[KopaneDePooj]

Hello everybody
I am not audio expert, nor audiophile, but I like to listen to good music.

So I ran some test to determine the best music app to use with my HTC10.
I used Beoplay H3 IEM with comply foam tips.
I know they are not considered audiophile grade, but I found their sound very detailed. The soundstage is not very opened though.
My personal impression, contrary to what most reviewers wrote, it's that they are not lacking punch on the bass, but rather exceeding a bit in the mid-highs.
That said, while not considering myself a bass head, I like a bit of warmth in music, especially classical, and punchy bass in rock.

Soon after receiving the HTC10, I started looking better music apps than the stock one (Google music).

I was overwhelmed by the amount of choice AND misinformation.
Most reviews simply seemed to test the most popular apps already, also adding to the confusion the fact that most apps have a free and paid version whose difference can be substantial (e.g. no eq, no folder browsing or tons of ads in the free version)
Also different apps may reproduce the music differently with different devices.

My criteria for testing was first and foremost whether I liked or not the music quality listening to my earphones.
I would define the qualities looked for in the sound output as (audiophiles please forgive my possible imprecision, but I am a newbie in the field):
- sound detail: e.g. if you can hear a guitar chord clearly vibrating like if you head the body right against your hips
- sound fidelity: distortion or not distortion introduced in the music; I often found that the highs would be distorted, this being especially disturbing when listening to classical music
- equalizer (eq) quality: I use eq little to nothing with good quality sources (good mp3 or flac), but many old recordings or badly encoded mp3 need some eq to be beautified;

Other criteria I used are:
- folder browsing is a must-have for me
- UI fluidity
- possibility to control the app with IEM's remote button
- app free, free with ads, or paid

The music I used for the test were high quality flac of metal, jazz and classical music (e.g. Dream Theater, Wagner..) and low quality mp3 rock music (e.g. ACDC).

My starting point was provided by this post:


So I started with some apps which used android's native sound engine, but due to their disappointing sound quality, I soon switched to the ones using the FFmpeg decoder.

The list of the apps I tried:

APPS using android's native sound engine
Folder player by Peter Shashkin
Folder player by Zorillasoft
Blackplayer
Doubletwist
Google play music
Pulsar
PI music player
Sensor music player
Shuttle music player
... and many others which either crashed or messed with the phone's audio

Aside from the inferior sound quality I found those apps ridden with ads or missing fundamental functions.
The 2 apps that really stood out from that list are:
- Folder player by Peter Shashkin : lightweight, free, no ads, no frills, fluid, decent sound quality and decently working equalizer, stable, keeps a folder by folder memory of where you stopped playing the last time you were there, highly configurable
- Pulsar : lightweight, veery nice UI, no ads, but eq locked in the free version and sound quality inferior to folder player. Still, if aesthetics is a must, I really liked the UI.


APPS using FFmpeg decoder:
JetAudio
Onkyo HF
HibyMusic
AIMP
Foobar2000
Stellio
N7player
Gonemad
Poweramp
Rocket
PlayerPro
Neutron
Sony music center
Captune (by Sennheiser)
VLC

The jump in quality compared to the other apps using android's native sound engine was very discernible.

Almost all of those apps were ok to very good sq wise, with 2 exceptions:
-Stellio - I also had the cracking issues when playing, which was already mentioned in this forum. Globally the music was less detailed compared to the others FFmpeg users. It is really a shame, considering that it is free, ads are inobstrusive and the UI is wonderful!
-Poweramp - With all enhancements (including DVC) turned off, sound was less detailed compared to the others FFmpeg users. With enhancements turned on (mostly DVC + bass boost), I would class its audio effects as the top ones I tried. But this introduced too much distortion and noise in the music, even for old low quality rock mp3s. This is a bit a disappointment, but I read on this forum that it may be specific because of bad support of the HTC 10.

