Music On SD Card Plays Distorted/Overdriven

[gfmucci]

New Lenovo Yoga tab - Android 10. Installed music files from Windows 10 PC to SD card on the tablet.

Here is the weird thing:

Using the Pi Music Player as the example:

When I open a song file from within the SD card using the "Floating Pi" player, the song plays fine.
When I open the same song from the SD card using the regular Pi Player App, the song is distorted and sounds over-driven even at the lowest volume setting. The other two music players I have installed, Media Monkey and one other, BOTH play song distorted.

Anyone know what's going on here?

 

[Traveller]

Do you have Dolby Atmos preinstalled on your Yoga? Does your preferred music player have a built-in EQ? If the answer to both questions is yes, then you may be running into the issue of having both Atmos and the EQ adjusting the sound in series, with the end result sounding like crap in the player itself. The floating app I suspect isn't affected because it doesn't have hooks into the app's included EQ and relies on the EQ included in the Yoga.

So in short, check to see if the Yoga EQ and app EQ are running and shut one of them off.

 

[gfmucci]

Atmos is set to FLAT (0db), on Music setting, and no other separate equalizer is installed or active.

I turned the Atmos Dolby off and set the Pi equalizer to flat with same negative result.

 

[gfmucci]

Ahaaaa!!!

Thanks a bunch. Who knew.

"Flat" doesn't help, but turning off the Pi app equalizer did the trick.

So the two equalizers interfere with each other in mysterious ways.

 

[Traveller]

LOL. It helps here to be a bit of an audiophile.

Anyway, it's not really that mysterious. What happens with more than one EQ running is that the sound is processed via the app's EQ, and then sent to the Yoga. Atmos then processes the output from the media player app, which distorts the signal, and the end result is sent to the Yoga's DAC to be output to your ears. Shutting off one of the EQs resolves the problem, as you discovered.

So, congrats on solving the problem, and enjoy your tablet.

 

[gfmucci]

Thanks again.

And I will enjoy this Lenovo tablet compared to the Vankyo brick I sent back to Amazon. What a day and night difference in audio, both from their speakers and thu BT to buds.

I guess "flat" doesn't mean the signal isn't being processed in some obtrusive manner There must be conflicting audio algorithms in there someplace.