How to boost your iPhone's audio quality with a few setting changes
Several iPhone and streaming-app settings can meaningfully improve sound quality, from streaming bitrate to equalizers and accessibility options.
An iPhone sounds fine by default, but a handful of settings changes can noticeably improve the listening experience across music, video and calls.
Streaming quality and equalizer settings
In Apple Music, audio quality can be adjusted under Settings > Apps > Music > Audio Quality, with separate options for mobile data, Wi-Fi and downloads; High Quality offers the best balance of data usage and sound. Spotify has a similar menu under Settings and privacy > Media quality, where free users can pick from Low, Normal or High, while Premium subscribers also get Very High and Lossless options.
Both apps also include equalizer settings that boost or reduce specific frequencies. Apple Music offers preset profiles by music genre but no custom EQ, while Spotify lets users choose a preset or manually adjust frequency sliders. Both apps also include a volume normalization feature, though opinions vary on whether it helps or hurts sound quality.
Understanding lossless audio
Apple Music and Spotify Premium both support lossless audio, which preserves the original audio data for CD-equivalent quality but uses significantly more data and storage. This option won't help with Bluetooth headphones, since Bluetooth doesn't support lossless transmission — with limited exceptions for certain AirPods models paired with Apple Vision Pro. Getting the full benefit of lossless audio requires a dedicated digital-to-analog converter (DAC).
Accessibility features
Under Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual, additional tools are available: noise cancellation for older iPhone models, a balance slider for left-right channel adjustments, and Headphone Accommodations, which let users boost specific frequencies or amplify soft sounds when using supported Apple headphones.
For audio played through the phone's built-in speakers, the main recommendation beyond adjusting settings is simply keeping the speaker grilles clean using proper cleaning tools.
