Does powerAMP gives better sound than the stock player ?

[interinfo]

If not, what are the main advantages ?

[natkingcole]

well, try poweramp (15 days trial). you'll hear the difference. it's the first app that I've bought, because it was worth it.
in case you have the sgp 4.0 or 4.2, you should install voodoo sound, too.

[Daniel644]

Better, Louder and stronger. try it and see, I dare you. LOL

[mattg3]

Only APP I ever bought.

[sanchezhacker]

I just tried the trial for poweramp, it would skip once or twice per song. I checked the task manager and it was using 11% of my CPU, seems like our players don't have to power to run it right.

Although whatever music app you chose, make sure you're using quality headphones. If you're using the headphones that came with the player then you probably wont notice any improvements in quality. I use these and would highly recommend them: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16826106241
They sound great and you can usually get them on newegg or amazon for around $20.

[steinburger1109]

It does give better sound, yes, but another thing about it that drastically improves sound quality is the quality of its equalizer and enhancements. If you don't fiddle with that, you may not notice as much of a difference as if you do.

[Daniel644]

Originally Posted by sanchezhacker

I just tried the trial for poweramp, it would skip once or twice per song. I checked the task manager and it was using 11% of my CPU, seems like our players don't have to power to run it right.

Although whatever music app you chose, make sure you're using quality headphones. If you're using the headphones that came with the player then you probably wont notice any improvements in quality. I use these and would highly recommend them: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16826106241
They sound great and you can usually get them on newegg or amazon for around $20.

what are you doing to cause it to skip, are you running any CPU tuners or strange governors? Only way I can get a skip is if I use a governor that takes to long to scale up cpu clock speed. You could try increasing the Audio Buffer Size.

[HulkSmashNow]

I sprang for the full version, too, and have never gone back to anything else for my Stratosphere. It also plays a boatload of different formats, including FLAC. The UI is very nice and easy to use as well. Oh, and the EQ allows you to fully tweak the sound to your tastes.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by sanchezhacker

I just tried the trial for poweramp, it would skip once or twice per song. I checked the task manager and it was using 11% of my CPU, seems like our players don't have to power to run it right.

It does seem more CPU-intensive than other players, but I haven't found it to be an issue, as I really don't multi-task the 5.0.

[sanchezhacker]

Originally Posted by Daniel644

what are you doing to cause it to skip, are you running any CPU tuners or strange governors? Only way I can get a skip is if I use a governor that takes to long to scale up cpu clock speed. You could try increasing the Audio Buffer Size.

The ROM I'm using has Entropy's 3/5/2012 kernel which has some kind of improved governor but it's supposed to be just as good or better than the stock one. Other than that I'm not running any tuning apps or anything else like that. When I tested poweramp I closed all other apps and look at the task manager, poweramp was listed in red and cpu was fluctuating between 10 and 12%.

The skipping wasn't too bad when just listening to music but browsing using Boat Browser made it skip a lot. I'll play with the settings later to see if there is any improvement. I normally use doubleTwist Pro which doesn't skip unless I try to launch an app that hogs the cpu.

[Daniel644]

Originally Posted by sanchezhacker

The ROM I'm using has Entropy's 3/5/2012 kernel which has some kind of improved governor but it's supposed to be just as good or better than the stock one. Other than that I'm not running any tuning apps or anything else like that. When I tested poweramp I closed all other apps and look at the task manager, poweramp was listed in red and cpu was fluctuating between 10 and 12%.

The skipping wasn't too bad when just listening to music but browsing using Boat Browser made it skip a lot. I'll play with the settings later to see if there is any improvement. I normally use doubleTwist Pro which doesn't skip unless I try to launch an app that hogs the cpu.

OK, yeah I don't know about 5.0 kernels, but on my 4.0 when I would use the Terrasilent Governor (love there kernel) that is supposed to be so much better I could get it to skip occasionally when locking the screen right after hitting play, so I would suggest getting No Frills CPU and switching the Governor to smartassV2 and the I/O to deadline, haven't had a problem since. The problem is the devs in there quest for the best battery life have pushed there governors to far and now they don't scale up quick enough.

[scowl]

Originally Posted by sanchezhacker

I just tried the trial for poweramp, it would skip once or twice per song. I checked the task manager and it was using 11% of my CPU, seems like our players don't have to power to run it right.

Trying going into PowerAmp Settings->Advanced Tweaks->Audio Thread Priority and bumping up the priority.

Mine is set to normal and I don't have any skipping, but I'm not using it for anything else.

[sanchezhacker]

Thanks Scowl and Daniel644. I set the audio buffer to large and the audio priority to +1 and now there is no skipping even while multitasking. CPU usage is still kinda high but but it doesn't seem to interfere with the music now.

Sound quality is comparable to doubletwist with the EQ turned on, but I did notice that PowerAMP gets considerably louder. I'll have to use it more to see if like it better. Thanks again for the good suggestions everyone.

[parchping]

I forget why I changed from PowerAmp to PlayerPro, but PlayerPro works fine on my 5.

Steve

[Mc7]

Tried WinAmp and PowerAMP but i still go back to PlayerPro. With Wmp theme installed, it is a thing of beauty and also the music is pure heaven sounding to my ears. PowerAMP is too loud for my taste and i never could get the skipping to stop.

[Blackdog]

I tried N7 recently. Very heavy on graphics/album art manipulation/bling.
Sound was good but could not stop skipping...even with regular 256 mpbs mp3 files.
Plus it tagged some of my music with totally incorrect album art and I couldn't get rid of it.
Even when I took the files back to mp3 tag and embedded the proper art, their crazy art still showed up when I transferred the files back to the player. Uninstall.

I guess I'm just going to stick with the stock player.
One thing I miss from my old Sansa Fuze, is seeing track number.
Example: 1/12 (currently playing track 1 out of 12)
It's useful to just go to track # if you know it, and it's useful to see where you are in the play sequence...i.e.; 11/12...almost at the end.

Seems like almost no players do this and it seems so basic and simple to do.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Blackdog

I guess I'm just going to stick with the stock player.
One thing I miss from my old Sansa Fuze, is seeing track number.
Example: 1/12 (currently playing track 1 out of 12)
It's useful to just go to track # if you know it, and it's useful to see where you are in the play sequence...i.e.; 11/12...almost at the end.

Seems like almost no players do this and it seems so basic and simple to do.

I see it on all of mine....my Rockboxed Sansas, and the iPod Touch I used to have, and here are shots of my SGP 5.0.....
PowerAmp


and Rockbox


And I plan on using those same two apps on my Motorola Atrix 4G in a few days when I activate it.

[Blackdog]

Thanks Marvin

[Marvin the Martian]

@Blackdog....if you have gapless albums, Rockbox is the only one I've found that is truly gapless. PowerAmp is close, but still better than the stock music app.

[alljokingaside]

in my experience, yes. it sounds brighter and, as important, louder than stock or other players I've tried. Like a lot louder.

The most recent update (v2.6.?), however, seems to have set the volume to "normal" which is a drag, though the UI seems to be nicer. a downgrade it is for me!