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Sound quality suddenly bad

With all things being equal, why would sound quality suddenly suffer a marked decrease in quality?

And when I say decreased sound quality, I mean it in a software, not hardware, way. Certain frequencies are muted or completely gone, as if the sound is being run through a karaoke machine that cuts off most of the vocals.

I performed a hard reset, to no avail. Is it possible that the audio chip went bad? Like I said, nothing changed. I was sitting here at work listening to "Take It Back" by Wu-Tang Clan and suddenly all I could hear was the dope bassline, but none of RZA's or GZA's vocals in a song I knew had them.

Also, I called my girlfriend and she couldn't hear me. I had to disconnect the headphones to talk to her. But I don't think it's the headphones since the sound volume is still high, but the lows are almost non-existent. The strange thing is that I can actually hear the vocals, but they sound like the singer is far, far away, like talking in a tunnel.

The headphones are fine; they're the iPhone headphones, no adapters, no nothing. And again, by all things equal, iPod > Settings nothing was changed, Soundcheck was untouched, EQ hasn't changed, nothing, nada, except for one second it works to the next one it doesn't.

I am simply perplexed.

This is on an iPhone 2G running OS 2.1 (5F136), with no patches, jailbreaks, etc.

Message was edited by: PatrickL

Message was edited by: PatrickL

iPhone 2G - MacBook Pro 17" - MacPro Dual 2GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.4), 4GB iPhone - 4GB RAM (MBP) - 2GB RAM (MP)

Posted on Oct 20, 2008 2:18 PM

Reply
5 replies

Oct 21, 2008 3:28 AM in response to PatrickL

Hi Patrick,

I'm having the same issues (see http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1758705&tstart=0)

I went to the Genius Bar and they replaced the iPhone, however, it still hasn't rectified the issue. I have a funny feeling this is a larger issue that is about to come out the woodwork.

Someone has suggested a possible solution on my thread, which I will try tonight. I think there may be a link between this starting and when I updated to iTunes 8.

Please keep me up to date if you find any solution.

Kind regards

Paul Pounder

Oct 21, 2008 11:33 AM in response to PaulPounder

Hi PaulPounder,

I read your post, but I think I might need to clarify my issue. It's not only a volume issue, but a volume-of-certain-frequencies issue.

A lot of my songs have turned into +a cappellas+, with the rhythm guitars, drums, etc., almost entirely wiped out, yet the vocals are still there and at normal volume.

And on some songs it's entirely reversed: barely audible vocals (as if someone is far away, and with occasional echoes), yet with completely loud, audible instruments.

Repeated the issue with other headphones. And it's strange that a simple headphone jack malfunction would create such a sophisticated issue, what with being able to screen out specific frequencies and not others. A headphone jack issue usually surfaces as completely audible, yet strained, tinny, sound.

Sound quality suddenly bad

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