IOS 5 Bad Music Quality!

[Starhawk]

This happens to me sometimes when I plug my iPhone into my car.

Try this to see if it fixes it:

1. Stop the music.
2. Press the Volume Up and Down buttons. Does it show "Ringer"? If not, it's stuck in the "other mode". (This verification may not work if you have 'Change with Buttons' turned off in General > Sounds).
3. Go to Ringtones.
4. Change your Ringtone and then change it back.
5. Play music. Is it fixed?

This used to happen to me rarely on iOS 4, and strangely it would only happen sometimes when my iPhone was plugged into the car and a few times when playing Tiny Wings. The phone would get stuck in another mode of audio output that sounds like crap.

 

[SteveKnobs]

I'm thinking this is not a software nor hardware issue. The degradation in sound quality you are reporting can in all likelihood be fully attributed to the fact that you are listing to LADY GAGA! There's a good chance iOS5 purposely attempting to discourage you from listening to that music- it's doing you a favor.

Put on the Beatles and then get back to us .

 

[michael31986]

Does copying songs from an iPod to computer using copytrans program degrade quality? Or no cause u just moving file? Maybe copying effected it.

 

[iDuel]

So where we can report this?

http://www.apple.com/feedback

 

[Blindmag41]

I'm also having this problem

I'm thinking this is not a software nor hardware issue. The degradation in sound quality you are reporting can in all likelihood be fully attributed to the fact that you are listing to LADY GAGA! There's a good chance iOS5 purposely attempting to discourage you from listening to that music- it's doing you a favor.

Put on the Beatles and then get back to us .

I'm having this problem too with some of my songs from Disturbed, Within Temptation, and Hollywood Undead. It's really annoying since I hate the sound of distorted bass.

 

[fsck-y dingo]

So where we can report this?

You could call iPhone technical support or write to them online.

1-800-694-7466 (US only)

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

 

[JATPrototype]

Started another thread about this and been to the genius bar a couple times got some things figured out. First of all Apple updated their audio codec chip in the phone so that could be an issue. Also its been noted by Apple and been discussed on their forums that there is a bug in the OS in regards to music quality. A temporary fix until they update the OS could be turning on soundcheck which I found helps on most songs. However it doesn't fix all of them, the other way to fix the quality is to make sure the song has 0 volume adjustment as a setting. I've always put my songs to +100% volume adjustment on iTunes and on my iPhone 4 and never had an issue with quality. But when the song is being played through iOS 5 on +100% volume adjustment thats when you run into issues especially with songs that have heavy basslines. So far after learning all this I haven't had any distortion or atleast its very hard to notice. Hope this helps.

 

[darster]

It's simple. Apple wants you to pay $25 more a year to be able to listen to high quality, DRM free music that you already have purchased.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1264194/

 

[JAT]

It's simple. Apple wants you to pay $25 more a year to be able to listen to high quality, DRM free music that you already have purchased.

That wouldn't alter the phone's/iOS's playback ability. Relax.

I noticed this problem, or something similar, the very first time I played music after upgrading. Songs were limited at certain volumes/frequencies, very obviously. It's been better since. Don't know if it went away or was just those songs or what. I haven't gotten to testing that out.

But they were all new on the phone at the same time, because I also updated from my old ALAC library to 256 aac for space.

 

[Frumious B]

It sounds as though you might just be noticing poor quality, brickwalled mastering for the first time. I enjoy a lot of modern music including Arctic Monkeys (Edit: Or maybe that was a different thread on a similar topic) and Lady Gaga, who have been mentioned in this thread. However, both have very compressed mastering which strips out dynamics and, in some cases, also causes audible clipping. I haven't notice any change in the audio quality on my iPhone 4s compared to my old 3GS or on my first generation iPad since I upgraded it to IOS5. I think the test is to take a piece of music from a track that you know is ripped from an older CD pressing, mid 90s or earilier, that hasn't been brickwalled and see if you still notice the same issues. There are modern mastered discs that don't suffer from this issue, but they are rare. Google "loudness wars" for more details.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Listen to chubawhumba and see if it sounds better or worse.

 

[Grbevski]

Solution for noise distortion or clipping in iOS5 Music App

Hi Guys,

I noticed that 'Music' was playing my tracks with clipping / noise distortion; very annoying. Two solutions that I found to have worked are:

1. Turn off sound check in your settings > Music > Sound Check = Off. This is what causes the problem. (Didn't have this problem with previous iOS).

2. 'Music' seems to deteriorated after listen to music for a long time. Kill the 'Music App' and launch it again by double clicking your home button, holding down over the 'Music App' until it jiggles then press the red kill button over the Icon. Then launch the music app again.

 

[The Cat Empire]

I haven't heard any problems yet, but sometimes if I restart my phone and plug it into my car stereo, I'll hear odd popping sounds in the speakers. At this point, I have to restart it again, open Music.app and THEN plug my iPhone into my car stereo. I think it has something to do with how the car stereo opens Music.app automatically if it's not running.

Also, have to checked to make sure Sound Check is OFF?

