Sound quality issue in Pandora...

[raceMpower95]

I know just about everyone with a phone these days is using Pandora. I DL'ed and it seems to work fine when just sitting around playing it through the Droid's speaker. When I connect it to any device with a 3.5mm stereo cable though, it develops this weird sporadic crackle noise. Every once in a while it sounds as though a blown speaker is clicking or something. (Speakers are obviously not blown.)

I tried uninstalling it and re-dl'ing and installing, but it is still happening. I have read numerous reviews hailing Pandora for it's high quality streaming. What gives here? Is anyone else experiencing this?

 

[ionblaster]

I haven't tried this on my phone yet, but my Harmon Kardon 2.1 speaker set does the same thing on my desktop, I'm using Pandora One. I get a static popping noise through the speakers. I wonder if it could be just that, static electricity?

 

[DaHarder]

Pandora, actually most streaming music services, tend to deliver rather poor-to-middling sound quality anyway, and this 'crackling' noise just happens to be part of those many sonic anomalies.

At least in my experience.​

 

[RoMMz]

Mine does the same...I hear crackles and pops every once in a while. Have you guys tried setting Pandora's Cell network Audio Quality to High in Preferences?


I will try it on my way home from work.

 

[mrschmitz]

I've noticed this, too. Turn the volume on the Droid down, and that crackle should go away. It seems the gain on the Pandora app (as well as the built in music app) is too high when the Droid is at full volume.

That fixed it for me.

 

[raceMpower95]

Well I have tried turning the volume down on the phone, but that doesn't fix it. I have never noticed it when using Pandora on the computer. I have always gotten pretty good quality out of it when coupled with my Logitech 5.1 system on my computer.

This is getting annoying though because once of the highlights of this phone for me was going be having Pandora in the car.

 

[Dream]

Have you guys tried changing the quality settings? I have 0 issues with my Pandora.

 

[jasonb]

Well I have tried turning the volume down on the phone, but that doesn't fix it. I have never noticed it when using Pandora on the computer. I have always gotten pretty good quality out of it when coupled with my Logitech 5.1 system on my computer.

This is getting annoying though because once of the highlights of this phone for me was going be having Pandora in the car.

there are also other internet radio apps out there. LastFM and DroidLive are good ones too. i have the Pandora app but i mostly use DroidLive. EDIT: i was listening to DroidLive when i typed this, but just now i switched to Pandora to test it out while hooked up to my big home theater system. it sounds fine to me. i have the volume on the Droid set 3 notches from full volume and i am not hearing any unusual noises through my big tower speakers or my subwoofer. it just sounds like normal MP3 quality audio to me.

 

[GadgetRick]

The cracking is not a bandwidth issue. It's something else.

I do notice Pandora on my phone doesn't have the same audio quality as it does on my computer. No high or low freqs (or not enough is a better way to describe it). Not that it's HORRIBLE or anything but I expected better. This is a bandwidth issue for sure.

 

[Lynx]

I noticed this before the 2.0.1 update. If I turned down the volume on my phone 2 clicks it went away. Since the update however I have not had the issue at all. It has absolutely nothing to do with bandwith.

 

[bradgsanford]

Does it crackle and pop when it's plugged in to the charger? Mine does. The minute I pull the charger it's smooth.

Also, I recently bought a new 3.5mm male to male cord and the new cord makes a world of difference. Almost like the old one was the cause of the snap, crackle, and pop.

The biggest thing though is it'll hum and pop when it's plugged in.

 

[jasonb]

sounds to me like the signal from Pandora is just to hot and will sometimes clip. i have noticed the last few notches on the volume make no changes so that to me seems like it is being overdriven.

 

[msu]

I don't really have a problem with Pandora, but I tried Slacker out yesterday and the sound was horrible.

 

[imiller913]

Yeah I have the same problem with pandora, and I tried turning the volume down a little bit but not as far as others here, I'll try that just disappointing it work fine on my bb tour

 

[hobby31]

This might be unrelated. I use pandora through headphone while I work out and haven't noticed any crackling. yesterday I was listening to my music through the music app and had a lot of crackling. I thought i might have damaged to 3.5 jack in droid as it seemed to get worse if I jiggled the headphone line. I thought it might be the headphones themselves so I changed to another set but the crackling continued. It then donned on me that I hadn't gone through my usual routine of opening my taskmanager to close apps I wasn't using. After closing a lot of apps, the sound was fine. I chalked it up to some app interfering the with sound. This might be unrealated to pandora but it could be. I haven't tried pandora in a few days.