Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max Audio test

The iPhone 13 Pro Max is Apple’s 2021 flagship smartphone, powered by the A15 Bionic chipset and offering up to 1 TB of internal storage. On the audio playback front, Apple has partnered with Dolby Labs to deliver immersive stereo playback. As for recording, the audio zoom algorithm is still implemented when shooting video.

We subjected the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max to our rigorous SBMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance both when recording sound using its built-in microphones, and when playing audio through its speakers.

In this review, we’ll break down how it fared across a variety of tests and several common use cases.

Overview

Key audio specs include:

• Two speakers (top front and bottom side)
• Audio zoom
• Dolby Atmos
• Voice Isolation & Wide Spectrum Microphone Modes (For Calls)
• User configurable maximum volume limit

Reproduction

Registration

Each year Apple’s iPhone Pro Max devices improve over their predecessors in terms of audio performance, and the 13 Pro Max is no exception, thanks to good performance in both playback and recording tests. Its speakers are extremely suitable for gaming and watching movies, thanks to excellent spatial results in all attributes (width, localizability, distance balance and rendering), a volume-consistent tonal balance with precise highs, and a rich, full midrange. , dynamic impact and sharp overall and a skilful management of sound artifacts. Volume performance is also useful, with a minimum volume that leaves games and movies fully intelligible, a distribution from the softest to the highest passages that allows the user to fine-tune the listening volume and a satisfying maximum volume. Additionally, the speakers are nearly impossible to occlude during a gaming session.

The low-end extension of the phone, while very good, falls short of our top-rated phones, and as with all iPhone models, when using the music app, the left and right channels are reversed by default.

As a recording device, the iPhone 13 Pro Max produces a somewhat darker tone than previous generations, due to limited high-end reach and a general lack of brightness. However, the tone remains natural, warm and fairly consistent despite volume variations. Although recording in noisy environments is a commonly shared skill of the iPhone, the 13 Pro Max continues the tradition established by its predecessors by providing a clear, precise and rich midrange, powerful bass, precise capture of the sound envelope and, overall, excellent resilience at high pressure levels. In addition, it offers a very interesting DSP compensation for partial occlusion of microphones (when the phone is held with one hand, for example). Selfie videos also fared very well in our protocol, with well-balanced midrange and impressive amplitude considering the fact that this use case is rated in portrait mode.

While it’s already very good, the iPhone 13 Pro Max still has a little room for improvement in the recording area. Its main limitation is the lack of treble information and high-end extension which, in addition to inducing a darker sonority, makes voices less intelligible by preventing them from overcoming background noise in noisier environments, thus altering the signal ratio. -noise. Our testers also found that the device didn’t handle wind noise well, especially when recording with the memo app.

Test summary

Learn about SBMARK audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, SBMARK engineers perform a series of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual assessment under controlled laboratory conditions.
(For more details on our reproduction protocol, click here; for more details on our registration protocol, click here.)

The following section collects the key elements of our exhaustive tests and analyzes performed in SBMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations in the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.

Hear about the playback performance of the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max in this comparison with some of its competitors:

Here’s how the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max fares in playback use cases compared to its competitors:

The frequency response of the iPhone 13 Pro Max is in many ways similar to that of its predecessor in that it offers precise highs, significant high-end extension, powerful bass without being boomy, and a satisfying low-end extension, albeit. soundly beaten by other top-rated devices from our Audio Ranking.

The main difference compared to the best in the category lies in the mid frequencies which on some competitors are much fuller and richer, with more roundness and less nasal. This results in a better user experience in movie and music playback and an overall natural, bright but warm result, from the lowest to the highest volumes.

The dynamic attributes, for their part, are strictly identical to those of the previous generation. The 13 Pro Max delivers a good attack at nominal and soft volumes, and the punch is even impactful at softer volumes thanks to the appreciably deep low-end extension. Bass accuracy is overall very good, albeit reduced by resonances and distortions at both nominal and maximum volume. Also in this area, changes in volume have little impact on the consistency of performance.

Space performance is certainly the most notable evolution over the previous generation. The localizability is very precise, the amplitude is exceptional, the balance between the left and right channels is well centered, and the distance rendering is very realistic for vocals.

As with every other iPhone model, the stereo field is reversed when using the Music app. When using the phone in landscape mode (the top of the phone is on the left), the left channel audio comes from the right side of the device and vice versa. Since the stereo does not automatically rotate in the music player, the user has to turn the phone to an inverted horizontal position (with the top of the phone to the right) to get the correct stereo orientation. But despite the inverted stereo, the breadth and localizability remain excellent.

