play 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 the HF Player of the display of the lyrics of the song sewn into the file.

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

I immediately liked the design and control of this Onkyo HF Player software for android, a kind of real Hi-Fi player - nothing superfluous, silver
with black, although the control is not for everybody, but I also liked it, after 2-3 minutes.

Conclusion

Portable tube headphone amplifier "Svarog"

I hope you are 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 packed full of modern features that make it too chaotic. However, I would suggest that most ordinary people will choose.

The Onkyo HF Player is good for listening, but has fewer settings like the Neutron and PlayerPro, but it's still sound quality.

Neutron Neutron is very similar to a power amplifier, and looks like a non-standard music player. I personally think that the interface for someone is less attractive in neutron, I personally liked it, but this Neutron is the best smartphone player for. And in terms of sound, it is more neutral.

Hope this review helps you.

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

Neutron Music Player is a fast-growing music player for operating system Android, which differs among others in its very high sound quality, as well as the possibility of it fine tuning... 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 the compositions, which will make the sound very clear and unique in the literal 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 the convenient built-in tools for cataloging music and splitting tracks by genre, artist and album. When you launch Neutron Music Player for the first time, the application will automatically scan the memory of the portable device and SD card, finding all the music files. Other useful function player is the ability to set the timer off the program. With all this, the application is completely free and compatible with older versions of Android.