Database Users

Sound and Audio Mods Discussion

Hello Guys,
So, audio is a completely new territory for me, and as such I have very little to no idea about the current audio mods or the individual audio packages. I wanted to discuss the various mods available currently and their current effect on our devices, the reason this is necessary is because although we have the Marshmallow on our devices, the hardware is getting a tad bit old and a mod which might be compatible with our software may not get the best optimised output from the hardware. Hope you are getting me there. I wanted to discuss the currently available options by the means of trial and testing using 5-10 mods, or gathering reviews from people who are actually using these mods, based on their performance on Phone Speaker, Headphones, AUX, Wireless Speakers and dock.
Going through XDA I found a couple of mods which I am listing (kindly add to the list if you can) below, if anyone has tried these please put our reviews and opinions in the thread,
1. Ac!D Audio (only for SG S3) *
2. XtremeBeats SuperMod *
3. eXtremeBeats Audio Mod *
4. Viper4Android
5. Dolby Digital Plus
6. Beats Audio
7. Dolby Atmos
8. Pure Audio Engine 2.0
9. MaxxAudio (#)
10. IRS SoundMod
11. Am3D Zirene Audio Fx
* - Mod Packages containing Multiple individual audio Mods
# - Stable version not available for android M
>> Another thing that I wanted to clarify was that, each mod works differently on different devices so i would prefer a non biased opinion based on usage and not on the popularity of the mod. Many times even a single mod can play better than a mod package containing multiple mods, hence i'll try to put forward the best audio configuration by the time this thread runs it's course. Kindly Help me do it
Let's Make the best audio Possible!
Cheers,
[email protected][email protected]

<Reserved >

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I'd stay with stock audio stuff, afaik the i9300 has a high-quality DAC (don't quote me on that) but no kernel is enabling the full potential of it(CN).
All equlizers seem to add virtual "surround" which IMO ruines the quality of whatever I'm listening to.

Hawaii_Beach said:
I'd stay with stock audio stuff, afaik the i9300 has a high-quality DAC (don't quote me on that) but no kernel is enabling the full potential of it(CN).
All equlizers seem to add virtual "surround" which IMO ruines the quality of whatever I'm listening to.
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true that, virtual surround is useless unless we have an external sound system, but i think boeffla kernel does use the full DAC potential ? or not?

[email protected][email protected] said:
true that, virtual surround is useless unless we have an external sound system, but i think boeffla kernel does use the full DAC potential ? or not?
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No, it has not; proof (read whole thread).
Looking at the features of the boeffla kernel, there's no "high-quality audio" feature.
Why are you using the boeffla kernel if running CM13? As far as I see there were never a update to fully support CM13.

Hawaii_Beach said:
No, it has not; proof (read whole thread).
Looking at the features of the boeffla kernel, there's no "high-quality audio" feature.
Why are you using the boeffla kernel if running CM13? As far as I see there were never a update to fully support CM13.
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there is a beta version v5-29 , and i am not actually using it currently, just downloading it currently to use with rr v5.6.8

Hawaii_Beach said:
No, it has not; proof (read whole thread).
Looking at the features of the boeffla kernel, there's no "high-quality audio" feature.
Why are you using the boeffla kernel if running CM13? As far as I see there were never a update to fully support CM13.
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i read the thread, seems we are doomed, unless a developer actually has implemented the sound feature and just has failed to mention it. Anyways are there any active kernel developers for s3? boeffla has given the kernels an eol status, maybe we could request any other developer to include the sound feature in his kernel.

[email protected][email protected] said:
i read the thread, seems we are doomed, unless a developer actually has implemented the sound feature and just has failed to mention it. Anyways are there any active kernel developers for s3? boeffla has given the kernels an eol status, maybe we could request any other developer to include the sound feature in his kernel.
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As I said, it's a waste of time.
24bit 192kHz?
First of all, 24 bit? Unless you're modifying sound files like a pro with a application which even supports 24 bit sound on Android (which I suspects does) exist, you won't benefit in sound quality.
192kHz? This is just too much; you ears can't even pick up that noise and sound files in that res are heavy.

