iOS 14: How to Check Headphone Audio Level in Real Time

[amartinez1660]

!!!! In general, slide the slider to the left or turn the knob counter clockwise to turn the volume down. As a civilization we are now so stupid we can't tell when we have something turned up too loud?

Try to not fall into that “we are so stupid” trap, as a society we are miles and miles ahead compared to only 100years ago. We live the lives that even the most powerful of kings and emperors of old wish they had had. We have the resources and riches that makes us the top 1% of the top 0.01% human history wise... we don’t get there by being dumber and stupid. Yes, it’s not perfect, and we do quite the dumb actions, but I wouldn’t call that a failure by any objective measure.

Onto “people don’t know when too loud it’s loud?!”, yes, not shocking either, we are highly adaptable and embrace things as they come... for you “too deathly spicy” might not be spicy at all in Mexico, Thailand or India. North America (and any developed world really) doesn’t know when a 100 calorie intake extra is too much, there’s obesity everywhere, even when every single product and advertisement of today has plastered all nutritions facts. Does that make them stupid? I don’t think so, as alluded in the first points, we have never ever in hundreds thousands of years had this crazy amount of food abundance and ours bodies didn’t evolve for that, it was “eat whatever you find, stash as much as possible and hope for the best next day”, Costco monthly levels of storage is a very very recent phenomenon human kind wise.
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It is not related to BT, and that statement is very presumptive, if not somewhat misleading.

Every set of headphones has its own sensitivity ratings -- basically, how much sound pressure they produce when a standard voltage level is applied.

Apple knows (but doesn't publicize) the figure for its headphones, so it can reasonably say that at X voltage, the result will by Y decibels, and it can be taken to be true.

However, it cannot ensure that it will apply to all headphones; some will be more efficient than Apple's, and be louder given the same input voltage, and some less efficient, and softer at that voltage.

It can assume that most headphones that people use fall within a certain range of sensitivity, and that that scale is close enough, but that undermines the premise of presenting a specific numeric figure, and its accuracy.

This is similar to the Battery Health figure, but in some ways worse. Apple derives that figure from its own undisclosed criteria, but at least doesn't try to apply that to batteries in general. Sound pressure levels are easily, and objectively measurable, and despite the sometimes loosey-goosey games played with specs in CE marketing, mostly adheres to certain known standards.

It will not be wise to put much faith into the presented measurement if Apple permits the feature to be used with non-Apple headphones, and the "more accurate" statement can be construed as disingenuous.

Having bought some AirPods Pro a few days ago and being fascinated by a few of its features, I think there’s still the chance for some “more accurate” statements leeway besides the fact that they control the hardware and know all the specs for theirs. Namely the inner side microphones that detect what’s being pumped into your inner ears.

 

[MacBookGamer]

I don't think that you realise that Brits, Canucks, Aussies, Kiwis, etc., write centre with the R before the E. The R at the end, that's the American way. And we write, neighboUr, flavoUr, coloUr, odoUr, doughnut, etc. USA aren't the centre of everything. 😉

Wait, there are other countries?

 

[infinitejest]

That's a neat little feature - didn't know about it. Thanks MacRumors ✌🏽

 

[bsolar]

!!!! In general, slide the slider to the left or turn the knob counter clockwise to turn the volume down. As a civilization we are now so stupid we can't tell when we have something turned up too loud?

Actually people definitely can't always tell when they have something turned up too loud, but it's not necessarily a matter of stupidity but of their perception being off.

A good example is using non-noise-cancelling headphones in a relatively loud environment, where it's pretty easy to get the volume far too loud for long-term safe hearing without even realizing it.

 

[NightFox]

I'd just like to see effective volume levelling implemented so I'm not permanently having to adjust the volume between tracks.
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But the USA population is bigger than all those countries COMBINED!!

What's that got to do with anything? The original post said that 'centre' was a typo. The responses pointed out that lots of countries spell it that way so it isn't a typo, probably just a screenshot from a non-US iPhone.

 

[riverfreak]

A welcome addition.

An important consideration here is also the level of ambient noise. The louder the background noise, say, on a city street or an airplane, the louder you are likely to listen to your headphone volume too.

I use the ambient noise volume detection on the Apple Watch all the time. It’s insane how much noise pollution there is. EDM, I’m looking at you. J/k kids, don’t get all worked up. I love the drop, too.

If you’re in loud environments, it’s really worth looking for headphones that have at least some passive sound isolation if not active so that you can keep your headphone volumes a little lower.

 

[cgs1xx]

I wish there were a gain function or similar to enable increasing the highest volume. A lot of (older) music on Apple Music is not loud enough.

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
A number of posts were removed as they were derailing the thread. Lets get back on topic

 

[Daft]

I don't think that you realise that Brits, Canucks, Aussies, Kiwis, etc., write centre with the R before the E. The R at the end, that's the American way. And we write, neighboUr, flavoUr, coloUr, odoUr, doughnut, etc. USA aren't the centre of everything. 😉

Well then don’t be daft and change your language to US.
Only made an account for this

 

[Buran]

What's that got to do with anything? The original post said that 'centre' was a typo. The responses pointed out that lots of countries spell it that way so it isn't a typo, probably just a screenshot from a non-US iPhone.

