iPhone 13 mini iPhone13 mini sound quality

[RF330]

Moved from a 2nd gen SE to a 13 mini recently and am seeing a noticeable degradation in sound quality. Very disappointed. Notice it with all outputs using streaming Spotify - car, Shure earbuds, and a Bose Smart speaker via bluetooth. Music has no punch, reduced soundstage, and lower volume. I've played with sound settings and it has helped a little but not back to what i'm used to on prior phones.

Anyone experiencing this?

Thanks.

 

[jav6454]

I can understand using the speakers, but with earbuds or BT speakers?

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

You can check if headphone safety is on in the sounds settings but if you’re using Spotify and another source (car, headphones, et) you’ve pretty much eliminated anything the phone might be doing.

 

[RF330]

Yes, with all sources. a new BT Bose and even the old Bose that you have to sit on the base. Noticeable difference. did some searching and found this thread so I'm not the only one going crazy...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253539048?page=1

I had previously changed the setting in headphone safety and it did improve it a bit, but something has clearly changed in this model line.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Yes, with all sources. a new BT Bose and even the old Bose that you have to sit on the base. Noticeable difference. did some searching and found this thread so I'm not the only one going crazy...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253539048?page=1

I had previously changed the setting in headphone safety and it did improve it a bit, but something has clearly changed in this model line.

Not enough info.

1. iPhone 13 series supports Bluetooth 5.0

2. Speakers being streamed to what version of Bluetooth do they support?

3 what music are you streaming as in artist and specific track (live tracks will vary in quality due to source of streaming)

Spotify is mentioned: what’s the standard or specific quality of the stream being done? Aka 128kbos, stereo at 24/44.1/48?

What’s the comparison for the same track via Apple Music sound like to the same speaker and same Bluetooth connection?

Lots of variables not even mentioned and possibly not considered here.

 

[RF330]

DeepIn2U, thanks for your input.

The Bose speaker is this one, it's BT 4.2:

Bose Portable Smart Speaker | Bose

The Bose Portable Smart Speaker is our most versatile smart speaker. It’s a home speaker, a portable speaker, and a voice-controlled smart speaker, all in one.

www.bose.com

Stream spotify at the highest quality available. Settings are the same, I backed up my old SE and set up the 13 with same settings.

Not sure why comparing a specific artist/track to an Apple music stream would matter. I'm using the same streaming app with the same streaming quality on both phones, and no matter what output I use, it is unquestionably lower volume/quality in all outputs, not just the Bose connected via Bluetooth. That includes the old Bose with a lightning adapter sitting on the old pins, directly plugged into decent quality computer speakers in office, using the aux input on my old BMW, and my earbuds.

for example, in my car i would put the phone volume about 3/4 then would adjust the car volume off that and it would be somewhat close to the volume level if I switched over to radio. Now if i leave phone at 3/4 then move car volume to normal listening levels, the radio volume is blasting if i switch the input.

 

[RF330]

An update that may benefit someone - in Spotify settings I had enable audio normalization on. Toggling it on and off before I heard no difference but just read for the change to take effect you have to pause the audio being played, change the setting, then resume play.

I was doing a side by side using Spotify and YT Music and YTM sounded much better. After changing this setting on Spotify, they sounded very similar. will check on BT later, I read somewhere that the difference is very noticeable on BT so hopefully problem solved.