iPhone (iOS 5) High Bass Audio Distortion

Hi there.

I have the exact same problem, ever since I 'upgraded' my iPod Touch to iOS5 the other day the sound has been atrocious. I thought it was the headphones at first but everything sounds perfectly fine through my computer so I know the iPod is at fault.

Apple: You're going to need to fix this, and fix it fast.

Same problem... I had the iPhone 4 before the upgrade, all of my music was fine until I noticed something strange with the sound quality after I upgraded to iOS 5. I thought it was my headphones/headphone jack or just phone in general, but then I went and got the iPhone 4S and the problem continued. The problem is from the iOS 5 upgrade 100%. Soundcheck doesn't do anything by just decreases the volume in a different way. Changing the equalizers might slightly help but you can still hear the static and distortion. I used to have my volume in the settings to each song on iTunes (right-click on a song and go to Get Info>Options>Volume Adjustment) to "+100%" with no problems before the upgrade, but I went back and changed all of my songs from +100% to None and that was the biggest help I've noticed but I still hear the distortion, if that's any help for all of you.

@kn95

I meant the opposite actually, set them as 0%, and ensure this setting is applied to all of them. What worked for me was:

- Delete all the songs from the iPhone (by synchronizing only selected lists, and don't select any)

- Select all my songs in iTunes

- Right click --> Info --> Set volume as 0%

- Apply to all (took like 15 minutes)

- Copy them again to the iPhone

That trick doesn't do anything for me, it just makes the music less loud, which seems like a fix on apple earbuds, but when listening on high end headphones with proper low frequencies you can still hear the bass is distorted...

I would like to have a confirmation that Apple acknowledges the issue and is working on a fix for it as this is getting unacceptable. Does anybody know if there's anyway to log this issue with them? I get the feeling that we can say anything we want on here, they're not reading it anyway....

same problem, iphone 4 updates to ios5. My songs were +80 volume in itunes, so they sounded loud in the iphone with volume slider only in 80%.

now:

- everything sounds super low with earphones, even with speakers I would say.

- then i put volume +100 in itunes to all my songs, then hyper distorted. If I put back to +0, then the volume of the iphone is so so low that even at maximum level is STILL low.

All this with Apple earphones that come when you buy the phone. Before iOS5 they sounded fantastic.

I tried all, including deleting music from iphone, Time machine all music recovery before itunes 10.5 was installed, etc.

It's a software problem and better they fix it very soon, because then iOS5 deal broken, I am back to 4, that would be really pathetic.

post repeated, sorry.

you can delete this one

Maybe its a problem for the users that had their music on more than 100% volume when upgrading to ios5?

Does that make it less of a problem?

No difference to awful distorted/crackling bass with or without Sound Check, or whether Volume bar set at +100%, 0%,-100%, or anything in between, etc..

The firmware audio/EQ settings in iOS5 have been altered very poorly by Apple this time, and THAT is the culprit.

Hope Apple will appreciate this issue, investigate it, and fix it for its loyal Apple audiophiles.

Same here. I updated my 3GS a couple I days ago and now the sound of all my recordings is terrible. All of the music on my iPhone has ran smoothly even with upping the volume to 100% in iTunes. The sound is now, well horrible and worse if you use decent headphones or have it hooked up to hi if. Nothing has worked, sound check, reducing the volume to 0% in iTunes pls Apple take note because most of us bought iPods then iPhones more for the music than anything else. Please fix soon.

True, but then all your songs sound really flat, there's no "body" so also not really a solution imho

Yep having the same problem with my 3GS now on IOS5. Distortion through the headphone output and also when docked to a B&W Zeppelin. Not impressed. Any direct way of contacting Apple to log it? Hoping they know and fix it ASAP.

I listen to talk radio alot from a website. After updating to iOS5, the crackiling is so bad it's difficult to even listen to it. I have been listening to talk radio on all my iphones back to the original iphone, and NEVER heard this crackling before. This has only occurred on iOS5, so I think it's a proven fact that Apple changed the sound software and it has a major bug. Hope they fix it!