All other apps from a sq point of view were good, but each one had at least one point which led me to discard it.
An interesting thing is that many apps failed to accurately reproduce the highs, which tended to be squeaky:
-AIMP (but superfluid UI!!)
-Foobar2000 (don't like the UI)
-Gonemad (not free + access to sound effects overly laborious)
-VLC

Then those 2 seemed to have a tad less detail with hq flacs compared to the apps further below:
-JetAudio : I don't like sound effects + the free version is ridden with ads
-Neutron : my lack of understanding of all of the parameters did not allow it to really stand out sq-wise

And there come the sq winners. All these apps for me were excellent enough for hq flacs, but only few of them succeeded in equally beautify lq mp3s. Compared to the apps above detail and highs reproduction seemed a step superior. Despite differences in sound reproduction tonalities, to me all sounded flawless. The differences in the end come only to price, UI, and sound effects:
- Onkyo HF (superfluid UI, but no folder browser)
- N7player (here some highs accuracy is traded for extra sound detail; don't like the way it shows its main page, plus occasionally the UI hangs and crashes; extra paid after trial end, including folder browser)
-Sony music center (some accuracy is traded to open the soundstage; no hierarchical folder view; unresponsive to headset remote buttons; not really sure it is meant to be a local music player)
- Captune (by Sennheiser) (sq excels especially in highs reproduction; slow and choppy UI; the UI was the main reason why I discarded it)

The 3 which stood out in the finals, with no major flaws:
- PlayerPro (balanced sq, options for high res sound, but paying after trial expiry)
- HibyMusic (balanced sq)
- Rocket music player (a tad of detail is traded to add a bit of warmth to music)

I will give the final prize to Rocket music player only because its equalizer and bass boost really stand out in beautifying low quality mp3. Plus the UI is super, it is free (as I don't need the paying extras) and I like the extra warmth added to the music.

Please note that all of this comes from many hours of listening and fiddling with eqs, but there is nothing objective here. It all come to my personal tastes and impressions.

I really would like to have your feedbacks!

Did you try Poweramp 3 Alpha or your're talking about v2 from Play Store?
Because there is a big difference in sound quality. 3 Alpha uses a totally rewritten sound engine which is much better than v2.
Apart from the hi-res output which is available on build 704 but it is buggy with HTC 10, everything else works perfectly.
If you have the official version from Play Store installed, you can go in the app settings and activate beta testing opt-in, and then you will receive Alpha 3 build 703, and will be automatically updated with future versions through Play Store.

I also had installed some of the apps you mentioned, and I liked Rocket Player back when I had my Nexus 6P, but at some point it became buggy in the UI.

The only players I like now are Poweramp 3 Alpha and UAPP.
UAPP hi-res works well with HTC 10 and what is nice is that it automatically outputs at the file's native resolution, it does not resample. But I found its sound flatter and less detailed than Poweramp 3 Alpha. Poweramp's DVC works wonders for SQ.

 

[Nirvana1000]

I am using poweramp alpha 704 with my HTC10.The UAPP sounds more neutral to me while Poweramp has better bass response and a warmer sound which compliments the phones sound signature.I get great sub bass rumble with my V Moda M100/HTC10 combo using Poweramp.

 

[RockStar2005]

I am using poweramp alpha 704 with my HTC10.The UAPP sounds more neutral to me while Poweramp has better bass response and a warmer sound which compliments the phones sound signature.I get great sub bass rumble with my V Moda M100/HTC10 combo using Poweramp.

Randy Rhodes (and Kurt Cobain) approves of this message.

 

[tbritton]

APPS using android's native sound engine
Folder player by Peter Shashkin
Folder player by Zorillasoft
Blackplayer
Doubletwist
Google play music
Pulsar
PI music player
Sensor music player
Shuttle music player
... and many others which either crashed or messed with the phone's audio

Aside from the inferior sound quality I found those apps ridden with ads or missing fundamental functions.
The 2 apps that really stood out from that list are:
- Folder player by Peter Shashkin : lightweight, free, no ads, no frills, fluid, decent sound quality and decently working equalizer, stable, keeps a folder by folder memory of where you stopped playing the last time you were there, highly configurable
- Pulsar : lightweight, veery nice UI, no ads, but eq locked in the free version and sound quality inferior to folder player. Still, if aesthetics is a must, I really liked the UI.

