After buying Beats wireless headphones, a customer posted a viral video comparing the sound quality of Apple Music and Spotify.
Lyss (@itsmelyssk) reached over 188,000 views on her TikTok and added a caption asking, “EXCUSE ME … can someone explain?”
Lyss starts her video while she is sitting in her car and wearing a pair of Beats Studio Pro Wireless Headphones. She says, “I almost just blew my eardrums out.”
She first explains how she bought the headphones the previous night and after first use was “lowkey disappointed.” Lyss says when she started playing a song from her Apple Music she thought she was losing her hearing by how low the music sounded to her.
“The volume was all the way up,” she adds. After turning the spatial audio, noise cancellation, and transparency mode on and off to try and fix the volume problem, still nothing changed.
Lyss says at that moment she thought, “Wow, I’m about to return these things.” However she wanted to try a few more steps. She says, “Absolutely no way did I just get these, and they suck.”
But she thought to herself, “Let me go to Spotify.”
She pauses and says, “I almost literally just blew my eardrums,” with one hand up toward the camera.
“What the hell is the difference between Apple Music and Spotify?” Lyss asks. “Why is the sound quality terrible on Apple Music playing through Apple Headphones?”
Before ending her video she mentions that she will most likely cancel her Apple subscription if she can’t find a solution. “Can someone explain that to me?” she asks.
“This was my reason to never use Apple Music again, I can’t even believe the sound quality difference… woah.”
A user tried to help Lyss in the comment section of her video and asked, “Did you make sure to turn on the highest quality setting in your phone settings under the music menu?”
“Lossless audio was off,” she responded. “If I turn this on it says it will use up a lot of data but is this what you’re talking about?”
“Yes, turn on lossless, turn off sound check and make sure EQ is off in the beginning,” the user further explained. “Then try it, once you try, then adjust EQ how you want, also turn on Atmos.”
They continued saying, “From an enthusiast standpoint Apple Music is supposed to be better, let me know how it goes, also Beats headphones are not the best for music consumption lol but one thing at a time.”
Is Apple Music quieter than Spotify?
It seems to be about your presets. A redditor seems to have answers: “I’d start with making sure sound check is off. If you had an eq set in Spotify, do the same in [Apple Music]. If you have lossless turned on but the track is not lossless, they tend to be much quieter than the lossless counterparts.”
An Apple Discussions post debated over the statement, “Music sounds quiet compared to Spotify.”
“Overall I experience that the volume is not loud compared to Spotify. I have sound check off, the eq is on late night and use lossless audio,” one said.
An Apple Support Community specialist responded explaining, “Checking your Sound Check setting was definitely a good step to begin with. You might also be able to make adjustments to the Equalizer to achieve the volume or sound you’re hoping for.”
@itsmelyssk EXCUSE ME 🎧 can someone explain????? #applemusic #spotify #applemusicvsspotify #soundquality #beatsbydre #beatsstudiopro ♬ original sound – lyss | k 🥥
To change the way music sounds on your iPhone with EQ, volume limit settings, and Sound Check, “Choose an equalization (EQ) setting: Go to Settings > Music > EQ. Normalize the volume level of your audio: Go to Settings > Music, then turn on Sound Check.”
The Daily Dot reached out to request a comment from Lyss via TikTok comment section and DM. And to Apple via email.
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