We subjected the Apple iPhone 14 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.
Overview
Key audio specs include:
- Two speakers, (one up front, one side down)
- No audio output Jack
- Dolby Atmos technology
- Spatial audio reproduction
Reproduction
Pros
- Good performance in all attributes, with great consistency in all of them
- Great tonal yield overall, enriched by a deep low-end extension
- Excellent dynamic performance overall
- Excellent spatial yield
versus
- Distortion and compression at maximum volume and when watching movies
- The stereo is still reversed in the music app, like on all iPhones
Registration
Pros
- Good tonal rendering overall
- Good performance when recording high volume content such as concerts
- Good dynamic performance
- Good management of artifacts overall. The wind noise reduction needs some fine tuning, but it works decently
versus
- Midrange rendition depends too much on the use case and can sound crafty or nasal depending on the app and use case
- The SNR could be higher, as the main vocal content is often somewhat masked by ambient noise
- Poor audio zoom performance
The differences between iPhone models when it comes to audio playback and recording have generally been minimal. The same is true now with the release of the iPhone 14 series.
The iPhone 14, which contains the A15 Bionic chipset, shares many of the hardware specifications of the 14 Pro Max, which runs on the latest A16 Bionic chip.
Our testers found that in Playback the tone of the iPhone 14 has a richer midrange than the 14 Pro Max, but the 14 Pro Max’s high-end extension doesn’t quite match that of the 14 Pro Max. Another small difference between the two models is that the sound of the iPhone 14 is less impactful than the 14 Pro Max.
On recording, the testers noticed very slight variations in tone between the models. The volume of the iPhone 14 was also slightly better than that of the 14 Pro Max.
Wind noise reduction on the iPhone 14 was handled slightly better than the more advanced model.
Audio zoom isn’t a strong point on either model.
Given the similarities between the models and the iPhone 14’s overall score of just one point below the 14 Pro Max score, well within our margin of error, we direct you to the full iPhone 14 Pro test results. Max for all the details of the iPhone 14’s audio performance.
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