Hawaii_Beach said:
As I said, it's a waste of time.
24bit 192kHz?
First of all, 24 bit? Unless you're modifying sound files like a pro with a application which even supports 24 bit sound on Android (which I suspects does) exist, you won't benefit in sound quality.
192kHz? This is just too much; you ears can't even pick up that noise and sound files in that res are heavy.
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i agree with you on the 192kHz , but 24bit is actually good, if we use some good quality headphones, the sound files may become heavy though, i agree.. althought xtremeMusic does resample the sound to make it better, best have a look.

[email protected][email protected] said:
i read the thread, seems we are doomed, unless a developer actually has implemented the sound feature and just has failed to mention it. Anyways are there any active kernel developers for s3? boeffla has given the kernels an eol status, maybe we could request any other developer to include the sound feature in his kernel.
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Click to collapse
although honestly speaking, complete support, even if it's not actually used, might benefit people who are very into music..

[email protected][email protected] said:
i agree with you on the 192kHz , but 24bit is actually good, if we use some good quality headphones, the sound files may become heavy though, i agree.. althought xtremeMusic does resample the sound to make it better, best have a look.
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No, do your homework. 24 bit does not sound better than 16 bit. Google it youself.

Hawaii_Beach said:
No, do your homework. 24 bit does not sound better than 16 bit. Google it youself.
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as i said i have no idea about audio, although i did think that 24 bit audio is better, i did my homework and found this http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ , guess 24 bit means better quality , not better sound, if that makes any sense.

[email protected][email protected] said:
as i said i have no idea about audio, although i did think that 24 bit audio is better, i did my homework and found this http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ , guess 24 bit means better quality , not better sound, if that makes any sense.
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Professionals record their audio in 24 bit which makes the audio easier to edit as there's more depth.
It does not add quality to the sound at all. You never export a 24 bit audio file to public, do more homework

Hawaii_Beach said:
Professionals record their audio in 24 bit which makes the audio easier to edit as there's more depth.
It does not add quality to the sound at all. You never export a 24 bit audio file to public, do more homework
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meh.. i have a lot of school work going on and there's this more homework.. meh.. guess i'll study about audio coming Sunday, -_- too much to learn xD

I will have to hijack your thread to announce that both of you should do MORE homework on audio. The Wolfson WM1811A Audio Hub Codec, because it has DACs, ADCs, FLLs and much more than just a DAC, is in fact capable of 24bit/96kHz.
The thing about bit depth in audio has been disputed over and over, it is just a matter of preference really, with FLAC and other uncompressed formats gaining popularity with the rise of quality in the hardware department. Going to audio editing, even a 15-year old can use Audacity. Not to talk about Sony's Sound Forge Audio Studio.
Another thing is that AGNi Kernel, at least for i9305 has Boeffla Sound Engine, that coupled with Wolfson Preset 5 or 7, makes listening to music, ofc in combination with Viper4Android and PowerAmp, a total dream. Oh, and also one more thing, IRS SoundMod is a package of Impulse Response Samples (hence the name IRS) for Viper4Android, so that is no sound mod.

[email protected][email protected] said:
i agree with you on the 192kHz , but 24bit is actually good, if we use some good quality headphones, the sound files may become heavy though, i agree.. althought xtremeMusic does resample the sound to make it better, best have a look.
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I have i9300 on stock 4.3 android and anything that alters the sound, any player like poweramp that alters the sound by resampling just make it worser. Stock player and Aimp player gives the cleanest sound. Aimp is good because you can raise the gain............up to 3db is enough.

Samsung won't integrate 24-bit/192kHz that the WM1811 sound chip is capable to their kernel for a reason, we may never know what it is but they won't for a reason.
Maybe the Wolfson WM1811 data sheet we're seeing are false, maybe not.
Whether it is for stability reasons, when Samsung doesn't use the ‘full’ potential of the chip it might be for the good of its users.
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

Nougat ROM for Redmi 2 with best sound?

