my skype works flawless on my n900. audio is very good

I've just tried deleting that configuration file. Rebooted the phone. It makes no difference, skype still works and the sound quality still remains poor. So I guess the file is not there for a configuration purpose of any kind. I don't know, it's so strange for me.

Are you using kernel-power?

Note that stereo brings no advantage as very likely whoever you talk to is using a single microphone.

Thanks for the hint, it's a very clever one! And what do you think about the other settings? And about the fact that removing the file makes no difference?

I would assume there are some defaults at play, but it might be just that it's the wrong section (i.e. that those are not the ones used in your particular case). I can't really test it as I don't have any quality issues (I use it fairly often to talk with both people on win and linux and it sound pretty good to me).

I haven't used skype in a while but whenever I have done so in the past (PR1.2/1.3, on both wifi & GPRS) the quality has been excellent - I'd say it's usually noticably better than a normal mobile call, with better clarity and "brightness" to the sound, very few echo/dropouts and genrally good background noise cancellation. That includes calls to/from Europe, UK and USA, mainly to landline/mobile (via Skype out), but occasionally to windows PC's.

I was about to hit "post quick reply" at this point ... but I then decided to call the skype echo/test service first, just out of interest. The quality was definitely poor - I tried 3 times, and on each occasion there were multiple audio dropouts on the call.

CPU load was ~60% during each test, not sure if that's normal or not for a skype call, but regardless it was neither CPU or RAM bound during tests. On two of the test calls the dropouts were pretty minor and didn't much affect audibility; on the other call, they were quite severe, and I'd have struggled to hold a conversation.

All tests were on my home wifi (rock solid 4Mb/s). I tried one more test on 3G - quality was the same as the better two wifi tests.

So, I'm also seeing a definite reduction in skype call quality on calls made from N900. I double checked on my desktop PC skype client (on same wifi as above) and quality (again to the skype echo/test service) was excellent, so definitely the N900 skype client (or something else on my N900 interfering with it) to blame. I did one final test with my phone overclocked to 805Mhz - the dropouts were worse at that freq than at stock 600Mhz, so I don't think CPU load is relevant.

I've had my phone over a year, with loads of -devel stuff installed, and it's never been flashed - my guess is that if I flashed a clean image, skype may improve? I don't want to reflash my own N900 as I seldom use skype, but perhaps one of the others who are suffering may give it a go and see if it helps.

I too have choppy skype quality. My call partner on windows has no problems understanding me, but I receive only chopped up audio fragments. Had to ditch the n900 a few times and fetch a laptop. Interestingly, enabling video doesn't have any impact on the audio choppiness.

i have no issues with skype on my n900

I reflashed my phone. Both eMMC and fiasco images. The skype bad audio quality persists. So what do you think?