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iPhone 5s audio quality

B

BreeeZe

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 26, 2012
70
6
the Netherlands
I received my 5s yesterday and put on some music today and was pleasantly surprised with the audio quality.

A few years ago I bought some decent in ears (Etymotic er4p : http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.html) which did wonders for high quality recordings and I have been using them with, first my iPhone 4 and since last year, my iPhone 5.

The audio is much clearer and has more dynamic range than the 4 and 5, which weren't bad to begin with, but the difference is bigger then I expected :)

The only downside is, that bad recordings sound even worse now :D
 
This is good news. I was just reading that the 5s includes a new audio codec chip and amplifier from Cirrus Logic.

I'm glad to see Apple is still paying attention to the audio quality on their devices.
 
Patrick Boyle said:
This is good news. I was just reading that the 5s includes a new audio codec chip and amplifier from Cirrus Logic.

I'm glad to see Apple is still paying attention to the audio quality on their devices.
Click to expand...
Yes, I read this too in the teardown article from chipworks.

I've been listening for over an hour now and with my er-4p in-ears the difference is really quite spectacular :)
 
Interesting.. I had put the improved 5s audio quality down to a placebo affect. I wasn't aware of the better Audio chip. So I guess I concur, the audio is better on the 5s, at least compared to my old 4s.
 
Is the DAC/amp in the 5S not the same as the 5? I just got my 5S and haven't tried my good headphones in them yet.
 
BreeeZe said:
I received my 5s yesterday and put on some music today and was pleasantly surprised with the audio quality.

A few years ago I bought some decent in ears (Etymotic er4p : http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.html) which did wonders for high quality recordings and I have been using them with, first my iPhone 4 and since last year, my iPhone 5.

The audio is much clearer and has more dynamic range than the 4 and 5, which weren't bad to begin with, but the difference is bigger then I expected :)

The only downside is, that bad recordings sound even worse now :D
Click to expand...

Was the music ripped from CD or iTunes purchases? If ripped, what bitrate?
 
I also noticed a difference with my Klipsch, the audio on my 5 was definitely more fuzzy/staticky and there were nuances that I didn't hear, regardless of the quality of my in-ears.
 
Are you guys with the 5S/5C hearing a slight static click just before the audio starts and 5 sec or so after is stops? On my 4S and 5 I can hear this. Its the amp turning on/off.
 
Jalopybox said:
Are you guys with the 5S/5C hearing a slight static click just before the audio starts and 5 sec or so after is stops? On my 4S and 5 I can hear this. Its the amp turning on/off.
Click to expand...

I just tested this and yes, there is a slight 'static click' after a few seconds when pressing pauze.
But other than that there is no noise, hiss or any other sort of static.
 
Compared to my 5, and more lately to my Fiancee's new 5C, the 5S has a far better sound reproduction capability. I've never been a fan of in ear phones, but I thought I'd give these a shot...they are surprisingly good and you do get used to them. All my previous ones have remained in their boxes and have been sold with the phone...These I will use..I had been plugging in my Senheisser HD Pro's when listening in bed, but for outdoors the earbuds are great.
 
BreeeZe said:
I just tested this and yes, there is a slight 'static click' after a few seconds when pressing pauze.
But other than that there is no noise, hiss or any other sort of static.
Click to expand...

Thanks for checking. I guess it's hard to have the amp hushed during turn on/off.

Does anyone have the capability to measure the sound improvement? Waveforms, etc?
 
Haven't had a chance to listen on good phones yet, but sadly the 5s STILL, in 20-freakin-13, does not support playback of 24/96 Apple Lossless audio files. At least not through iTunes and the stock Music player. I guess they still want to protect their iTunes store at the expense of their customers.
 
petsounds said:
Haven't had a chance to listen on good phones yet, but sadly the 5s STILL, in 20-freakin-13, does not support playback of 24/96 Apple Lossless audio files. At least not through iTunes and the stock Music player. I guess they still want to protect their iTunes store at the expense of their customers.
Click to expand...

Indeed a bummer, you would expect that a product which spawned from the iPod would have more focus on audio, but they didn't even mention the audio upgrade in the keynote :rolleyes: (they didn't, did they?).

Also, why are there no ALAC encoded tracks in the iTunes store? :confused:
 
BreeeZe said:
Indeed a bummer, you would expect that a product which spawned from the iPod would have more focus on audio, but they didn't even mention the audio upgrade in the keynote :rolleyes: (they didn't, did they?).

Also, why are there no ALAC encoded tracks in the iTunes store? :confused:
Click to expand...

I think most people are happy with the quality of iTunes songs as it is, if you want a better quality, buy the physical format. The truth is, that so far any format offering high quality audio has failed. The new kid on the block is Pure Audio on Blu-ray, and I am quite sure it will die the same death as the other ones. If people listen to Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, Madonna etc, you do wonder why Apple even bothered with Stereo.
 
I too have noticed the sound reproduction and quality on the iPhone 5S is significantly better then the 5 or any of the previous iPhones.
 
This is my first iPhone, and I think the audio sounds really good. I previously used Android-based phones - most recently an LG G2x (P999). I kept trying different headphones and EQ apps, trying to find the right solution - although the audio sounded pretty good as it was.

Using the included earbuds I was very happy with the sound quality from the get-go.
 
BSben said:
I think most people are happy with the quality of iTunes songs as it is, if you want a better quality, buy the physical format. The truth is, that so far any format offering high quality audio has failed. The new kid on the block is Pure Audio on Blu-ray, and I am quite sure it will die the same death as the other ones. If people listen to Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, Madonna etc, you do wonder why Apple even bothered with Stereo.
Click to expand...

I think most people just don't notice the difference, or in the case of the younger generations, they've been listening to mp3s for most/all of their lives and don't even know what high-quality audio sounds like. That, plus the loudness mastering war.

The reason why most of their high-quality formats fail is that they require specific hardware to play them. But Apple Lossless is just that -- a lossless file. No special decoding tricks needed. The iPhone audio chip has, at least since the 4, been able to play 24/96 lossless files, so it seems an economic decision by Apple to not support them. It's unfortunate that the recording industry continues to avoid selling lossless files.
 
BreeeZe said:
Also, why are there no ALAC encoded tracks in the iTunes store? :confused:
Click to expand...

I suspect it's down to:
  • File size / download times
  • Most people think iTunes Plus is "good enough" (and, tbh, it probably is for most people - some people on hydrogenaudio did some tests a couple of years ago that showed that for most people 128kbps AAC is indistinguishable from the original source in ABX comparisons, so 256kbps should really be fine for pretty much everyone).
 
Huge difference

I notices a huge difference to my former device. I came from a Motorola Razr....

Couldn´t believe the quality the first time i put on some music with my Sennheiser IE 8.
 
I've noticed an improvement in the sound quality of some of the music I have on my 5s (the higher bitrate ones naturally).

I've also noticed that the sound that comes out of the speakers on my 5s, is much sharper and sounds louder (even on the same volume level as I previously used with my iPhone 5). I am using the same ringtone on my 5s (as I did on my iPhone 5) and it sounds quite different, much sharper and louder even on the max volume level (which is what I used too on my iPhone 5).


I find that phone calls too sound higher quality on my 5s, not sure if the new audio chip could affect this, but I am pretty certain that the call quality is higher on the 5s.
 
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