Sound suddenly changes to spacial through earbuds

[Grasshopperuk]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Pixel 4a

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

Android 11

My Question or Issue

I do not use any EQ, quality settings are set to very high throughout with option to adjust audio qquality disabled.

Listening via WiFi on pixel buds 2.

The sound suddenly changes to a kind of spacial sound mid song and continues in that way throughout the playlist.  I'd say the change is for the better (IMO) but it's annoying that is suddenly enables itself & subsequent listening sessions revert back to the original sound.

Last time it happened, I closed Spotify & listened to a lossless copy of the same song via cloudplayer (no EQ in that app either) & the sound was how spotify was originally before the spacial effect activated.  Closing cloudplayer & back to Spotify & the spacial effect is still active.

I have only ever experienced it going from normal to spacial mid song not spacial to normal, it just reverts to normal sound unsually on the next day.

[Jeremy]

Hi there @Grasshopperuk,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community. We're happy to help.

Can you let us know if it only happens with songs on Spotify?

Also - does it matter what the surroundings are, or is it random?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Cheers!

[Grasshopperuk · Accepted solution]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for replying.  I have only noticed it in Spotify & it's happened a couple of times at home & out.

Normally I listen to music using a USB DAC & a pair of FIIO FH7 IEM's, Spotify still sounds consistently good through that setup.

The Pixel buds are a relatively new purchase, so I am getting used to how they sound using them.  For the last 2 days they have had the spacial effect consistently, so I suspect that is the usual sound using them.  What confuses me is this is listening to downloaded music, all in Very High quality, Spotify settings are to always play Very High quality & not lower the quality due to network issues etc, however they are downloaded music files anyway.

I'm wondering as well if the Pixel software could be to blame as when a FLAC CD rip of the same song is played with other software it sounds worse than Spotify using the Pixel buds, but doing the comparision between Spotify & the FLAC file using the ext DAC & IEM's, the FLAC is clearer, by a small margin.

Happy to close this as my further testing points the finger at the pixel sofware IMO.

[CarlosE]

Hey @Grasshopperuk,

Thanks for all that info.

It sounds like it's indeed related to Pixel earbuds and how they interact with the audio being played. You may try reaching out to their support for further info on this.

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

Have a good one 🙂