I realized that the audio output is much better when watching films on the N900 than with the build in media player listening to MP3s with high quality (Koss Porta Pro and Sennheiser headphones - all sound very well with Cowon U3).

In comparison to the Cowon U3 the N900 sounds somehow "flat".

How can I improve this?
Are there any switches or redirection to different audio
hardware on the N900?

I've read
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37546
and I've read some people writing that the loudspeakers of
the N900 cannot handle higher and lower frequencies
(is that still true for current devices?).

But why is the sound so much better when watching videos?
How can I get this sound quality when listening to MP3s?

Are you sure about this? Could it be the case that the video files might have audio streams on a more advanced codec (i.e. ac3) that might provide better depth and quality than MP3?


//Off Topic
Also a fellow Cowon U3 user here! I am afraid the player is going to die on me soon, and I am afraid I cannot find a replacement player in today's MP3 players market....

I never had a problem with the sound quality. Actually, my own impression is that the N900 have a really good audio quality when using earphones.

I am using Head Direct RE0, which are very high quality earphones - very detailed and very transparent. I am usually playing music using MediaBox, but I don't think there is a difference with sound quality between mediabox and the built-in player.

The sound I get from the N900 is really clean and natural. Maybe very slightly on the bright side, but I mean very slightly. I have some acoustic recording that are so transparent when played on the N900 with my earphones I can close my eyes and feel like someone is playing in front of me.

Maybe you are used to a certain sound signature you miss on you other music playback devices (such as boosted bass)? There is a player with an equalizer for the N900. You can install it and play with the equalizer settings.

You might want to check this post

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...2&postcount=63

which has instructions on how to increase the audio quality at the expense of increased cpu load.

I don't know which codec the films use.
It is just this "built in" film named "9" that has better sound than
MP3s with built in player.
I know from my Cowon, that the MP3s are ok and have good qualiy.

//Off Topic: I still hope to fix the N900 for this.
;-)

I checked the thread:
"[Testers needed] New pulseaudio package"
here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...eaudio&page=13
and there is some talk about some "power user kernel" that is needed.

How can I improve audio output for the default media player
without using a different kernel?

I still do not know, if the 9.mp4 uses some different audio
hardware on the N900.

hmmm.From various sources (also here tmo) users have said that N900 has one of clearest olutputs of gadgets around. So it could be that you are used to output that has gone trought eq.

The sound quality is ok, but nowhere near as good as the n810 i had before.

To check this: which equalizer can be installed on the N900 easily?
Any equalizer usable with default media player?

Hi, you can test mafw-gst-eq-renderer, it works well but take a lot of CPU.
It would be nice if some developers could make it less cpu consumer