I have been using MoKee based on MM for a while now and I thought of flashing a Nougat based ROM. I first flashed AOSP Extended and then I flashed Ressurection Remix and whenever I played music, the speaker output wasn't clear and there was a lot of distortion. Calling was fine and even the headphone jack was satisfactory.I disabled the equalizer in Play Music but that just reduced sound output. I tried to play music in other music players as well like Poweramp(Paid version), Blackplayer and the default Music app but it was all the same. Even the output when I was watching a video on the Youtube App was the same. I flashed the DivineBeats sound mod and that didn't help either. My speaker on Marshmallow based ROMs works perfectly fine,with or without mods. So, I wanted to know whether there is a ROM that doesn't have this problem and if there are people who are facing this issue as well.

All nougat roms are like this, I hope there was a fix for this....

best rom for sound output is miui
whatever steps u have performed ,i also done same as that of u.i also tried various players but there is no use. then i come to kno that the es explorers music player is great since it produces great sound op as compared to previous players such as poweramp normal version,mi player(chinese version). u can try it its great.but the output which we were getting thr the miui rom is uncomparable. missing the miui rom.

In my opinion, the MIUI have a best quality sound. But, custom roms have a good quality, like Mokee and lineageOS. But I don know if are better or not than MIUI. I'm use a Phillips headphone in many times. Actually, I'm using Mokee Nougat 7.1.1.
It's a good question! :good:

Still the Audi Fx of most nougat ROMs is not mature as of marshmallow so flashing mods won't help
Wait till nougat attains stability

The Hard Gamer said:
Still the Audi Fx of most nougat ROMs is not mature as of marshmallow so flashing mods won't help
Wait till nougat attains stability
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Cool. Thanks for the reply!

Dirac Audio Sound Enhancements Service

custom rom missing its charm without this, stock has it.....as well as snapdragon audio.
dont you guys think audio fx of any custom rom fails to deliver good output..?
audio fx is unnecessary without dirac audio service..audio fx is junk...dirac audio service needed..vanilla is always good when it is ice cream.

Arise System can be flashed with ported Dirac service on any custom rom.

hulicow said:
Arise System can be flashed with ported Dirac service on any custom rom.
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can be flashed.....its all ri8....problem is not working on many custom rom bcz selinux is permissive...even after enforce it through buildprop.....if u have any workable arise with dirac...plz link below...and suggest flashing guide..

debsankar said:
can be flashed.....its all ri8....problem is not working on many custom rom bcz selinux is permissive...even after enforce it through buildprop.....if u have any workable arise with dirac...plz link below...and suggest flashing guide..
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Try arise aroma installer 2.94 choice install core system and repair sdcard... Viper4 or Dolby Digital Plus works fine on custom rom :good:

I agree... I've tried dolby but it breaks the music.. makes it **** (my opinion) and viper is okay but not good as stock.. we need dirac

debsankar said:
custom rom missing its charm without this, stock has it.....as well as snapdragon audio.
dont you guys think audio fx of any custom rom fails to deliver good output..?
audio fx is unnecessary without dirac audio service..audio fx is junk...dirac audio service needed..vanilla is always good when it is ice cream.
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Click to collapse
The dac and the amp in this phone is very good you don't need Dirac.You can get perfect quality using audio players like USB audio player pro ,Poweramp etc that use hires audio drivers.i think the only thing that the phone misses in terms of audio is a line out mode to get bitperfect audio out if you want to use external amp

apexashwin said:
I agree... I've tried dolby but it breaks the music.. makes it **** (my opinion) and viper is okay but not good as stock.. we need dirac
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AudioFX in lineageos is doing very good job. You can also try ViperFX and configure it to your preference.
Wysłane z mojego Mi A1 przy użyciu Tapatalka

Mirdeusz said:
AudioFX in lineageos is doing very good job. You can also try ViperFX and configure it to your preference.
Wysłane z mojego Mi A1 przy użyciu Tapatalka
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i tried but in vain...viper suks if ur audiophile...

