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Is there any proprietary Android app for which you wish there would be an open-source alternative? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Basically, what the title says. Do you use any app, that is proprietary, but either has no OSS alternatives or they're all not good enough? If there is an alternative, what keeps you from switching?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Poweramp

There's nothing else out there that's really an equal, foss or not. The closest it gets is neutron, and that's a hot mess of an app.

It's the sound quality that's standout. It doesn't hurt that it's a decent player in every other way too, but even apps built for audiophiles don't match it in real use, in every situation.

None of the foss players are worth a damn sound wise; might as well use whatever comes with the device on that factor alone.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I can't say I've ever noticed any significant audio quality difference between this and something like Vinyl even on very good headphones.

But I would say that I've been trying to find equivalent equilizer functions that this app has on desktop. The bass boost function is the best one I've ever used. It even turned my very neutral etymotics er3se into solid thumpers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

But I would say that I've been trying to find equivalent equilizer functions that this app has on desktop.

Have you tried RootlessJamesDSP?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

The headphones, and any other gear, probably make some difference; I'm balling on a budget, with some tin t2s for iem, and beyer 770s (80 ohm) for cans, through a fiio DAC for the cheaper devices (but my main player is an old lg g7). Now and then I'll break out the portapros, and it's more prevalent since they tend to be a little muffled in the mids and highs no matter what they're plugged into.

But just the difference between something like gmmp, phonograph, musicolet, vanilla, etc, it can be a huge difference for me. Gmmp is decent, but there's static where there shouldn't be, and using the eq tends to distort on the low end even at low amounts of boost.

Can't recall if vinyl stood out from the rest of the pack or not, since it's been a couple of years since I did an extended comparison. All of the ones using the standard android audio processing were prone to some degree or another of mudiness to my ears. Some would get distorted playing through anything other than headphones, particularly with hip-hop and house tracks. That was with multiple aux cables, Bluetooth, and on multiple devices.

But, yeah, I would love it if max ported his eq app to other platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I agree.

I try to use as much FOSS as I can, but nothing even comes close to Poweramp.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I love you can set eq per device. My phone speaker, headphones and car all have their own settings. Its fantastic.