itunes bad sound

Question

Level 1

10 points

itunes bad sound

Hello,

I am experiencing bad sound from iTunes specifically, I mean the sound quality of the playing tracks; it is kind of cracking (like its bass is not clear; noisy, maybe..) and also I feel like the volume is too loud. Actually, I do not know what happened. This staretd directly after updating to iTunes 11.1.2 today's morning, and continued even after updating my Mac to Mavericks..

Worth mentioning is that I used some sound utilities:

- SoundBunny: I tried it for sometime then uninstalled it, and the older iTunes was working flawlessly everafter.

- Boom: I am always using it; however, the Boom feature is alawys "off", while the equalizer is always on "Bass Boost". (Obviously I tried switching it off)

- Soundflowerbed: Always off, only used when in need of recording or sort of this kind of stuff.

That's all folks!

So what do you think? I am really irritated with this issue.

Hope someone can help,

Kind Regards.

-MHD

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9), MHD's MacBook Air

Posted on Oct 23, 2013 9:52 AM

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Answer 1

MHD_MUS Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 23, 2013 10:14 AM in response to MHD_MUS

Just a quick update.

I have just noticed a strange behavior; when there's any track playing with that bad sound quality, if I disabled then re-enabled the Equalizer, the sound will be fixed! I tried it many times.

iTunes Equalizer is always set to R&B

Boom was completely disabled and also uninstalled.

Waiting for your kind input.

-MHD

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Answer 2

jayfire7

Level 1

4 points

Oct 23, 2013 12:50 PM in response to MHD_MUS

My equalizer was also broken when I updated to mavericks. I had to turn it off, please fix this apple.

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Answer 3

Oct 23, 2013 1:09 PM in response to MHD_MUS

I too can verify this behavior.

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Answer 4

Oct 23, 2013 3:50 PM in response to MHD_MUS

I can also verify bad quality sound.

I can also verify that it is fixed when swapping equaliser settings. However every time a new track comes on....the sound reverts back to being awful.

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Answer 5

Oct 23, 2013 4:08 PM in response to MHD_MUS

I am also having all of these issues.

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Answer 6

jmchip

Level 1

0 points

Oct 23, 2013 5:54 PM in response to MHD_MUS

I also have this problem. OS 10.9. Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2012.

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Answer 7

Oct 23, 2013 6:41 PM in response to MHD_MUS

Noticed this behaviour too a couple of minutes ago. I upgraded to Mavericks yesterday afternoon and to iTunes 11.1.2 early this morning but hadn't used iTunes until a little bit ago. The problem is definitely linked to the iTunes Equalizer. I used to keep mine flat but now it is completely off (doesn't make much of a difference to me).

Turning it off and on again helped for a short period of time in my case. It was as if there was a gradual buildup over time that finally resulted in distortion and when turning off the equalizer it would suddenly go away completely. When I turned on my equalizer the difference wasn't noticible at first, but it kept slowly building up until it reached distortion.

I think that it could either be that the iTunes update messed up the equalizer itself, or that Mavericks might have some bugs with CoreAudio.

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Answer 8

MHD_MUS Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 23, 2013 9:44 PM in response to Falcon413

Falcon413 wrote:

I think that it could either be that the iTunes update messed up the equalizer itself, or that Mavericks might have some bugs with CoreAudio.

Well, I do not think it is related to Mavericks more than to iTunes itself, because I updated iTunes before the Mac.

But who knows...

-MHD

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Answer 9

MHD_MUS Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 23, 2013 9:45 PM in response to stevchenks

stevchenks wrote:

I can also verify that it is fixed when swapping equaliser settings. However every time a new track comes on....the sound reverts back to being awful.

This EXACTLY what happens! Thanks for the absolute confirmation.

-MHD

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Answer 10

Khadgar

Level 1

8 points

Oct 23, 2013 11:15 PM in response to stevchenks

Holy crap I could kiss you right now. I've been pulling the remaining bits of my hair out trying to discover why my audio sounds like crap just in iTunes that started just this afternoon.

What's worth noting is that I -NEVER- use the equalizer, and after the latest update today the equalizer was turned on. I never even considered looking there. Feel sorry for you guys who actually use the software EQ.

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Answer 11

MHD_MUS Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 24, 2013 2:09 AM in response to Khadgar

Khadgar wrote:

What's worth noting is that I -NEVER- use the equalizer, and after the latest update today the equalizer was turned on. I never even considered looking there. Feel sorry for you guys who actually use the software EQ.

Just have found a temporary fix for those guys Khadgar felt sorry for; I re-installed Boom and used my preferrred preset Equalizer there (Bass Boost) while keeping iTunes Equalizer off.

You can download a trial for Boom from here, maybe it can help with Equalizer till Apple fix iTunes' one.

And BTW, Khadgar, thanks for the innocent kiss :)

-MHD

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Answer 12

mgpixlab

Level 1

92 points

Oct 24, 2013 9:51 AM in response to MHD_MUS

Same issue here, updated to 11.1.2 and then to Mavericks, and I'm having excatly the same problem.

This needs an urgent solution. Very frustrating.

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Answer 13

Oct 24, 2013 10:14 AM in response to MHD_MUS

Same problem here; why oh why can Apple not just help us all out, say there is a problem and they are tring to rectify it, save us all beating ourselves up. Quick fix please Apple!

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