Just to note that if you have already rooted your HTC 10 and are using Viper4Android, then these are the players that work natively with Viper4Android. Others I've tested include Amazon Music (not radio or un-owned album streams, though - seems to only work with albums I've uploaded using their manager, those that appear in the "My Music" display), Retro Tape Deck, Casse-o-player, GoneMad, n7player, and Groove. Not making any claims for their sound, as Viper4Android is in charge of that.

Thanks for this great review and especially thanks for the time it took you to research it and write it! I've added RocketPlayer and PlayerPro to my phone, and Folder Player and Pulsar to my rooted Nexus 7 with Viper4Android - very nice additions!

Terry

 

[Mmurin]

Thanks for hints guys.
I tried the alpha 704.
The improvements over v2 is noticeable. Gorgeous UI too. HD playback not supported yet on HTC10.

I tested with the same method as the other apps, i.e. with and without sound effects.
So I think:
no sound effects (including no DVC), here I look for detail and fidelity
sound effects, here I look to beautify lq mp3

SQ is in league with other FFmpeg players, but to me it sounds with the same harsh highs as AIMP, Foobar2000, Gonemad (see my other post just above), so a notch below excellent quality.
And then there are sound effects. DVC here really improved. Aside from pumping up the volume by ~15%, it really adds space and dynamics to the music. Bass boost, eq and stereo enhancements are still excellent too.

But I stick to the bottom line of my preceding post:
- for hq sound files, inferior quality compared to the other top FFmpeg players (due to harsh highs).
- for lq sound files, beautiful effects, but too much distortion + again the harsh highs

Conclusion: I will stick to rocket player.

Note: my HTC10 is still under warranty and so I will not root it yet for at least one other year. So no viper4droid. But thanks for the hint!!!

 

[Whitigir]

Link to the download ?

 

[Badelhas]

W

I am using poweramp alpha 704 with my HTC10.The UAPP sounds more neutral to me while Poweramp has better bass response and a warmer sound which compliments the phones sound signature.I get great sub bass rumble with my V Moda M100/HTC10 combo using Poweramp.

Sorry for the noob question but what's the point of using that app if it doesn't allow you to use the Hi resolution audio option without crashing?

 

[KopaneDePooj]

Thanks for hints guys.
I tried the alpha 704.
The improvements over v2 is noticeable. Gorgeous UI too. HD playback not supported yet on HTC10.

I tested with the same method as the other apps, i.e. with and without sound effects.
So I think:
no sound effects (including no DVC), here I look for detail and fidelity
sound effects, here I look to beautify lq mp3

SQ is in league with other FFmpeg players, but to me it sounds with the same harsh highs as AIMP, Foobar2000, Gonemad (see my other post just above), so a notch below excellent quality.
And then there are sound effects. DVC here really improved. Aside from pumping up the volume by ~15%, it really adds space and dynamics to the music. Bass boost, eq and stereo enhancements are still excellent too.

But I stick to the bottom line of my preceding post:
- for hq sound files, inferior quality compared to the other top FFmpeg players (due to harsh highs).
- for lq sound files, beautiful effects, but too much distortion + again the harsh highs

Conclusion: I will stick to rocket player.

Note: my HTC10 is still under warranty and so I will not root it yet for at least one other year. So no viper4droid. But thanks for the hint!!!

Give a try to UAPP if you find the highs to harsh with Poweramp, UAPP is smoother up top and it has great spatial sound, cleaner than Rocket Player.
It is a bit expensive compared to other paid player but it's worth it for sound quality. It also has Tidal support, Internet radio and you can also route other streaming players through it using Bubble UPnP.
You can download a trial version here

 

[KopaneDePooj]

Sorry for the noob question but what's the point of using that app if it doesn't allow you to use the Hi resolution audio option without crashing?

