iOS 5 Sound Quality and Sound Check issues

Seems to be an issue with sound check, I'm having a similar problem on an iPhone 4S, and friends' devices are the same. There will probably be an update soon to fix this bug (among some other). Hope this helps. :)

I got the same problem....

Have a thread here : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3411029

I am having the same problem. Since I upgraded to IOS5 I've had some problems with sound check. Some times it will be fine for a few songs and then the volume will suddenly jack up and it will start crackling and if I go to the next song and come back to that same song it's fine. So the Sound check function some times work and some times it doesn't. Hopefully they'll get this fixed in the next update.

On 3GS ios 4.3.5 sound was quite perfect! But now on 4s ios 5.0 sound cracks and volume is reduced. Pls pls fix this... Otherwise I need my 3GS back.

The problem is intermitent for me. It's fine most of the time, but every, say, 25th song (I'm just guessing - I don't count songs as I work) will exhibit the problem. If I skip to another song and then back to the problem song, it will play just fine. This has all the earmarks of an uninitialized variable in the SoundCheck code, which is setting the gain too high.

iPhone 3GS, iOS 5

Since I bought iPhone4 and listened my songs with "Ipod app" and external speakears I was amazed how brilliant, sharp, intense, clear, perfect bass, perfect trebble the sound was, there was no distortions or saturations ever... The sound quality was just PERFECT with the equalization OFF!!! Not remember if I had SoundCheck ON before but now it doesn't make any difference. I installed iOS 5 over 4.3.1 or so and now sound is just more like noise compared to iOS 4, I have selected all presets or equalizations but ALL are poor, maybe some presets work better with some songs but still they are poor.... Songs did not have clarity!! The volume force was like degraded, now I have to set higher volume to produce same force than before with less volume... iOS 5 max volume (100%) is like iOS 4.2.1 85-90% of volume. Difference is that iOS 5 maximum volume starts slightly to distort or saturate audio quality... before with iOS 4 sound quality was Crystal Clear even with max volume!!! In short SOUND QUALITY is DEGRADED... or perhaps I'm a very critical and nonconformist guy in terms of audio quality... this kind of degradation is quite notorious when one loves music!! or is there some other configuration I'm missing here??

Totally agree with Richard!!

At first I thought it was a problem with my phone... I used to believe iOS 5 was engineered for new iPhone 4S hardware and since it is shipped with dual-core processor, I thought my phone was short in resources!!!

Why max volume is lower in intensity???

Why equalization with the EQ Off changed?? All my songs were stored on iTunes, they must have same sound quality properties as they were when first ripped..

I hope Apple enginneers did not sacrifice volume output force in favor of saving some battery, because normally we charge battery when listening music at home with our personal speakers equipment.

I would like to understand the reasons why the new "Music App" was "changed", and why these changes have to go backwards!! That is sad... because for iPhone or iPod lovers music was always important.

thanks

It's a bug. Relax.

Hey!! I've got the solution.

this is some what a format problem.

if you see a aac file, it's not all the same aac format. there are, aac low complexity VBR, aac low complexity CBR, aac high-efficiency. the files are being corrupted are the aac high-efficiency. make sure you don't convert your file using aac HE or high-efficiency.

to check if it's HE,

in itunes left click on a song and click "get info", go to "summary tab and it will appear on the right upper corner..

you'll have to delete the files with HE on the ios device, convert the original files to low complexity then load it again to your ios device.

I don't know why it sounds wrong only on iOS 5 though...

hope it helps!!

I only have mp3...

You can solve it by skipping, if you have a song that is to loud of to soft, just skip back and forward again.

It looks like something is not getting initialized properly.

Bug

for me none of them worked... and maybe all have different experiences.

my songs didn't have peaking or anything..

just the sound crackles and stuttered and had no problem til update.

My perminent solution for now was re-encoding.

Guys this fixed the problem for me, first of all the problem is in the iTune library vs the iPhone, or better yet in the way the new iPhone softaware works with the iTune music library.

1) Open itune and click on music

2) Highlight all your songs

3) Open the information window (command i) and select option

4) In volume adjustment the volume bar will be set on "none" unless you have all your songs

set at a different level, in any case move the bar anywhere "plus" or "minus", close the window allow iTune to set all your songs to the new setting, repeat the process and bring it the bar back to "none",

again close the window, allow iTune to set all our songs to none this might take a while depending

on how many songs you have

5) Last plug your iPhone in your computer and when it shows up in iTune click the iPhone then select music and finally sync, all your songs on your iPhone will be sync to the iTune music library new setting and the problem will be permanently gone....

I have the same poor sound problem on two different devices (I-PAD 2 and I-PHONE 3) I tried EVERYTHING without success... I think it is a bug related to IOS 5 and untill APPLE finds a solution to fix it, I doubt we can do anything about it..

I found a possible solution to my problem with Sound Quality on iOS 5, it happens at home I have the speakers connected to the apple dock using the 3.5mm input, which instead this apple doct is connected to energy outlet through the the USB energy connector. So I did the following 2 tests:

1.- Having the iPhone 4 in its dock and speakers connected to dock (3.5mm output on dock) I change it to the airplane mode, and voila!!, the sound quality returned!!! For some reason on iOS 5 when you are charging the phone while having enabled the cellphone functions the audio quality is highly degraded... so if you set your iPhone to iPod mode by enabling the "Airplane Mode", audio quality and power will return to the "apple sync" port, so your speakers will have again a much much better audio quality and much more audio output power!!

2.- In second test I re-enable cellphone functions by setting the "Airplane Mode" to off, then I connect speakers to 3.5mm iPhone output on top (the previous test was 3.5mm output on dock) and again audio was nice, maximun volume was clear sound, NOT saturated and soundcheck started to do something, not perfect but much better than before...

It makes me think that for some reason iOS 5 gives more priority to 3.5mm audio port than apple port on base!! Maybe it is also a resource issue on iPhone 4, so I believe iPhone 4S must be working much better with iOS 5.

thanks

I have a somewhat different sound problem on my 3GS, but as with everyone else here, it started happening shortly after upgrading to iOS 5. In my case, all music seems to have excessive reverb, as if in a tunnel. Unacceptable!

My EQ is off, Sound Check seems to have no effect, and Mono mode cuts off the sound entirely. All my files are MP3. Anyone else seeing this problem? I believe the sound has gotten quieter as well.

Thanks!

My problem appears to have been resolved. Upgrading to iOS 5.0.1 by itself didn't fix the problem, but dong a restore afterwards did.