iOS 12 Audio Treble Issues

[Cscottrun]

Hi all. I've been searching online for similar complaints, and I finally found some on the Spotify forums. My issue is not extremely noticeable, but when playing music on a third party device such as my car's audio system or a standalone speaker, certain high notes/treble notes, like cymbals, intermittently cut in and out.

My problem is not limited to playback over bluetooth or to a certain music streaming app. It has persisted on multiple ios devices running ios 12, on multiple apps (Spotify, Napster, and Apple's Music apple, including locally stored music on my phone). It is not the speaker system itself. Playback of sirius XM or fm/am radio directly through my jeep's uconnect system has no issues.

Additionally, I've noticed I can circumvent the issue by playing music through carplay using a lightning cable plugged into the USB port in my car. However, if I disable carplay and play music through the lightning cable plugged into the USB port, the issue persists.

Here is the thread on the spotify forums. I hope sharing this link is allowed. https://community.spotify.com/t5/iO...ooth-sound-quality-iOS-12/td-p/4572223/page/4

Anyone else experiencing this problem? Unfortunately, because the sounds that cut in and out are so high pitched and more background audio, it may not be noticeable for those who aren't specifically listening for it.

 

[gabeo]

Another report of the same issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8560350

I have been scouring the Internet since the summer trying to even find someone else with the same issue. I can confirm I have this issue too, and I have since the first iOS 12 betas came out. It sounds like the top 5khz is being cut off and then restored, every 10-30 seconds. Does not happen when using USB. My wife doesn't even notice it because she doesn't really have an ear for audio quality.

It does it with both of my cars, and both my phone, and my wife's as well as with my iPad. Cars are 2016 BMW M4 and 2017 BMW X3. The X3 has a newer version of the iDrive software on its entertainment system than mine, but the issue is the same still. I do not have the issue when using other bluetooth audio devices, including 2 Bose portable speakers, and a Bose Soundbar 700.

I've done every step of troubleshooting imaginable and it has not made a difference, except for completely disabling the phone's wifi. I just read that and will try it in a little bit. I also read it has to be via the Settings and not via the quick access drop down. Will update with my results.

Edit: also no issue with my AirPods of course.

 

[jainlight]

Just adding to the chorus here: I had distortion in my Music playback in my car (via Bluetooth) the moment I upgraded to iOS 12, and the problem vanished the moment I downgraded back to 11.4.1 (which I believe can no longer be done). Reading all the various posts about all the various tests that people have done, clearly this is a problem between Bluetooth and iOS 12 that, by all reports, is NOT resolved by the recent 12.0.1 upgrade, whatever Apple may say or hope otherwise. I've contacted Apple directly about this and they're a bit clueless, constantly talking in terms of Bluetooth connectivity as opposed to playback distortion; by many accounts this seems related to 12's impact on bitrate (which is where I start getting in over my head). Also, for what it's worth and just for clarification, I'm playing files on my phone downloaded from my iTunes library, not streaming.