It's just the phone's language setting. I set my phone's language to en-GB ("English (UK)") because I prefer the UK spellings, and mine says "centre". The phone is from the US, as am I.

Anyway, I do not have the live audio level feature in the hearing tile of the control center/centre, and I'm using a Made for iPhone hearing aid to listen to music as I was born with a profound hearing impairment.

That's a little bit surprising -- I expected it to be supported since it's a device certified by Apple to work with iOS.

It's possible that it's not supported because most (all?) hearing aids are designed to not actually output so much sound that they'll worsen an existing hearing loss since the nerve damage leading to such losses cannot be reversed. The risk of further damage is too great.

 

[Steve121178]

"Control centre" lol iOS 14 already has typos

That's how it's spelt for those of us that invented the language. It's correct.

 

[prab1958]

I use my old cracked screen iPhone 6S as a part time computer and as a music player. ios14.2 seems unable to distinguish between headphones and speakers. Since upgrading this week, I now receive warning advice and the volume is turned down after a short while when playing music.
Sounds setting advise me that this cannot be switched off, thus rendering the device unusable.
Anyone found a get round, other than a hammer?

 

[BlueLaine]

Semi-related, but the fact that the lowest two volume notches still sound way too loud whenever I use headphones has always astounded me, and I really wish Apple would give us better management over that in iOS and OSX. I always find myself resorting to apps like Audio Hijack in order to limit it.

This is confusing to me. Are you referring to iphones ? The first volume notch on an iphone plays music at about 33 decibels through headphones. The second notch plays it at about 41 decibels. A human whisper clocks in at about 30 decibels, and normal conversation occurs at ~60 decibels. If 33 decibels or 41 decibels is uncomfortable to you, you may be experiencing hyperacusis, which is actually a symptom of hearing damage, wherein normal sounds become painful. Although even with hyperacusis the decibel levels that cause it are generally louder than the levels you're describing.

 

[BlueLaine]

I think that’s a bit normal, usually anything senses wise our bodies are used to have a lot of “precision” at subtle ranges where differences in intensity there are highly perceptible. Pretty much like screens and images where the first 50% of the brightness range from black to white uses like 85% of the precision of device’s numerical range / image encoding range (the known “gamma” curve of 8 bits images and monitors), because we can detect quite well the intensity difference between 0.05 and 0.07 levels, but the difference between 1.05 white to 1.07 it’s just still “white”, from 0.99 and up it all looks just white (unless it becomes “too intense” on the eyes but we can’t relay differentiate much).

A difference between -12dB and -13dB I think it’s double the sound’s output volume? Every single dB is double the increase I think it is.
Granted, they could apply a better low range curve where it maybe increases from -30dB to -30.3dB at the first couple of volume steps.

actually the general rule is that it takes a 10 decibel increase to perceive a sound as twice as loud. so 40 decibels sounds twice as loud as 30 decibels, and 50 decibels sounds twice as loud as 40 decibels (and 4 times as loud as 30 decibels). to continue, 60 decibels would be perceived as twice as loud as 50 decibels, 4 times louder than 40 decibels, and 8 times louder than 30 decibels.

 

[amartinez1660]

actually the general rule is that it takes a 10 decibel increase to perceive a sound as twice as loud. so 40 decibels sounds twice as loud as 30 decibels, and 50 decibels sounds twice as loud as 40 decibels (and 4 times as loud as 30 decibels). to continue, 60 decibels would be perceived as twice as loud as 50 decibels, 4 times louder than 40 decibels, and 8 times louder than 30 decibels.

Correct, thanks for the clarification.
Finally went ahead and found a few excerpts. This one being the summary:

• +10 dB is the level of twice the perceived volume or twice as loud (loudness) in psychoacoustics − mostly sensed.
• +6 dB is the level of twice the (RMS) value of voltage respectively sound pressure − mostly measured
• +3 dB is the level of twice the energy or power respectively intensity − mostly calculated.

Someone still has talk to person in charge of the YouTube player volume slider though, that thing at the bottom it’s “loud, then less loud but still loud, still loud but even less, muted” for me.

 

[Pakaku]

This is confusing to me. Are you referring to iphones ? The first volume notch on an iphone plays music at about 33 decibels through headphones. The second notch plays it at about 41 decibels. A human whisper clocks in at about 30 decibels, and normal conversation occurs at ~60 decibels. If 33 decibels or 41 decibels is uncomfortable to you, you may be experiencing hyperacusis, which is actually a symptom of hearing damage, wherein normal sounds become painful. Although even with hyperacusis the decibel levels that cause it are generally louder than the levels you're describing.

No, my headphones are just loud. I've compared them with stock Apple earbuds, those are much more quiet.