----------

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Listen to chubawhumba and see if it sounds better or worse.

I love Chumbawamba... I have all of their albums.

----------

It sounds as though you might just be noticing poor quality, brickwalled mastering for the first time. I enjoy a lot of modern music including Arctic Monkeys (Edit: Or maybe that was a different thread on a similar topic) and Lady Gaga, who have been mentioned in this thread. However, both have very compressed mastering which strips out dynamics and, in some cases, also causes audible clipping. I haven't notice any change in the audio quality on my iPhone 4s compared to my old 3GS or on my first generation iPad since I upgraded it to IOS5. I think the test is to take a piece of music from a track that you know is ripped from an older CD pressing, mid 90s or earilier, that hasn't been brickwalled and see if you still notice the same issues. There are modern mastered discs that don't suffer from this issue, but they are rare. Google "loudness wars" for more details.

I agree. Music these days sounds worse than ever (quality-wise). I find that a lot of older music has a much better sound. I'm hardly ever affected by this because I listen to mostly underground stuff that doesn't have big production values and usually sound nicer because of it.

By the way... Bob Rock destroys everything he produces yet people still praise him. Just listen to The Offspring's newest album... it makes me sick in both audio quality AND the direction they've chosen to take their music.

 

[sanke1]

Earlier in iOS 4, I was able to keep the volume slider exactly in the centre and the sound was loud enough. But after I upgraded to iOS 5, I have to notch up the slider with one press to right of centre to get same level of sound. I use same IEM's Sennheiser IE8's. Sound fidelity is poor.

Thank god many people are having same problem or I would have had to rush to nearest ENT specialist.

 

[decafjava]

I have noticed zero difference, I really think many of you had settings changed wtih the upgrades to itunes 5.0 and ios 5 that may be playing a role. I checked that mine were not changed.

 

[Frumious B]

I haven't heard any problems yet, but sometimes if I restart my phone and plug it into my car stereo, I'll hear odd popping sounds in the speakers. At this point, I have to restart it again, open Music.app and THEN plug my iPhone into my car stereo. I think it has something to do with how the car stereo opens Music.app automatically if it's not running.

Also, have to checked to make sure Sound Check is OFF?

----------



I love Chumbawamba... I have all of their albums.

----------



I agree. Music these days sounds worse than ever (quality-wise). I find that a lot of older music has a much better sound. I'm hardly ever affected by this because I listen to mostly underground stuff that doesn't have big production values and usually sound nicer because of it.

By the way... Bob Rock destroys everything he produces yet people still praise him. Just listen to The Offspring's newest album... it makes me sick in both audio quality AND the direction they've chosen to take their music.

It's actually a decent record, at least compared to
The godawful stuff they've put out since "Black", but probably the worst sounding officially released disc in my whole collection is Metallica's Death Magnetic which Rock produced.

 

[JetBlack7]

So where we can report this?

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

 

[vitzr]

Yikes. have you guys reported this to apple yet? I haven't upgraded yet, but I use my iPhone as my main music player, so this is a pretty big deal to me.

It is to me too since that's how I was drawn to the iPhone in the beginning. I was already heavily invested in iTunes Music with my iPods.

This is just another problem in a long list of problems brought to us by Apple. They will fix these in time, it's just a matter of waiting. There's no doubt in my mind that they are aware of this and working on a solution. Apple will come through, it just takes them longer . As long as it's taken care of that's what matters.

 

[Julien]

For the people having problems, are you using DSP (EQ and/or Volume EQ (Sound Check))? Is this only happening on lossy and if so is it worse when using lower bit rates?

I'm a rather picky audiophile and only use ALAC with no EQ/Sound Check and the quality is equal to iOS 4.x. I often use a Fiio E5 amp (UE-10 Pros IEM's) but have been listening direct to check with no problems.

 

[Jantelagen]

Placeholder

 

[chris8535]

Is anyone having this trouble? Some songs plays well with great quality but some high-bass songs like the Lady Gaga ones plays VERY BAD! its like IOS 5 is clipping those songs, that played just well on IOS 4.3.5
Is this a bug? or something im not doing right, can you help me?
Thanks

I thought I was crazy! I played the iTunes version of All is Love by Bjork and it distorts heavily on bass. I have listened to this song many many many times and I can tell you it isn't my headphones.

 

[BrunoWill]

I can't hear a difference.

Actually, me too! My ear is not so sensitive.

 

[evilblob]

Just pitching in with another one saying that sound quality has gone down with either iOS 5 or the iPhone 4S, comparative to my iPod Touch 4 with 4.3.5. I should have a chance to find out which one over the coming few days, but I'm guessing it's iOS 5 based on this thread.

 

[ironicninja]

Beatles "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is a common song that sounds really clippy to me since the update. Can someone listen too and give a second opinion?

Yes, I just tried it and I hear clipping on the bass. Usually the Beatles remasters sound perfect, even on my crappy car speakers

 

[ArcAngel66]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Not saying it'll change everything, but try the Museflow apps. One is paid and one is free. They make music sound quite a bit better, without adding a crappy effect to it like some other apps/dongles do.