kutulu32 said:
The dac and the amp in this phone is very good you don't need Dirac.You can get perfect quality using audio players like USB audio player pro ,Poweramp etc that use hires audio drivers.i think the only thing that the phone misses in terms of audio is a line out mode to get bitperfect audio out if you want to use external amp
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nutron player is the only one mp that is for audiophile...but not without dirac its nothing...trsut me...stock fx and dac is for bassheads...dirac produces proper high and mids and perfect lows..dac and fx produces only bass and treble..audio fx sucks u know that if u tuned that

debsankar said:
nutron player is the only one mp that is for audiophile...but not without dirac its nothing...trsut me...stock fx and dac is for bassheads...dirac produces proper high and mids and perfect lows..dac and fx produces only bass and treble..audio fx sucks u know that if u tuned that
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What kind of headphones do you use? The mi headphones in the Dirac profiles maybe get better audio quality. I am not against Dirac in my meizu mx4 pro that I still own (I use it as media player)It has profile for my ie8 also. I would say mi a1 sound quality is on the same level as mx4 pro .I even tested Dirac on my old iPhone 4s with Dirac player that supports apple headphones . But in general mi headphones and apple's are not very good .

debsankar said:
nutron player is the only one mp that is for audiophile...but not without dirac its nothing...trsut me...stock fx and dac is for bassheads...dirac produces proper high and mids and perfect lows..dac and fx produces only bass and treble..audio fx sucks u know that if u tuned that
Click to expand...
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Yuuup agreed.. i vote; Dirac for cusrom

what is dirac is exactly?(haven't tested custom ROM, so don't know difference)
I use viper4Android in stock though. Does that disable dirac?
Any interface of dirac? or can be checked through audio quality?

kutulu32 said:
What kind of headphones do you use? The mi headphones in the Dirac profiles maybe get better audio quality. I am not against Dirac in my meizu mx4 pro that I still own (I use it as media player)It has profile for my ie8 also. I would say mi a1 sound quality is on the same level as mx4 pro .I even tested Dirac on my old iPhone 4s with Dirac player that supports apple headphones . But in general mi headphones and apple's are not very good .
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u r on ri8 place to discus abput headphones...
i have used too many earphones..
each and everyone is great..i prefer audiophile earbuds...balanced audio with deep base..but not heavy bass that makes headache ri8?
1. house of marley(smile Jamaica, early bird etc)
2. Cowon(em1, ek2)
3. beats(any)
trust me use these....if ur not bassheads..i was Sennheiser fan until i met cowon specially....dont waste ur money on mi crappy headphones or apple earbuds...i am currently using cowon em1 , it outperformed beats earbuds(personal experience)...and if u r slightly prefer lows and highs better than mid as well as high base get a house of marley.. if ur true audiophile then go for cowon em1

debsankar said:
u r on ri8 place to discus abput headphones...
i have used too many earphones..
each and everyone is great..i prefer audiophile earbuds...balanced audio with deep base..but not heavy bass that makes headache ri8?
1. house of marley(smile Jamaica, early bird etc)
2. Cowon(em1, ek2)
3. beats(any)
trust me use these....if ur not bassheads..i was Sennheiser fan until i met cowon specially....dont waste ur money on mi crappy headphones or apple earbuds...i am currently using cowon em1 , it outperformed beats earbuds(personal experience)...and if u r slightly prefer lows and highs better than mid as well as high base get a house of marley.. if ur true audiophile then go for cowon em1
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I am not a basshead too I listen to heavy metal ,hard rock I use ie8 and ie80 as portable headphones because of the good soundstage they have .at home I use hd600 . Surprisingly the mi a1 drives it quite well I think ,but I prefer my mx4 pro with fiio a5 or e12 .

ok. Understood about dirac.
But how to know if its processing or not. Does it have interface like dolby?
i see 1 apk with dirac name but no shortcut to open it or know if its working

.:Addicted:. said:
ok. Understood about dirac.
But how to know if its processing or not. Does it have interface like dolby?
i see 1 apk with dirac name but no shortcut to open it or know if its working
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its background service only......no interface....but outperforms dolby or viper easily.... awesome detailed audio by dirac..must need a port this background service to custom roms.

