Is the ear speaker problem a software or hardware glitch?

I’ve been using my iphone x for roughly two months now. Never had water damage or damage of any other sort, I’m pretty careful. Needless to say it’s “water resistant” and has “really strong glass/material” so they say. For such a highly advertised “durable“ phone, I’m pretty disappointed. After updating to iOS 12.1, my ear speaker became muffled after a few days. ive rebooted, restored, cleaned the speaker, EVERYTHING. Still no luck! For such a pricy phone, this is beyond IRRITATING.