Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

bryter

macrumors newbie
Nov 24, 2010
19
0
Has anyone tried playing music with other apps? If yes, is the quality the same?
 

mashi

macrumors newbie
Mar 5, 2011
2
0
oh well.. same here with ultimate ears TF10. when I restore all song to my iphone. i listen to it.. hmm.. something wrong with my ears ? i did listen few song and compare to the sound on computer. all Apple lossness encode. i don't have any lowend headphone to test it.. IOS 5 sucks!!!

I was going to create a topic just mentioning same.

Till iOS 4.3.5 I used to keep volume slider exactly in the middle using Sennheiser IE8 earphones. But with iOS 5 I feel that music is muffled. But if I increase the volume by 1 notch, my ears start hurting.

Bottomline: Sound quality has gone to dogs with iOS 5
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
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?

BTW, I've often used my 3GS loudspeaker play music while I do the dishes, and I've not had any problems save for some hissy highs, but now, it's ridiculous. Every other song sounds like 90kbps MP3s, and they are all well over 192kbps.

I'm listening to this song at the moment and it sounds fine to me on my 4S running 5.0.

I was listening to some Black Sabbath albums a few days ago such as Heaven and Hell and the Mob Rules and Born Again and some of those songs sounded too bad. iTunes hows these as about 240 VBR. Not sure why they sound bad.
 

clborden

macrumors regular
May 12, 2009
189
3
Derby, CT
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.

I'm no fan of Bob Rock either...but he did not produce Death Magnetic. Rick Rubin did. Just an FYI.
 

JetBlack7

macrumors 68030
May 14, 2011
2,543
790
Portugal
The new update does not fix this, maybe it will be fixed in 5.1.

Meanwhile, does anyone know how to change the codec compression for iTunes? Or do I need an external program for that?
 

Julien

macrumors G4
Jun 30, 2007
11,847
5,441
Atlanta
...Meanwhile, does anyone know how to change the codec compression for iTunes? Or do I need an external program for that?

To use a higher bitrate it's Preferences: General: Import Settings... then re rip your CD(s)

If you want a lower bitrate you can convert song(s). Change the setting as above and then right click on the song(s) and chose Convert. It will make a copy keeping the higher bitrate version too.
 

thatoneguy82

macrumors 68000
Jul 23, 2008
1,895
2
Beach Cities, CA
I don't hear any difference at all. And actually now it's better, since I restored my iPhone 4S and I have iTunes Match. I prefer to have a good chunk of my music locally stored so I downloaded them all at 256Kbps. They were all mostly at 128Kbps.

And Mother Monster sounds great.


- Little Monster
 

ADMProducer

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2010
177
0
I produce music in my spare time, so I'd count myself as an audiophile. Thus far, on iOS 5, I have not noticed any significant changes in the quality of the sound.

Sounds just as good as it ever has been.

This is on an iPhone 4.
 

milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
523
Shouldn't it be testable? Record the analog out into a decent audio interface on both versions of the OS and compare the two files?
 

MT0227

macrumors 6502
Jun 16, 2009
340
1
No issue here with my Westone UM3x's.

Two rules of thumb: 1) If you are listening to anything less than 320Kbps then you are not doing yourself a favor 2) For music that is produced at a high level i.e > DMB , consider listening to FLAC or Apple Lossless.


Lastly...If you want real Hi-Fi Audio on the go, you need to invest in a portable Hi-Fi hardware set up.

Here's my setup: iPod 5.1 > Earcandy Lite 90° (cable) > TTVJ Portable Slim (amp) > UM3Xs

5.1 iPods use a Wolfson DAC and produce excellent audio quality for portable use.
 

Rantipole

macrumors 6502
May 24, 2004
307
24
Boston
If you want a lower bitrate you can convert song(s). Change the setting as above and then right click on the song(s) and chose Convert. It will make a copy keeping the higher bitrate version too.
No.

Or rather, yes, you could do that, but you don't want to. Converting an already-compressed song is double-compressing, which will leave you with lesser sound quality. I.e. if you have a song at 256kpbs, and directly down-convert it to 192, you will have a song which has lower fidelity than if you you ripped a song straight from CD to 192.
 

Diversion

macrumors 6502a
Oct 5, 2007
773
142
Jacksonville, Florida
It's known that the 4S uses some high-efficiency codec that unfortunately delivers average playback quality. Apple thought it's users would appreciate better battery life over sound quality this round.

Music quality hasn't been as good since the 3GS.

It's said that Apple could possibly tweak the codec to provide better sound in future updates - depending on how maxed out the current codec is already, they might not be able to squeeze any additional quality due to the new sound chip/codec being used.

This isn't an iOS 5 issue as much as it is the audio chip they chose in the 4/4S.. I don't know if the 4 is the same chip, but I can confirm the 4S has hit a near rock bottom on the chip they chose. Albeit, Apple has their reasons (Battery life).
 

thatoneguy82

macrumors 68000
Jul 23, 2008
1,895
2
Beach Cities, CA
It's known that the 4S uses some high-efficiency codec that unfortunately delivers average playback quality. Apple thought it's users would appreciate better battery life over sound quality this round.

