Crackling/popping on bass notes

[Jmbenson]

Plan

Premium

Country

 United States

Device

iPhone XS Max

Operating System

iOS 12.1

My Question or Issue

 On certain songs that have certain bass notes I hear a crackling or popping sound for a split second. It only happens on those notes. I love bass and so I have my bass booster on in the equalizer. I’ve tested and I hear the same noise if I’m in my car or a friends. It’s not my cars speakers and I’ve narrowed it down to Spotify. I noticed it started in September and I could only hear it on certain songs so it didn’t bug me as much. With my bass turned up on my car it is a lot more noticable quite frankly very annoying. I’ve redownloaded music and changed the quality to high and it hasn’t made a difference. Only way I can make it go away is if I turn down the bass a lot. Then I just can’t hear it

[PigeonXtreme]

Hey there!

It sounds to me like having bass booster on may actually be your problem here. Have you tried switching it off and checking for the sounds? 

[Jmbenson]

Yeah I can still hear them. I’ve tried listening to music in other cars too and I can hear it in them. So it’s something on the app. 

[landonharris88]

It sounds like you're having an issue with overdriving the DAC in your phone. As audio is an analog signal (or a semi-analog signal), there is a limit to the audio level you can send through a cable before it begins to become distorted, or even turn into noise. This is known as the Shanon limit. Since audio is such a sensitive dataset, it is really easy to reach this limit. A simple solution is to actually turn down the volume on your phone and use the amplifier in your speakers to increase volume, rather than your phone. Since bass is the low end, the wavelength is much longer, and therefore caries more energy, the louder you make it, the larger the amplitude, making it really easy for bass to overdrive your speakers. 

[PigeonXtreme]

Wow!

That's like some serious science right there. I love it! Thanks for the explanation! Learning something new everyday.

[Janjean]

I can’t solve even after turning my iPhone volume low.

[taranclan]

how do i turn  the bass booster off on a pc?