Saturn (swappolube gui creator) made made a reply to my message a few days ago, so there may be a GUI as soon as I explain my script to him.

@punto

Yes I am actually fiddling with the treble and bass, but not directly as they are both accessed through "alsa mixer switches."

@altarMeego
I honestly don't have bluetooth headsets to test, but yea there is room to make the bluetooth headsets louder. If your willing to try it (as It's really not that dangerous anyway) pm me.

@toxaris
Try restarting after applying the script...

Yes - its getting better and better - but I have open an own thread now. Please look in my signature and post ur question there and leave SavageD alone .

Thank you for reading!

I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the alsamixer capabilities on the N900 - how does the access work?

I'm surprised no-one else seems to have mentioned it before, but maybe they're just looking for the increase in fat bass. It appears that you're boosting the bass and/or adjusting the gain to distortion-causing levels - This can be a problem of 'dumb' EQs as well. How much is the scope of adjustment, and to what level are you cranking things up?

Also, I've been experimenting with the butchered WH-205 (i.e. stock earset) + Shure EA650 combo, along with the Beyerdynamic Tesla T1 (a 600ohm phone), and I'm not sure under what circumstances - assuming the headset is actually wired properly - volume would be too soft.

With the N900 set to near full volume with the modified WH-205 plugged in along with the T1 and the Shure volume control used to set a normal listening volume level, I'm presenting nearly 2Kohms of combined load at the headphone socket.

I'm slightly foxed by the audio oddities of the N900 and I'd love a more technical explanation of how the volume can be excessively low with some headsets, assuming they are, once again, correctly wired for the N900.

You don't want to see them - The standard N900 sound is bad enough.
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...5&postcount=11

I'm not in this to destroy N900 devices, I'm merely trying to fix the audio problem. So In respect to the supposed tests that punto, did I'm going to stop this little project of mine, simply because it is too risky.

There's no risk to the N900 - it just means that boosting the gain introduces even more distortion into the mix - to a level even beyond the serious amounts already present on the N900 (at least with PR1.3). We're not talking a bit more compared to other typical MP3 players, it's a LOT more. If you just want louder crud, then yes - whatever you're doing would be fine. I fully appreciate the drawbacks has little to do with your efforts though.

Someone (i.e. Nokia) needs to fix pulseaudio or whatever's responsible for this - I'm pretty definite it's not the hardware. It just makes it almost a complete non-starter for music listening if you have anything more than some crappy $10 buds.

I'm planning on stopping this project soon anyway. I'll be making just three more patches, One that increases the earphones, bluetooth headset, and speakers (just a bit). I fixed the trebble on the default n900 headsets they sound great now ....as for the other headsets, I was only able to reduce the distortion issue.

I have yet to finish documenting my findings, but I'm trying to finish it up today to upload with the new script which I'll probably post tommorow.

You asked me how the audio system worked before, honestly the N900 audio system is quite a mess and very hard to explain. Files are interrelated and such...the system is a complete mess.

The volume has little to do with the wiring, looking at the audio system I can see that the N900 is set to purposefully make alsa mixer ignore headphones (not to be mistaken with headsets).
This has lead me to believe that the distortion issue is quite simply a hardware problem. Nothing I have tried gets rid of the distortion, I'm only able to decrease/mask it, but who knows maybe with time I'll get rid of the problem.

This is kind of the problem in gauging whether it's a hardware issue, I'd neglected the N900 a bit in terms of audio listening before I upgraded to PR1.3 and got more into using QSpot and gPodder - I'd written off Media Player as a viable player for me as it stands a while back, and gone back to the iPhone as my primary music phone. So I can only say that I believe I wasn't hearing anything as wrong before PR1.3.

However, your point about the headset got me thinking so I ran the N900 test once again with a jacked WH-205 connected, and as a comparison the iPhone 4G with a Shure MPA. Distortion was actually lower (although still way over most median MP3 players), and the rest of the figures weren't that bad - it still trails the iPhone 4G with the exception of dynamic range, in which the N900 was level pegging - and whatever you're doing to reduce distortion, it isn't working over a stock setup.

As for the Audioboost tonal improvements, I guess it's a matter of taste [audiosnob] or lack thereof [/audiosnob]...


(32o = 32 ohm load)

Cliff notes for anyone else reading this:

1) A bit of a shocker - using a headSET cabling configuration on the N900 in PR1.3 actually appears to give better audio quality than directly plugging in headPHONEs (regardless of whether you use Audioboost or not). Obviously however this is dependent on the head/earset you are plugging in - a headset with a relatively crappy earphone attached to it will sound crappy no matter what. I used a WH-205 converted with a jack socket (well - if I hadn't done this, it would have been impossible to RMAA the WH-205's effect in any case) vs the headphone socket for this particular test. However, the resulting audio is still worse than leading PMP/smartphone - particularly for distortion. If anything though, this points out how much us N900'ers need a WORKING jacked remote.

2) Audioboost has no effect on the volume (from a WH205 at least)


I ran all tests at a slightly higher then typical listening volume (as opposed to full volume, because this test is more realistic to what you'll actually hear) - so I'm not posting anything other than the frequency response, as the rest of the measurements would not have any relative relevance - enough people use RMAA to generate worthless data in any case, which are then quoted by people who have no idea how the measurements were carried out or how to interpret the graphs. Relative audio levels were matched using Digicheck.

I finally got rid of that bloody distortion, thanks punto the info you provided was really helpful . Though since I got rid of the problem today it means that I'll have to test it again, so I haven't uploaded the new script.

Apparently the problem was a software issue, I fixed it by directing some of the headset audio streams to the headphones'.