Poweramp Alpha sounds better than other players regardless of the hi-res enabled or not. + great interface, quality EQ, fine volume steps, DVC.

 

[doctorjazz]

Any tips on rooting? Any big reasons to do it?

 

[doctorjazz]

I thought uapp was for routing to external dap.

 

[KopaneDePooj]

I thought uapp was for routing to external dap.

That's what is best for, but it also has an option in settings "Play through Android" and works as a normal player with better sound quality.

 

[Mmurin]

Thanks. I will try UAPP
poweramp alpha 704 can be downloaded from poweramp forums

Also I forgot. I tried step increase with poweramp volume control to 50 steps. It works very well! Super cool feature!

Note, the harsh vocals may also come from my beoplay h3 IEM

 

[Mmurin]

Hello everybody, I am updating the post following further test and your most helpful remarks.
I will write the updates in blue so to avoid complete re-reading for those who already went through the post.

I am not audio expert, nor audiophile, but I like to listen to good music.

So I ran some test to determine the best music app to use with my HTC10.
I used Beoplay H3 IEM with comply foam tips.
I know they are not considered audiophile grade, but I found their sound very detailed. The soundstage is not very opened though.
My personal impression, contrary to what most reviewers wrote, it's that they are not lacking punch on the bass, but rather exceeding a bit in the mid-highs.
That said, while not considering myself a bass head, I like a bit of warmth in music, especially classical, and punchy bass in rock.
As you will read further below I experienced a bit harsh highs with few advanced players. This may also be due to the sound signature of my beoplay h3 IEM (but it is only a guess, as I did not use other IEMs or headphones to test).


Soon after receiving the HTC10, I started looking better music apps than the stock one (Google music).

I was overwhelmed by the amount of choice AND misinformation.
Most reviews simply seemed to test the most popular apps already, also adding to the confusion the fact that most apps have a free and paid version whose difference can be substantial (e.g. no eq, no folder browsing or tons of ads in the free version)
Also different apps may reproduce the music differently with different devices.

My criteria for testing was first and foremost whether I liked or not the music quality listening to my earphones.
I would define the qualities looked for in the sound output as (audiophiles please forgive my possible imprecision, but I am a newbie in the field):
- sound detail: e.g. if you can hear a guitar chord clearly vibrating like if you head the body right against your hips
- sound fidelity: distortion or not distortion introduced in the music; I often found that the highs would be distorted, this being especially disturbing when listening to classical music
- equalizer (eq) quality: I use eq little to nothing with good quality sources (good mp3 or flac), but many old recordings or badly encoded mp3 need some eq to be beautified;

Other criteria I used are:
- folder browsing is a must-have for me
- UI fluidity
- possibility to control the app with IEM's remote button
- app free, free with ads, or paid

The music I used for the test were high quality flac of metal, jazz and classical music (e.g. Dream Theater, Wagner..) and low quality mp3 rock music (e.g. ACDC).

My starting point was provided by this post:

This is part 3 of my testing of music players on Android. My first post is here http://www.head-fi.org/t/638387/best-android-music-player-app/420#post_12607442.

I spent some more time with the players today and decided to update my table.



USB Audio Player PRO: I was able to test it by following the suggested link. It has the ability to output high resolution audio to a USB DAC, just like Neutron and Onkyo HF do. Besides that, as much as I looked I could not find any single feature that separates it from the rest of the players, which makes me question its price. I also did not find the interface superior in any way. If anything, I would say I prefer using the majority of the other players in the list.

Rocket Player Premium: The free version does not have gapless playback, but the premium version does and it works. There is nothing that makes Rocket stand out from the rest of the premium players, and for the same price I would definitely prefer GoneMad, PowerAmp or jetAudio Plus.