Thats the Single Reason I left Custom ROMs,and reinstalled Stock. Dolby Atmos/Viper Trust me I dont like Personally ,don't know why the entire forum chased behind two applications ,God knows. Its my personal experience; opinion may vary person to person due to hearing/effect/choices. Currently I'm using stock with Poweramp+ Fiio Ex1 2nd gen headphone ..within 4.5k rs it produces boom sounds. High,mid everything is perfect also sound quality is much more with that price range. With Mi A1; I always advice people be on Stock ROM and buy a good quality of Headphone ...u do not need any kind of mods like viper/dolby/ainur etc...all of them are useless and tried before almost every custom ROMs.

Latest Pixel Experience (Extended and Official) both have Dirac built in now.

Internal Speaker Sound with Stock Rom and Lineage OS 15.1

I have two Le Pro 3 phones here, one has Lineage OS 15.1 and the other one is out of the box with stock rom. So it is very easy for me to test the sound for both roms at the same time.
I know already that stock rom offers the best audio quality with the built in internal spakers. Stock rom offers fuller and richer sound with also more bass with the internal speakers. There is no chance to have similar sound with the internal speakers using a custom rom without using any audio mods like dolby atmos or viper.
But even using these sound mods I was not able to tune the sound of the speakers similar to stock sound.
I made some longer sound tests with both phones and found that there is one big difference between stock and custom rom:
As the phone has Stereo speakers (upper one and lower one), the eqalization of both speakers is totally different with stock. While the upper speaker offers much more mid-range frequencies and nearly no highs the lower one is giving much more bass and high frequencies but nearly no mids. This effect is present with and without activated dolby atmos in stock rom.
So it seems to me that the stock rom uses different settings for left (upper) and right (lower) speakers. With headphones, both channels offer same sound, of course.
Using Lineage OS 15.1 without any sound mod, both speakers offer very similar sound characteristic. I am not able to hear different equalization between upper and lower speaker. The upper one has the same amount of highs, mids and lows like the lower one.
By using dolby atmos or viper, the sound quality improves impressingly but this effects both speakers in the same way.
Maybe becouse of this difference there is no chance to have the same sound characteristic with the speakers like in stock rom.
And maybe this info could help someone to imrove speaker-sound with lineage?

Hi @walking-desaster , maybe you can give the MIUI Ares ROMs a try and compare the sound quality.
This ROM are based on a clone of the X720 (Cool Changer S1 with JUI ROM) and should use similar or updated drivers with Nougat and MIUI 9 on top.
The ROM is posted both on 4PDA and by @tsongming in his Megadrive.
I am not sure why the version posted by Alex_Agir is different from Tsongmings megadrive, maybe he can explain.
Would be interesting to learn your experience.

Wortelstok said:
Hi @walking-desaster , maybe you can give the MIUI Ares ROMs a try and compare the sound quality.
This ROM are based on a clone of the X720 (Cool Changer S1 with JUI ROM) and should use similar or updated drivers with Nougat and MIUI 9 on top.
The ROM is posted both on 4PDA and by @tsongming in his Megadrive.
I am not sure why the version posted by Alex_Agir is different from Tsongmings megadrive, maybe he can explain.
Would be interesting to learn your experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no difference between the Rom Alex_Agir and the one on my Megadrive and I gave him credit.
I posted the file on the megadrive and will soon add it to AFH as well. Just to make it easier to get to. Alot of people use browser that do not translate sites as 4PDA very well. Plus, the Megadrive link includes additional addon, to enhance the MIUI Ares ROM, and to make installation quicker for someone new to Miui.
Like @walking-desaster, I am a big fan of audio.
In fact for me, as a hobbyist recording musician, its usually the most important aspect of my phone. But, I too have multiple Leeco's ( four) so its easy to tryout everything. Plus, I still have my old iPhone, which I use like an iPod for my car.
I agree that stock EUI sound is far superior, and modded EUI's out there seem to be just short of the stellar sound offered by stock. but its close. My issue with stock is that its using marshmallow, which I can't stand.
The Miui Ares rom has the best sound quality of any Rom that I have used since stock. To go on Stock sounds better with Dolby and custom Roms sound better with Dolby. Both sound better with Viper.
Viper is better than Dolby because it has all of the same tools. such as EQ and compression but takes it a step further with the option of being able to add profiles. The profiles include packets of .irs files. Which are convolution reverb impulses ( which are actual acoustic measurements of rooms or speakers) these convolution files allow you to simulate the sounds of room reverb and speaker acoustics. They are similar the impulse responses used in electric guitar amps and headphone emulators.
You can download profiles from my Google drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KtNtBOw1Hj7Rw4OVT2wWdE1ujDAZgo9x
or better yet use these instead
Use the profiles from my drive but use impulse files from sites such as these : https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2372750
Note, you have to manually add the profiles here: storage/Viper4Android/
BTW, were you aware the Leeco CDLA headphones has a DAC chip and use Dupont speakers?

