iPhone 11 and WF-1000XM3 – poor sound quality

[mkbest]

Hi! I wonder if any of you have experienced the same issue as I have. I've recently switched from iPhone 6s to iPhone 11 and there seem to be some sound quality issues on the 11.

While playing music, after a few seconds of perfect quality, the sound coming from Sony WF-1000xm3 turns muted – it's especially audible in high frequencies. It's as if the sound got compressed to a lower quality. I tried this on two different iPhones 11 and they behave the same way. iPhone 6s, however, still plays music perfectly, even after updating to iOS 13.1.1. All three phones run the same software and I know that there have been some issues with iOS 13.1.1 but they don't seem to affect the older iPhone 6s (or iPad Pro for that matter). Is it possible that the new iPhones use some different codec or Bluetooth version and Sony has to update their companion app in order for the headphones to perform like intended? Or is iPhone 11 just doomed and we'll have to deal with unpleasant sound from now on?

I also checked the sound quality of WH-1000xm2 for comparison and there are no issues with it on any of the devices.

 Thank you for any input!

 Maciej

[Sean_Mc]

Hi Maciej, 

I'm a little confused, as you mention the WH-1000XM2 in your message. Can you confirm if your query is referring to the sound quality of the WF-1000XM3 headphones, as these have just recently been released, or did you mean the WH-1000XM3 headphones?

Best wishes,

Sean 

[mkbest]

Hi!

The issue is with the newly released earbuds WF-1000XM3. I only mentioned the old over-ear WH-1000XM2's to show that the problem doesn't occur with other headphones connected to iPhone 11. The quality doesn't get compressed after playing music for a few seconds through the old over-ear headphones. It only happens with the new earbuds.

So according to my tests, the issue happens only with iPhone 11 and WF-1000XM3. Both devices are fully functional hardware-wise as I tested the issue on two different iPhone 11 devices, and WF-1000XM3's themselves also work perfectly fine with other sources of music.

Thank for any help!

Maciej

[ryan7727]

Hi, I have exactly the same problem with iPhone XS and the WF-1000XM3. The sound intermittently goes to a lower bitrate once or twice every song, then recovers after around 5 seconds. I don't have the issue with the WFs and my Macbook Pro, nor do I experience it with my iPhone and my WHs. So it seems to be a specific iPhone-WF-1000XM3 combination. I mentioned this in another post a few weeks back (here) and also raised it to Tech support, but they basically advised me to use another device (!).

To me it seems like something a bit of technical investigation and a firmware upgrade should be able to sort.

Moderators - fancy helping us out here? Did not pay this price for tinny compressed sound!

[mkbest]

Thank you! At least now I know I'm not the only person in the world hearing this. 😅 

I've actually realised that the same compression happens on my iPad Pro, albeit much less often. It takes a longer time for the compression to kick in and then it goes back to high quality, then it compresses the sound again and so on… On iPhone 11 it seems that the compression starts earlier and stays forever (unless I pause the music for a few seconds – then it starts off in high quality again and lowers the quality after a few seconds).

I also believe a software update can fix this, I only hope Sony technicians can hear that something's wrong with the sound. 😞

[gphung]

Hi there,

I'm experiencing the exact same problem on my iPhone X, on iOS 12.4. Doing a bit of preliminary research, it seems there are quite a number of us out there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sony/comments/cz94e4/wf1000xm3_ios_sound_degradation/

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/cm6h38/sound_issues_with_sony_wf1000xm3_nc_earphones/

Not sure how we can escalate this issue to either Sony and/or Apple.

[mkbest]

Wow, that's a lot of affected devices! I wonder what causes the issue to happen. As I mentioned before, it never happened (and still doesn't) on my old 6s, but iPhone 11 and iPad Pro are affected.

I contacted Apple and they told me to ask Sony. Sony doesn't really respond. I had the highest regard for Sony's headphones but if things like this happen and there's no help offered… I think I might switch to the upcoming AirPods that will supposedly have active noise cancelling feature of their own. At least with those earbuds we can expect good connectivity with iPhones.

[The_Black_Rose]

Hi Mkbest,

I'd say contact Apple.

Cheers,
The_Black_Rose

[mkbest]

Hi,

Already did and they advised me to contact Sony. So no one is willing to take any responsibility.

[ryan7727]

...which is disappointing given that the product comes with the made for iPhone logo on the box.