Since Joe posted above that on a rooted phone it is possible to export and edit presets of the equalizer in Onkyo HF, I gave it a green square on the EQ as this makes it one of the most capable ones. It does require a root however, so the red mark for equalizer export still remains, as it is difficult and for some phones impossible to do. Also I went back to some of the other players to look more closely at their EQ bands. Most of the players that have 10 bands have their frequencies adjustable at 31, 62, 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, except the following:
Stello (12 bands): 30, 50, 90, 160, 300, 500, 1k, 1.6k, 3k, 5k, 9k, 16k
Deadbeef (10 bands): 60, 170, 310, 600, 1k, 3k, 6k, 12k, 14k, 16k
jetAudio (10 bands): 60, 100, 240, 500, 1k, 1.8k, 3.4k, 5.7k, 9k, 13k
jetAudio Plus (20 bands): 30, 60, 100, 160, 240, 350, 500, 700, 1k, 1.4k, 1.8k, 2.4k, 3.4k, 4.4k, 5.7k, 7.2k, 9k, 11k, 13k, 16k
Depending on what adjustments are more important, this little detail could be important to some people. I find an extra band above 1k very useful for my particular earphones when using jetAudio. I would definitely think about it if considering buying a player that has the regular 10 bands.

After about a week of using jetAudio one thing that I have come to appreciate is its ability to update its library by using the native media scanner that is built into Android. It is the most elegant way to do it, and it should work great unless wanting to play files that are not natively supported by Android. It should have most people covered, as FLAC playback has been in place for a long time now. USB Audio Player PRO also has the same capability. Android's media scanner can be restricted by placing an empty file named .nomedia in each folder that is to be excluded from the media library.

Update:
I tested today AIMP player and it seems that it is also using its own sound engine and not the native android's and I added it to the table above. It falls into the same category as DeadBeef and ArmAmp as it doesn't have a library, but it is free without ads and in my opinion with a preferable interface to the other two.

Below I'm including another table of all the other players I tested. They all use android's native sound engine, not FFmpeg decoder, so they have very limited or no equalizers and no gapless playback (unless the phone supports it natively). Xplay is an exception, but it hasn't been updated in a long time and gapless playback as well as some of the functions in the interface did not work correctly on my phone. BSPlayer, MX Player, and VLC are all video players and do use their own sound engines for decoding sound, but they don't have built in capability for gapless playback as they seem to be designed primarily for video playback at the moment.



I have colored Google Play Music, Shuttle and Vanilla Music as three players that might be worth taking a look at. They are free without ads with a somewhat preferable interface to the rest and all three will play gaplessly on most phones with android 4.1+. Google Play Music has the benefit of being preinstalled on most phones, Shuttle is lighter than Google, being just a local music player with a basic 5 band equalizer, and Vanilla is among lightest players available that is also open source with a great interface.

So I started with some apps which used android's native sound engine, but due to their disappointing sound quality, I soon switched to the ones using the FFmpeg decoder.
I was later pointed out that if you root your phone you can install viper4droid which will be then used by all those player whose sound quality will then jump from disappointing to excellent.
Please note though that most of the players listed below unlock their full features in the paid version, where equally good alternatives exists completely free (see further below).

The list of the apps I tried:

APPS using android's native sound engine
Folder player by Peter Shashkin
Folder player by Zorillasoft
Blackplayer
Doubletwist
Google play music
Pulsar
PI music player
Sensor music player
Shuttle music player
... and many others which either crashed or messed with the phone's audio

Aside from the inferior sound quality I found those apps ridden with ads or missing fundamental functions.
The 2 apps that really stood out from that list are:
- Folder player by Peter Shashkin : lightweight, free, no ads, no frills, fluid, decent sound quality and decently working equalizer, stable, keeps a folder by folder memory of where you stopped playing the last time you were there, highly configurable
- Pulsar : lightweight, veery nice UI, no ads, but eq locked in the free version and sound quality inferior to folder player. Still, if aesthetics is a must, I really liked the UI.


APPS using FFmpeg decoder:
JetAudio
Onkyo HF
HibyMusic
AIMP
Foobar2000
Stellio
N7player
Gonemad
Poweramp v2
Poweramp v3 alpha build 704
Rocket
PlayerPro
Neutron
Sony music center
Captune (by Sennheiser)
VLC
USB Audio Player PRO

The jump in quality compared to the other apps using android's native sound engine was very discernible.

