Getting Real Audio Quality from the Droid

[MK17]

As most of us know the headphone jack leaves a lot to be desired for audio volume which affects the quality of your songs. When playing through the 3.5mm jack in my truck I have to crank the volume a lot more which raises the noise floor and causes more distortion in my music and also reduces the available volume.

I took some of the songs that I've loaded onto the Droid and burned them to a CD. From the CD I get MUCH better quality and volume.

I have been looking into buying a new head unit for my car with a USB input. I was wanting to hear from others to see if the quality is much better. (as it should be as good of quality as my CD)

Also, I was wondering if anyone know if there is any work being done to develop a plug/dock that would allow you hook up the Droid and have RCA and or 3.5 mm outputs

 

[dwagner88]

If you are listening to an MP3, even a high bitrate one, it won't sound as good as a CD. Most decent car head units have very good DAC's that tend to reproduce the uncompressed audio from a CD quite well. I have never had a compressed (i.e. MP3) audio source sound as good. Fortunately I tend to not be way too picky about it. I mostly hook up the phone to listen to Pandora anyways. The connection probably isn't as much of a problem as the source. It still won't sound as good as a CD even through USB.

 

[Balthazar B]

You'd want a line-out (such as iPhones have) to bypass the internal DAC in the phone. As far as I can tell, the HDMI out would serve the purpose (so long as your head-unit has HDMI-in, or you have a powered DAC that will take HDMI audio inputs and output it in a form your head unit can take). All in all, it seems like a lot of complexity and cost for an automobile application, where audio quality has already been severely compromised. And as dwagner88 says, the fact that you're dealing with compressed audio (unless you're using FLAC, but then, why would you?) makes it all not worth doing in the first place.

 

[JimmyD]

....As far as I can tell, the HDMI out would serve the purpose (so long as your head-unit has HDMI-in, or you have a powered DAC that will take HDMI audio inputs and output it in a form your head unit can take)....

The Droid does not have HDMI out.

 

[LrdElderon]

better audio is always nice, but you can make improvements by just getting a headphone amp and a decent pair of headphones. Those cheapo 10 dollar sony earbuds don't count. There are some high end ones (being a relative term, they can go into the thousands) for 40-150 bucks.

More than most would pay probably for headphones, but I have a nice setup with some sennheisers headphones (mmm soft comfy earmuffs lol) and it sounds better than basically any normal speaker setup i've heard for music. (guess it depends on what you call music =) ) but instruments and vocals are clear tight and you would be suprised by bass you can get out of headphones.

Other then that, all I can really say is if you want good audio you should really not be using your phone. digital is digital but all the electronics in the phone may have some interference bleeding into the line. High end amps and receivers usually have options to turn sections of them off or even the display panels in order to prevent contamination.

and why not use flac? it's lossless compresses good enough for the storage space we have today and it's pretty widespread/easy to use. unless of course you are more interested in quantity?

 

[Balthazar B]

....As far as I can tell, the HDMI out would serve the purpose (so long as your head-unit has HDMI-in, or you have a powered DAC that will take HDMI audio inputs and output it in a form your head unit can take)....

The Droid does not have HDMI out.

Sorry, I have the Droid X on my mind. dancedroid

 

[baniels]

I think using the droid as a usb mass storage device with a head unit that has usb input will be your best bet.

 

[Greaser]

I don't think you can listen to music through the usb port with the droid, assuming you are plugging into the droid through the data port. You can only get audio through the headphone jack.

 

[zasran]

I like listeing to music via bluetooth, no cables, very convenient, sound quality is pretty good. Using JVC KD-AVX44, no problems,when I turn it on it auto-connects and all sound (audio players, phone calls) go via car speakers.

ero

 

[JWBose]

10 characte

 

[MK17]

Thanks JWBose, that's really good to know because I was also curious about bluetooth since the draw towards wireless is always good.

What I'm looking to achieve is mp3 quality from my Droid. When I took the mp3 from my Droid and burned it to a CD it doesn't make it CD quality. When it uncompresses to burn it to the CD it can still only be as good as its compressed state.

The same thing happens with my ipod. I can plug in from the bottom of my ipod to the Head unit and get much better quality than if I plug it into the Headphone jack. I'm looking to achieve the same with my Droid. So yes, it is all worth the effort, even in a car environment no matter if its mp3 or FLAC

By the way I don't use FLAC generally because mp3 is so much better supported and you can get "close" to FLAC quality with mp3 (either using constant 320 kb or a V0/V2 compression)

Its too bad we can't have support that we could hook up the usb directly to the HU and stream Pandora through it.

 

[joggy]

Boostaroo amps are a solution for the headphone jack. They work OK and do boost the audio out from that jack. It's not a USB solution, but does work.

 

[brosselle]

Headphone output level on the Droid X is weak. My Nano is MUCH louder.

P.S. no lectures on protecting my hearing please