USB-C > 3.5mm adapter three-button issue on Galaxy A54-5G

[andrewilley]

I've purchased a CS-Pro USB DAC adapter (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004763520790.html) as all of the small basic local ones I tried (including Ugreen and Samsung's own adapters, and all Bluetooth devices) have a low-level analogue background hiss noticeable while listening at very low levels (2-3% volume for night time listening). The sound on this higher spec dongle (Cirrus CS46L41 chip, S/N 125+dB) is lovely for the price, and there's no hiss, but I've encountered a really strange problem which only seems to occur on the Galaxy A54-5G. 

The A54 (and only the A54) does not recognise the three-button events (Play/Pause, Vol+ and Vol-) from my headset's inline cable when using this CS-Pro adapter. This is at the device level, it won't even change volume on the homescreen using the inline buttons, so it's not app related. And it happens with multiple Android-spec 3.5mm wired headsets (including Samsung's own) so it's not the headset itself. Running a key-button-event monitor shows nothing at all is reaching the OS when any of the three buttons are pressed. 

The three buttons all work fine with this dongle on my other USB-C household devices, such as an older Galaxy A40, Galaxy A70 and an Asus tablet, so thinking my phone was faulty I popped into the local O2 phone dealership to see how this dongle worked with more recent phones. We tested the basic Vol+/Vol- buttons on the sales assistant's own Oppo phone and that was fine. We also tried every live Samsung phone on the store's display - an A14-5G, A34-5G, Z-Fold5, Z-Flip5, S23, S23+, S23-Ultra - and they all worked perfectly EXCEPT for their A54-5G. 

So basically three-button headset controls with this dongle work fine on every phone in Samsung's range except for the A54. More recent stock firmware updates (currently running the 1st October patch update) have not helped.

I assumed when I got my A54 that connecting my 3.5mm headsets would just be a case of getting a little adapter and it would work just as it's always worked for the past 20 years. Not so much apparently, thanks Samsung. 

Any thoughts on how I can progress with this issue?

Andre

[Rdv95]

A54 5G is the worst phone when it comes to usb-c adapters... spend over 60 bucks on them things and still cant listen to my music.. only wireless ones work.. have 3 expensive af headsets now i cant use.. the phone is just a pos. Never gonna get a samsung without aux its so poor.... so bad.. waste of alot of money

[andrewilley]

I've not checked back with that CS46L41 based DAC adapter after recent A54 ROM updates (the supplier asked me to destroy it and send a photo to get a refund) so I'm not sure if Samsung have fixed the button detection issue. Samsung's support people refused to even discuss it as it involved a third-party adapter, even though it worked fine on every other current Samsung model I could find, and a number of older ones.

I did find a CX31993 based DAC adapter which works perfectly with the A54, and despite being much cheaper than Samsung's terrible DAC effort (total cost about £6 inc. shipping to the UK) it has no discernible noise floor and a far better S/N ratio. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006224269385.html

But yes, a simple 3.5mm socket would be a much tidier and more consumer-friendly solution. The joke is that Samsung say they removed the socket  to provide better use of space in the phone, and yet the A54 is thicker, chunkier and heavier than my previous much more elegant A70 model which did have a 3.5mm socket.

Andre