Almost all of those apps were ok to very good sq wise, with 2 exceptions:
-Stellio - I also had the cracking issues when playing, which was already mentioned in this forum. Globally the music was less detailed compared to the others FFmpeg users. It is really a shame, considering that it is free, ads are inobstrusive and the UI is wonderful!
-Poweramp v2 - With all enhancements (including DVC) turned off, sound was less detailed compared to the others FFmpeg users. With enhancements turned on (mostly DVC + bass boost), I would class its audio effects as the top ones I tried. But this introduced too much distortion and noise in the music, even for old low quality rock mp3s. This is a bit a disappointment, but I read on this forum that it may be specific because of bad support of the HTC 10.

All other apps from a sq point of view were good, but each one had at least one point which led me to discard it.
An interesting thing is that many apps failed to accurately reproduce the highs, which tended to be squeaky:
-AIMP (but superfluid UI!!)
-Foobar2000 (don't like the UI)
- HibyMusic (nice UI)
-VLC
-Poweramp v3 alpha build 704 (here in the download section http://forum.powerampapp.com): the improvement over v2 is noticeable. Gorgeous UI too. HD playback not supported yet on HTC10. I tried step increase with poweramp volume control to 50 steps. It works very well! Super cool feature!
no sound effects : SQ is in league with other FFmpeg players, but to me it sounds with the same harsh highs as AIMP, Foobar2000, Gonemad, so a notch below excellent quality.
sound effects ON: DVC here really improved. Aside from pumping up the volume by ~15%, it really adds space and dynamics to the music. Bass boost, eq and stereo enhancements are still excellent too. But too much distortion for my taste + again the harsh highs

Then those 2 seemed to have a tad less detail with hq flacs compared to the apps further below:
-JetAudio : I don't like sound effects + the free version is ridden with ads
-Neutron : my lack of understanding of all of the parameters did not allow it to really stand out sq-wise

And there come the sq winners. All these apps for me were excellent enough for hq flacs, but only few of them succeeded in equally beautify lq mp3s. Compared to the apps above detail and highs reproduction seemed a step superior. Despite differences in sound reproduction tonalities, to me all sounded flawless. The differences in the end come only to price, UI, and sound effects:
- Onkyo HF (superfluid UI, but no folder browser)
- N7player (here some highs accuracy is traded for extra sound detail; don't like the way it shows its main page, plus occasionally the UI hangs and crashes; extra paid after trial end, including folder browser)
-Gonemad (not free + access to sound effects overly laborious)
-Sony music center (some accuracy is traded to open the soundstage; no hierarchical folder view; unresponsive to headset remote buttons; not really sure it is meant to be a local music player)
- Captune (by Sennheiser) (sq excels especially in highs reproduction; slow and choppy UI; the UI was the main reason why I discarded it)

The 3 which stood out in the finals, with no major flaws:
- PlayerPro (balanced sq, options for high res sound, but paying after trial expiry)
- Rocket music player (a tad of detail is traded to add a bit of warmth to music)
- USB Audio Player PRO (balanced super detailed sq, but paying and more than the other apps, difficult to use trial which shuts down every 20 mins or 6 to 7 songs, I believe it is rather aimed to the ones which wish to play over USB) I don't know about other players, but I quote some technicalities which explain the high sound quality of UAPP:

UAPP hi-res works well with HTC 10 and what is nice is that it automatically outputs at the file's native resolution, it does not resample.

Give a try to UAPP if you find the highs to harsh with Poweramp, UAPP is smoother up top and it has great spatial sound, cleaner than Rocket Player.
You can download a trial version here

I will give the final prize to Rocket music player only because its equalizer and bass boost really stand out in beautifying low quality mp3. Plus the UI is super, it is free (as I don't need the paying extras) and I like the extra warmth added to the music.

Please note that all of this comes from many hours of listening and fiddling with eqs, but there is nothing objective here. It all come to my personal tastes and impressions.