Thanks to a richer and more complete frequency response, at maximum volume, the iPhone 13 Pro Max sounds perceptually louder than its predecessor. Speaking of volume, here are some sound pressure levels (SPLs) measured while playing our sample recordings of hip-hop and classical music at maximum volume:

The graph below shows the gradual changes in volume from minimum to maximum. We expect these changes to be consistent across the range, so that all volume levels match user expectations. The minimum volume remains well adjusted, allowing dynamic audio (such as classical music or movies) to remain fully intelligible. Also, as shown in the graph below, the distribution of volume increases from lowest to highest is extremely consistent:

As in the Dynamics category, through an artifact reading grid, the iPhone 13 Pro Max behaves exactly like its predecessor. It is quite capable of minimizing unwanted sounds, as very few artifacts are perceptible overall. All use cases perform very well, with games at the top of the ladder.

That said, bass distortion can be felt on specific sounds at nominal and maximum volume. On the plus side, the background noise is slightly lower than the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and the speakers are hard to block out while gaming!

Here’s how the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max fares in registration of use cases compared to its competitors:

As a recording device, the 13 Pro Max offers excellent tonal performance. The rendering is natural, warm and quite consistent, with an emphasis on the low-mid range.

Unlike playback, recordings have a darker sound due to an elusive high-end extension and limited highs. As a result, the brightness is dimmed and speech intelligibility is impaired. In noisy environments, such as our urban setting, conversations have a hard time distinguishing themselves from background noise. This issue is less noticeable in high SPL scenarios, where the phone displays clear, precise, rich and consistent midrange, better high-end extension, and powerful bass, without ever sounding boomy.

In life videos, reminders and meeting scenarios, the frequency response of the phone generates a slightly muffled sonority with subtle resonances in the low-mid range. That said, the overall result remains natural and pleasing.

While the iPhone 13 Pro Max seems perfectly capable of delivering excellent dynamic performance, with its wide dynamic range and reliable responsiveness, the results were hampered by various factors.

While the envelope rendering is accurate in most use cases, and particularly accurate in our electronic gig scenario despite very high sound pressure levels, the attack could be sharper and snappier. In noisy environments (such as a concert) the combination of damped transients, dynamic compression and strong bass becomes detrimental to the sonic envelope as well as the punch. The aforementioned limited high-end extension is also problematic in this category: it reduces the intelligibility of speech content, which affects the secondary score of the signal-to-noise ratio.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max offers good spatial performance in the recording domain. Width is very good in all use cases and yes, that includes selfie videos, which show impressive breadth despite their portrait orientation.

The impressive amplitude performance in videos, however, doesn’t occur in Voice Memos app recordings. Voice memos and meeting recordings are all in mono and lack breadth.

As for the other spatial attributes, the lack of timbral clarity affects both the perception of distance and localizability, which are otherwise correct and very good, respectively.

As always with iPhones, the volume of the recorded audio is a strong point. Vocals benefit from very good volume and the maximum level achievable without a perceptible amount of distortion is excellent. In other words, the phone demonstrates excellent resilience in very noisy environments.

The volume of the recorded files is acceptable but a little below the best phones for recording, which results in recorded video files that have a decent if not optimal volume. Here are the sound levels recorded in the audio and video files, measured in LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale); as a reference, we expect loudness levels to be higher than -24 LUFS for recorded content:

As we said, the 13th generation Pro Max is even more adept than its predecessor when it comes to handling recordings in noisy environments: very few artifacts have been spotted by our sound engineers, even in high SPL scenarios. The occasional pumping and slight distortion were only evident in the selfie videos, triggered by screaming voices.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max has a very interesting and well implemented feature: when holding the phone with one hand, the DSP successfully compensates for induced partial occlusion. Furthermore, when held with both hands, voices remain perfectly intelligible, only slightly indisposed by a slight loss at the extremes of the spectrum.

In this audio comparison, you can hear how this smartphone handles wind noise compared to its competitors:

Compared to the best competitors, wind noise is more audible on iPhone 13 Pro Max audio recordings. This is especially true when recording with the memo app.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max produces above-average background recordings, with its secondary score just 7 points below the title holder in this category, which is none other than the iPhone XS Max. very naturally despite the darker sounds and seem unmoved by noisy events captured in the foreground.