Media Volume Changes Automatically

[DTM]

I don't know if this is an issue with Android, Samsung or the GP 4.2, but it's a minor annoyance I'd like to correct, if possible.

I normally listen to music and podcasts through my car radio, via its aux input. Attach the player to the radio, headphone to aux, turn the GP volume to max, and adjust the volume through the car's radio. All is well in the world. (Not counting the content of the news podcasts, but that's another thread.)

Arrive at destination, unplug GP. When I next plug it in, the GP volume has dropped to about 70%, so I turn it up all the way, and it's fine until I remove it again.

Maybe they do that so that, if you use earbuds you won't blow out your eardrums by surprise, but 70% is still awfully loud. In any case, I rarely use earbuds and would rather it keep the volume where I set it. I can't find anything that appears to disable this "feature". Any suggestions?

[Hook]

I hadn't noticed that as I use headphones most of the time and wouldn't want it up that high.

It appears to me on mine that if you set the media volume slider in the Sound control panel under settings, that it will keep it and use that as the default. In fact, on mine, that seemed to have been set to 70 by default, so I think that's what yours is using.

[Varjak]

I think it's going to be tough to get around that. I"ve noticed that on other things too, where the volume constantly resets.

[DTM]

Thanks for the replies, gents.

I tried the Settings\Sound\Volume\Media setting, thinking that was it. But it doesn't hold that value. When I find that the volume has dropped unexpectedly, that setting has also dropped. Not sure what it's supposed to be, unless, of course, there's just a bug somewhere that's causing it to change improperly.

Oh well, I can live with it.

[r0k]

I took a look at my GP5. The volume setting was greyed out because I have my device set to silent. I unchecked silent so I could see what it looks like. There are 4 sliders. One for incoming calls and another for notifications and a checkbox to link the two. The remaining two are labeled media and system volume. What I don't understand is why volume is greyed out and inaccessible when silent clearly states "except for media" so I should have been able to go in and adjust it without having to uncheck silent. Android.

Anyway... I set mine to max and exited settings. I came back and it was till max. Another annoying Android thing is it started making noise when I adjusted the Media setting. What if I was at a funeral trying to turn the darn thing down? Android.

Anyway... I went to silent and back again and it was still max. I then stayed in silent and started touching the volume controls on my device. It started from where I left it (max). So I'm not sure what you're dealing with. My brief experience says if you set media to max it will stay at max. You shouldn't have to touch system volume and your setting should work whether you are in silent mode or not. Sadly Android does not respect your wishes when you say silent unlike my iPhone which comes with a hardware silent switch (shamelessly copied from Treo I suppose).

[jigwashere]

r0k, I don't like that pressing the volume key to silence the phone makes a sound, but you do have the option of holding the volume key and selecting silent mode from the menu pop up.

[raspabalsa]

I've seen the same behavior as DTM, on my SGP5. I usually listen to music through headphones, but also sometimes through the player's speakers. If I set the volume to max when using speakers, it will lower itself as soon as I plug the headphones (or another audio equipment) in. I assumed this is normal behavior, especially since the volume slider will show the "listening above this volume will cause damage" warning if volume goes beyond 70% when headphones are plugged in.

To prevent this, when using the player in the car or with the computer's speakers I don't set the player's volume to max, but below the 70% limit, and adjust via the car radio or computer speakers. Either one's amplifier is more than enough to give me the desired volume, even when keeping the player's volume to about 40%. As an added benefit, you'll lower battery consumption when lowering the player's volume, and the car radio will provide the extra amplification.

[Adama D. Brown]

Yep, this is as far as I know a standard Android feature.

[Varjak]

raspa, you may be right about the volume level always using more battery power; but I'm not sure. If you plug something into the jack, the speakers are disabled so that aspect of power is cut out. What's left is just the line level, and that probably means no extra battery power required. I typically like to have the source volume (line out volume) to be maxed all the time and then adjust the actual output device (headset, speakers, etc.). This holds for my computers, my a/v equipment, etc.

[ScandaLeX]

I thought this behavior was intentional. I noticed the same awhile ago that my volume would decrease once I plugged in headsets. I figured it does that to prevent us from blowing out our eardrums..... Assuming they're already in your ears before plugging into device.

Tap'n from my White SGT2 7.0 SE