I really would like to have your feedbacks!

To conclude I would like to quote an interesting post describing the wild wild west situation of Android, which btw was the reason which forced me to start the research described in this post

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/an-audiophile-switches-from-ios-to-android/

 

[Badelhas]

Hello everybody, I am updating the post following further test and your most helpful remarks.
I will write the updates in blue so to avoid complete re-reading for those who already went through the post.

I am not audio expert, nor audiophile, but I like to listen to good music.

So I ran some test to determine the best music app to use with my HTC10.
I used Beoplay H3 IEM with comply foam tips.
I know they are not considered audiophile grade, but I found their sound very detailed. The soundstage is not very opened though.
My personal impression, contrary to what most reviewers wrote, it's that they are not lacking punch on the bass, but rather exceeding a bit in the mid-highs.
That said, while not considering myself a bass head, I like a bit of warmth in music, especially classical, and punchy bass in rock.
As you will read further below I experienced a bit harsh highs with few advanced players. This may also be due to the sound signature of my beoplay h3 IEM (but it is only a guess, as I did not use other IEMs or headphones to test).


Soon after receiving the HTC10, I started looking better music apps than the stock one (Google music).

I was overwhelmed by the amount of choice AND misinformation.
Most reviews simply seemed to test the most popular apps already, also adding to the confusion the fact that most apps have a free and paid version whose difference can be substantial (e.g. no eq, no folder browsing or tons of ads in the free version)
Also different apps may reproduce the music differently with different devices.

My criteria for testing was first and foremost whether I liked or not the music quality listening to my earphones.
I would define the qualities looked for in the sound output as (audiophiles please forgive my possible imprecision, but I am a newbie in the field):
- sound detail: e.g. if you can hear a guitar chord clearly vibrating like if you head the body right against your hips
- sound fidelity: distortion or not distortion introduced in the music; I often found that the highs would be distorted, this being especially disturbing when listening to classical music
- equalizer (eq) quality: I use eq little to nothing with good quality sources (good mp3 or flac), but many old recordings or badly encoded mp3 need some eq to be beautified;

Other criteria I used are:
- folder browsing is a must-have for me
- UI fluidity
- possibility to control the app with IEM's remote button
- app free, free with ads, or paid

The music I used for the test were high quality flac of metal, jazz and classical music (e.g. Dream Theater, Wagner..) and low quality mp3 rock music (e.g. ACDC).

My starting point was provided by this post:




So I started with some apps which used android's native sound engine, but due to their disappointing sound quality, I soon switched to the ones using the FFmpeg decoder.
I was later pointed out that if you root your phone you can install viper4droid which will be then used by all those player whose sound quality will then jump from disappointing to excellent.
Please note though that most of the players listed below unlock their full features in the paid version, where equally good alternatives exists completely free (see further below).

The list of the apps I tried:

APPS using android's native sound engine
Folder player by Peter Shashkin
Folder player by Zorillasoft
Blackplayer
Doubletwist
Google play music
Pulsar
PI music player
Sensor music player
Shuttle music player
... and many others which either crashed or messed with the phone's audio

Aside from the inferior sound quality I found those apps ridden with ads or missing fundamental functions.
The 2 apps that really stood out from that list are:
- Folder player by Peter Shashkin : lightweight, free, no ads, no frills, fluid, decent sound quality and decently working equalizer, stable, keeps a folder by folder memory of where you stopped playing the last time you were there, highly configurable
- Pulsar : lightweight, veery nice UI, no ads, but eq locked in the free version and sound quality inferior to folder player. Still, if aesthetics is a must, I really liked the UI.


APPS using FFmpeg decoder:
JetAudio
Onkyo HF
HibyMusic
AIMP
Foobar2000
Stellio
N7player
Gonemad
Poweramp v2
Poweramp v3 alpha build 704
Rocket
PlayerPro
Neutron
Sony music center
Captune (by Sennheiser)
VLC
USB Audio Player PRO

The jump in quality compared to the other apps using android's native sound engine was very discernible.

