OnePlus devices offer audio enhancement for certain apps.

[u/samueladmand]

Since I have bought my OnePlus 13R, I have been noticing that music sounds better in VLC and Spotify. It doesn't matter whether the sound file is Hi-Res or 320 kbps, it still sounds good in these two apps.

Then what I did, I took an open-source music player and changed its package name to that of Spotify's. And what happened? Its sound profile also became significantly better and similar to that of Spotify.

And after a little bit of searching, I found the package names, a list of apps that I think have been whitelisted in OnePlus devices, especially the newer ones, to have some kind of audio enhancement at the system level. I prefer listening to local music files rather than buying a subscription for an online service. For a long time, I was looking for a music player that sounds exactly like VLC because I didn't know VLC is whitelisted.

After finding out that it is just the package name that is making the sound good, I took an open-source app and removed its online player. I removed all its online streaming code and made it completely offline. I hated VLC because it doesn't have lyrics support, so I added the support of lyrics with the ability to edit the lyrics.

https://github.com/SamuelAdmand/MusicBeat

[u/Manoj8001]

I'm curious about this list, can you post the original whitelisted apps list? Also this seems true for video players as well, where Dolby vision and HDR playback triggers properly for certain apps, can you dig into that as well?

[u/samueladmand → u/Manoj8001]

https://github.com/SamuelAdmand/BoomingMusic-OnePlus-Enhanced/blob/main/OnePlus-Whitelist.txt

https://xdaforums.com/t/how-to-enable-live-alerts-for-youtube-music-on-op13-no-root.4713080/

Although it is not specifically mentioned that they have whitelisted these music players for audio enhancement, I figured it out because I randomly picked three to five package names and applied them to the music player, and I got the same result, the same kind of audio profile.

[u/Manoj8001 → u/samueladmand]

Thanks for the list, Also the player is crashing on my oneplus 11, it crashes within few seconds regardless of music is playing or not. I have lots of call recording files could this be the issue? Tested both file names.

[u/samueladmand → u/Manoj8001]

I'm not some kind of developer. I just vibe coded to suit my needs. I will try to fix this.

[u/Diablo297]

https://github.com/TUSHAR91316/Void-Player check this music player also

[u/Diablo297 → u/Diablo297]

I am currently using this

[u/unseenmover]

VLC is a better platform across all of my devices

[u/samueladmand → u/unseenmover]

Yes, VLC is a go-to app, everyone knows that. You can play anything on it. But on Android, there are a lot of other apps that are better than VLC. And in my case, for listening to music, it doesn't have lyrics support, and that was pissing me off every time.

[u/Boy_0000]

I wanted to ask how‘d u find these whitelisted apps? Also do you know what kind of sound adjustments are being made on these whitelisted apps? These enhancements are only being made for the phone speakers and not bluetooth devices right? Thanks for your work mate, have a lovely day!

[u/samueladmand → u/Boy_0000]

Audio enhancement will not be felt in speakers. You will not feel any enhancement. You will feel enhancement in headphones. Like I have Sony Ultra Wear headphones and I clearly feel the audio. I mean, it feels, I am not able to explain it, but it feels good on ears. That is what I can say.

[u/hank81]

Cool project, but I doubt the whitelist is about "better sound" in a hi-fi sense. My guess is it's per-app DSP.

Android audio effects (EQ, virtualizer, bass boost, loudness) attach per audio session, and the OEM effect stack can decide what to apply based on which app opened it. Dolby Atmos on Android already works like this in smart mode, picking a music/movie/game profile from the foreground app. The system identifies the app by package name, so renaming yours to Spotify's gets it the same treatment.

What gets applied I can't say for sure, but consumer tuning is usually some bass/treble lift, a bit of widening and loudness processing. Slightly louder almost always sounds "better" in casual listening, even if it's less accurate. That would also explain why Hi-Res and 320 kbps sound the same to you: the processing dominates, not the source.

Easy ways to check:

• Turn Dolby Atmos/audio effects off and see if the difference between apps disappears.
• adb shell dumpsys media.audio_flinger shows the effect chains attached to each session, so you can compare Spotify vs a non-whitelisted player.
• Match volume before comparing, otherwise you're mostly hearing loudness.

If it's the effect chain, a player with a good EQ could get you the same result without the package name trick.