Apple iPhone X Crackling, Buzzing Sounds Complaints Surface

About two dozen owners of Apple’s newly released iPhone X are now complaining about some strange noise coming from their handsets. According to their reports online, they are hearing “crackling” and “buzzing” sounds directly from the iPhone X’s front-facing earpiece speaker when the volume of the device is set at high or at the maximum level.

Over the weekend, MacRumors reported about several complaints its readers shared in its Forums page. Based on the statements of its concerned readers, they are having some slight issues with their handset’s front-facing earpiece speaker. Apparently, they are hearing some unwanted sounds from the speaker, and they are very noticeable on certain songs and when the device is playing a ringtone.

The first one to complain about the issue was MacRumors patron ShadowYYZ, who simply voiced out his concern in the site’s Forums page on Nov. 3. “Love the phone but I was wondering if anyone has had any issues with the speakers slightly sounding a little crackling whenever max volume. Noticeable on certain songs and even my ringtone which was bought from the iTunes Store.”

The thread has since received similar complaints from other owners. User GhostEsq wrote: “Same thing on me. Sounds like the front facing speaker … has a slight crackle when loud, I hear it when listening to speaking mostly.” User S3ISOR also commented: “I’m having it too in my top speaker. Notice it when the volume is in the top 3 bars of max sound.”

Complaints were not just present in the MacRumors Forums. Other users talked about the same problem on social media. On Twitter, one owner encouraged other users to test their handsets by playing the video he shared. He found out that the K-pop music video he shared does a good job in bringing out the cackling noise when the device has the problem. He even used the hashtag #noisegate to refer to the issue.

On Reddit, an owner wrote a lengthy post to detail his frustration in the 10th anniversary iPhone. “I love everything about the iPhone X … EXCEPT the Horrendous sound Quality/Speaker Issues - Crackling/Sound with WAY too much Treble,” the title of the post read. In the complaint, the user indicated that even at 50 percent volume, the audio of the phone sounds quite bad. He added that the problem gets worse when volume is turned up to 80 to 100 percent for the tinny and crackling sounds become audible, especially when he is doing speakerphone calls.

Apple has yet to comment on the complaints, so it’s still unknown what is actually causing these weird sounds. It is important to note though that the iPhone X’s earpiece doubles as the speaker that works with the traditional speaker at the bottom of the device in delivering stereo sounds. What’s interesting here is that both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 also have stereo speakers.

It can be noted that iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus owners previously complained about a similar issue. However, it was established back then that the “static noise” from the two phones were caused by a software issue. Apple quickly acknowledged the issue in a statement to The Verge and fixed it by rolling out iOS 11.0.2.