Music quality hasn't been as good since the 3GS.

It's said that Apple could possibly tweak the codec to provide better sound in future updates - depending on how maxed out the current codec is already, they might not be able to squeeze any additional quality due to the new sound chip/codec being used.

This isn't an iOS 5 issue as much as it is the audio chip they chose in the 4/4S.. I don't know if the 4 is the same chip, but I can confirm the 4S has hit a near rock bottom on the chip they chose. Albeit, Apple has their reasons (Battery life).

Where's your proof of this?
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
Last night I was listening to only music that was purchased in the iTunes store over the past year or so. It sounded crisp and clear and very good.

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned that I had been listening to some Black Sabbath albums that were in various bitrates. Some were 320 and some were about 192vbr. Those were in MP3 format and those were the ones that sounded muffled and distorted.
 

Tech Elementz

macrumors 6502
Jul 7, 2011
404
0
Ive noticed the same! thought i was just going crazy!

iTunes converts my songs to 128kbps (my Lady GaGa songs are 1400kbps, took up way too much space) but the sound quality has definitely gone down since iOS5

Why have iTunes convert to 128 kbps? Convert the songs to iTunes Plus (256 kbps AAC), which sounds a lot better... Especially when bought straight from the iTunes Store.

----------

Last night I was listening to only music that was purchased in the iTunes store over the past year or so. It sounded crisp and clear and very good.

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned that I had been listening to some Black Sabbath albums that were in various bitrates. Some were 320 and some were about 192vbr. Those were in MP3 format and those were the ones that sounded muffled and distorted.

That is because the iTunes Store encodes them properly at 256 Kbps AAC from the straight recording, which is why it sounds much nicer and clear than those crappy versions you get on P2P networks... (2% of the songs on P2P networks will be decent...)
 

BlaqkAudio

macrumors 6502
Jun 24, 2008
496
23
New York
It's known that the 4S uses some high-efficiency codec that unfortunately delivers average playback quality. Apple thought it's users would appreciate better battery life over sound quality this round.

Music quality hasn't been as good since the 3GS.

It's said that Apple could possibly tweak the codec to provide better sound in future updates - depending on how maxed out the current codec is already, they might not be able to squeeze any additional quality due to the new sound chip/codec being used.

This isn't an iOS 5 issue as much as it is the audio chip they chose in the 4/4S.. I don't know if the 4 is the same chip, but I can confirm the 4S has hit a near rock bottom on the chip they chose. Albeit, Apple has their reasons (Battery life).
3Gs/4 uses Cirrus Logic CS42L61
4S uses Cirrus Logic CLI1560B0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices
 

thepiper92

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2012
6
1
Horrible quality sound from ios5.0.1

I updated to 5.0.1 on my iPod touch 4 and the sound is just horrible on the basic music app. I use a pair of Bowers and Wilkins C5 headphones and they sound like listening to music on blown speakers. The bass is distorted and so are the highs on many songs. I've notices huge distortion on Pumped Up Kicks, in lossless format. I didn't think the sound of my Touch could get worse, as I never found it great. Only reason I got the Touch was because the available for items such as cases for it, but I'd rather have Cowon. The Touch can't driver 32ohms headphones at a decent volume and a portable headphone amp is needed, which I will get. The klipsh s4's do play at a decent volume, as they are 16ohms. With ios5, the stock music app makes music unbearable, but I found the app panamp which, more or less, takes the sound back to square one, square one being the sound of ios4. When I get my headphone amp, I will switch to EQu, which is too quiet to listen to on the touch without one, but it delivers excellent sound quality.

And yes I am an audiophile, and if I could, I'd have a pair of $1000 headphones, but the BandW C5's, are excellent and there is no way the headphones are an issue, epsecailly that they play well on my comp (not on the horrible sounding itunes, but on AIMP3).
 

meda

macrumors newbie
Feb 29, 2012
1
0
bad sound quality ios5

Hi guys, I was looking for the solution of this problem and then remembered something, dont know if it might be the case with all of you or not.

When I had the ios 4.x.x. for some reason the music was too low, even on my bose headphones. So I found the option i itunes (right click the track, >get info> click options tab) there you will find a volume adjustment bar where you can increase the volume and reduce it. I had it on max to get good quality on ios4. on ios% however this made the sound HORRIBLE....i adjusted it back to 0 (which is the middle) and it is all fine now.

Hope this helps
 

marcusj0015

macrumors 65816
Aug 29, 2011
1,024
1
U.S.A.
Songs sound the EXACT same on my iPod touch 4, but I use ALAC... and Apples little "load the whole 30mb song into RAM" makes it crash sometimes, especially on the bloated ass iOS 5.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.