My left earpod is quieter than my right

To fix your sound issue, take a softly bristled clean toothbrush. You can then carefully brush the larger opening of the Earpod. then, (bear with me) suck on the larger opening until you can feel that you are causing air to come through. Then, brush again. This should solve your issue. The main reason why this has happened is ears with an exesesive amount of wax that melts into the earbud.

Hope i was of assistance,

Frankie H.

Hi,

I‘d like to motivate you to just try cleaning with a toothbrush or with a ultrasonic toothbrush and as stupid and crazy it may sound, try sucking on the the large opening. Unless you are able to suck air trough, the opening(s) are not clear and will provide you evidence that it‘s not as clean as you where thinking.

I was there myself...

Best regards,

David

I never expected this to work due to how weird it is. BUT OH MY GOD DID IT THANK YOU!!!! I shared this all over Facebook I was thinking about buying another pair and wasting 30 more dollars but this saved my pockets. Thank you!

iOS has Settings app > General > Accessibility there is a slider for setting the sound balance. It may help you get an equal balance for your ears.

I don't think classic iPods have this feature, but look through the settings menus.

I'd suggest you see a hearing specialist there may be something that can be done. The shape of the latest Apple earbuds makes it impossible to compare the volume of the left EarPod in the right ear because they are not symmetrical and sound is reflected differently in each ear.

A trained specialist is going to be more helpful than the internet at diagnosing medical issues. Start with your doctor if you don't know where to get help.

Frankie's solution worked for me too. Was having to crank my right bud up to at least twice as loud as my left just to get balanced sound. Five minutes later of Frankie's method and my right earbud is like new. Thanks man!

Man this was like witchcraft!

I was noticing that my right earbud was quieter than my left so I used the accessibility button to manage the distribution of the audio, but when I cleaned and ''sucked in'' my right earbud it instantaneously repaired. I like to use Sia's song chandelier to test my earbuds because of the amount of bass in the song.

**** this actually works. Just suck on the earpod until air goes through then scrape off the wax with a paperclip or something. Thanks man

Holy crap it worked, I genuinely thought mine was broken and that this was something to give people hope for their EarPods on death row, but I was surprised it revived and took my EarPods off the chopping block. Sorcery!

I had this same problem, but when using my MacbookPro. Thought I was going crazy.

Turns out there's a balance setting that's separate for each audio device. And for some strange reason the slider for my earpods was offset to onside.

System Prefs > Sound > Output

Find your device and check the balance setting.

If you suck on the EarPod that is broken through the larger speaker hole it should fix the problem

1-800 I need help wrote:

Ok bro, so you think it might be just that my left ear is shaped differently than my right? And as for the accessibility I knew that was there, and I knew it worked, but I was just wondering if the earpod was in some way damaged, shaped differently, (i.e) if something was wrong with the earpod.

I don't know sorry it's just too much to speculate.

You did mention that other earbuds also sound lower in your left ear too so that suggests you should get your hearing tested?

There is a hearing test app that may give you some indication, however if the earbuds are broken you will get false results, it's only a rough guide.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mimi-hearing-test/id855322098?mt=8

Hearing is not something you want to lose so get it tested. It may be something that can be prevented or mitigated if picked up early.

After having my right one replaced by Apple, I noticed that this seems to be a general issue while my left one was now the quieter one compared to the replaced right one. While you clean it and you think the openings are clear, they clearly aren‘t cleaned properly. After taking my ultrasonic toothbrush and cleaning all openings with it for about 1 Minute and sucking air trough the openings as suggested I’m simply blown away by the outstanding outcome. I even do feel bad for having apple replacing me one, while it clearly only was a proper cleaning job which was necessary.

@Apple: I’m really sorry for the unnecessary replacement I do hope I’m forgiven for that.

Please find a way to let your AirPod users know about the or a proper cleaning procedure.

Because i’m for sure not going to be the only user which was getting more and more frustrated by the slowly descending audio quality and with it starting using them less form day to day. It did take me some self convincing to actually report the problem and opening a support case. While being asked if i had tried cleaning yet, I was self confident that using ear tips or slightly wet soft tissue to clean must have been enough, I did reported that I have already tried that of course...

Regards,

David Rohr

I’ve had my ear buds since Christmas and have only used them a handful of times so I know ear wax isn’t an issue not to mention my ears are always super clean.... I use the slider to get a more equal volume between the 2 buds and I hate that I have to slide it so far to the left then have to max out the volume so I can listen to music. I have the mono turned off too. So besides adjusting, turning off mono off and cleaning then... has anyone else tried anything else to get more equal volume balance between the two buds?

First you need to clean the openings with a brush, as mentioned a toothbrush will work quite well. The smaller the brushes the better i guess.

The will look clean by eye, i was sure about that as well, but unless you can suck or blow air trough the big opening......

Regards,

David