Audio changes when changing between zoom modes on Iphone 13 Pro

A member posted about this about a year ago regarding his/her iphone 12... and there were no useful responses. I have a similar issue with my iphone 13 pro, which I just discovered.

I was shooting a song at a concert the other night and while subsequently listening to the audio, the sound stage noticeably narrows when zooming in. For example, I started the recording in wide angle (.5) and the sound is wide and "spacious". Then I selected 1x while still recording, and the sound/stereo field quite noticeably narrows and quality seems to degrade as well.

NOT happy about this.

Anyone experience this and have any ideas on how to fix/turn this off?

Much appreciated.