Almost all of those apps were ok to very good sq wise, with 2 exceptions:
-Stellio - I also had the cracking issues when playing, which was already mentioned in this forum. Globally the music was less detailed compared to the others FFmpeg users. It is really a shame, considering that it is free, ads are inobstrusive and the UI is wonderful!
-Poweramp v2 - With all enhancements (including DVC) turned off, sound was less detailed compared to the others FFmpeg users. With enhancements turned on (mostly DVC + bass boost), I would class its audio effects as the top ones I tried. But this introduced too much distortion and noise in the music, even for old low quality rock mp3s. This is a bit a disappointment, but I read on this forum that it may be specific because of bad support of the HTC 10.

All other apps from a sq point of view were good, but each one had at least one point which led me to discard it.
An interesting thing is that many apps failed to accurately reproduce the highs, which tended to be squeaky:
-AIMP (but superfluid UI!!)
-Foobar2000 (don't like the UI)
-VLC
-Poweramp v3 alpha build 704 (here in the download section http://forum.powerampapp.com): the improvement over v2 is noticeable. Gorgeous UI too. HD playback not supported yet on HTC10. I tried step increase with poweramp volume control to 50 steps. It works very well! Super cool feature!
no sound effects : SQ is in league with other FFmpeg players, but to me it sounds with the same harsh highs as AIMP, Foobar2000, Gonemad, so a notch below excellent quality.
sound effects ON: DVC here really improved. Aside from pumping up the volume by ~15%, it really adds space and dynamics to the music. Bass boost, eq and stereo enhancements are still excellent too. But too much distortion for my taste + again the harsh highs

Then those 2 seemed to have a tad less detail with hq flacs compared to the apps further below:
-JetAudio : I don't like sound effects + the free version is ridden with ads
-Neutron : my lack of understanding of all of the parameters did not allow it to really stand out sq-wise

And there come the sq winners. All these apps for me were excellent enough for hq flacs, but only few of them succeeded in equally beautify lq mp3s. Compared to the apps above detail and highs reproduction seemed a step superior. Despite differences in sound reproduction tonalities, to me all sounded flawless. The differences in the end come only to price, UI, and sound effects:
- Onkyo HF (superfluid UI, but no folder browser)
- N7player (here some highs accuracy is traded for extra sound detail; don't like the way it shows its main page, plus occasionally the UI hangs and crashes; extra paid after trial end, including folder browser)
-Gonemad (not free + access to sound effects overly laborious)
-Sony music center (some accuracy is traded to open the soundstage; no hierarchical folder view; unresponsive to headset remote buttons; not really sure it is meant to be a local music player)
- Captune (by Sennheiser) (sq excels especially in highs reproduction; slow and choppy UI; the UI was the main reason why I discarded it)

The 3 which stood out in the finals, with no major flaws:
- PlayerPro (balanced sq, options for high res sound, but paying after trial expiry)
- HibyMusic (balanced sq)
- Rocket music player (a tad of detail is traded to add a bit of warmth to music)
- USB Audio Player PRO (balanced super detailed sq, but paying and more than the other apps, difficult to use trial which shuts down every 20 mins or 6 to 7 songs, I believe it is rather aimed to the ones which wish to play over USB) I don't know about other players, but I quote some technicalities which explain the high sound quality of UAPP:



I will give the final prize to Rocket music player only because its equalizer and bass boost really stand out in beautifying low quality mp3. Plus the UI is super, it is free (as I don't need the paying extras) and I like the extra warmth added to the music.

Please note that all of this comes from many hours of listening and fiddling with eqs, but there is nothing objective here. It all come to my personal tastes and impressions.

I really would like to have your feedbacks!

To conclude I would like to quote an interesting post describing the wild wild west situation of Android, which btw was the reason which forced me to start the research described in this post

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/an-audiophile-switches-from-ios-to-android/

Great post! Does Rocket Music Player support Hi-Res Audio, without downsampling it?

Cheers