Best ROMs for audio or stock is good help guys

Hey guys hope your zte axon 7 is still rocking ,well I am using my axon 7 for last 3 year and after a battery replacement it's now as good as new never tried custom ROMs coz of audio performance but now I want to try new ROMs for speed but can't compromise with audio quality can any one help me out choosing rit custom ROMs .thanx in advance

I don't know if there is a huge difference in sound between custom roms.
Mostly, it depends on equalizer like Dolby Atmos, V4A, JamesDSP, DTS:X etc.
But, there's a catch in custom rom, they use high quality dac on headphone and you can't switch it back to standard dac. I have one pair of headphone which sounds a little bit worse on High Quality mode than on Standard Quality. Don't know why and I really don't care that much.
Personally, I prefer Viper4Android to Dolby Atmos, due to many options in V4A, which let you fit - let's just say - to your sound preference.
I only miss surround virtualization from Dolby Atmos for movies.
I tried several Surround IRS but didn't found anything worth.
Using unofficial Lineage OS 15.1 (from Unjustified Dev), Bladder Kernel with Viper4Android 2.6.0.5 (using this version due to conflict between Selinux Enforced and Convolver).
Speaker Optimization sounds pretty bad, I recommend to try some of IRS for Convolver.
That one below, sounds pretty, it even gives nice bass but it didn't work on V4A 2.7.0.0 and doesn't sound same on JamesDSP like on older V4A.
Edit: Just be aware of volume, some of IRS may be louder than original volume and may damage your speakers.

klałn said:
I don't know if there is a huge difference in sound between custom roms.
Mostly, it depends on equalizer like Dolby Atmos, V4A, JamesDSP, DTS:X etc.
But, there's a catch in custom rom, they use high quality dac on headphone and you can't switch it back to standard dac. I have one pair of headphone which sounds a little bit worse on High Quality mode than on Standard Quality. Don't know why and I really don't care that much.
Personally, I prefer Viper4Android to Dolby Atmos, due to many options in V4A, which let you fit - let's just say - to your sound preference.
I only miss surround virtualization from Dolby Atmos for movies.
I tried several Surround IRS but didn't found anything worth.
Using unofficial Lineage OS 15.1 (from Unjustified Dev), Bladder Kernel with Viper4Android 2.6.0.5 (using this version due to conflict between Selinux Enforced and Convolver).
Speaker Optimization sounds pretty bad, I recommend to try some of IRS for Convolver.
That one below, sounds pretty, it even gives nice bass but it didn't work on V4A 2.7.0.0 and doesn't sound same on JamesDSP like on older V4A.
Edit: Just be aware of volume, some of IRS may be louder than original volume and may damage your speakers.
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Click to collapse
I have very similar set now with latest unoff. Lineage, with beta baddar kelner, viper fx with xhr soundplus convolver, musicfx + removed audiofx, gcam 6.1.021 and etc.
I am quite satisfied with the sound and experience which i have from adwanced tweaking