[teng903]

Might be asking the obvious here, but are you using AHJ compatible headphones with the Lumia 800? Most headphones in the market are UHJ (most Nokia phones are UHJ too), so you'll need an adapter for a UHJ headphone.

[xumix]

www.google.com/search?q=uhj+to+ahj+adapter
No single match

[treysparker]

Well, ive had it. Nokia refueses to respond - thanks guys.

Im going to sign a contract and get my iPhone 4S tomorrow, which is disappointing but theres nothing else i can do. 

My Lumia 800 is still producing the worst audio quality known to man and they refuse to acknowledge it, let alone do anything about it. 

Apple is at least somewhat decent in customer service. 
oh well.  thanks for nothing Nokia. I'll make sure to let everyone on my blog (all 14,147) members know about what happened.

[lomax_hjs]

AHJ?

How do i find out if my headphone is AHJ or UHJ ?

[Frazor77]

When you say UHJ do you mean OMTP?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/OMTP 

[GeoffN]

I've been using my Lumia 800 for about 3 weeks now. I've tried using the FM Radio, Mix Radio (online and offline) and my own music downloaded from iTunes; the sound is fine and I have had none of the problems identified here. I can only conclude that the faults must lie with the individual device hardware or software and is not necessarily generic to all Lumia machines. My only compalints with the sound are that the volume control also operates the ringtone volume, which is somewhat inconvenient and I prefer small, in-ear headphones rather than those provided.

[bassed1973]

i have the same problem when the jack is removed slightly the sound is much better. did you get a fix for this

[rmjersey]

I have recently changed from an iPhone 3GS and am overall very happing with the Lumia 800, but the audio quality through the same headphones is much worse. No bass, no equaliser, it just sounds really cheap and tinny.

Are we waiting for a software update or is it a hardware problem?

[TomWithLumia]

Whats with you? This issue got already many replies here. And the bottom line is that you should NOT use headsets for other Nokia phones. Use stereo HiFi headphones or a _compatible_ headset. Then there will not be any issues. We all know crapple makes even more problematic and incompatible stuff.

[xumix]

>Whats with you?
Whats with YOU!?
Are u mad? Read the topic, many users tried MANY DIFFERENT headphones. At particular I've tried myself 4 ones, even monitor ones

[pollis559]

I have replaced the phone and this one also has the 'GSM' interference. 

[rmjersey]

> Use stereo HiFi headphones or a _compatible_ headset.

I am using decent Sennheiser stereo HiFi headphones, they have a fantastic rich sound with other inputs. I have tried the bundled headphones too, which I assume are 'compatible'.

This issue is not about the headphones its about the EQ on the output not sounding good to many peoples ears.

[rahulxsinha]

Why are some ppl darn adamant about their stance... Let me clear some doubts about - "Using a Hi-Fi or Compatible Headset THEORY"
 
1. I heavily doubt that Guys who have bought Lumia 800 do not have a decent "Hi-Fi" Headset.... Get that stick out of your butt and Think a bit.... Arn't Beatsby Dr Dre, Bose In-Ear, Sony XB IEM or V-Moda Bass Freq's "Hi-Fi" enough for you....???? BTW, they all sound terrible when jacked in to Lumia 800 !!
 
2. What does "Compatible" even mean...?? It has a standard 3.5mm Jack, not some custom proprietary hole drilled in it... So by analogy, any decent Headphones should sound the way it sounds in other devices (with EQ OFF)

 
Moreover people are not just hearing subtle differences ... THEY are experiencing "Disastrous" Audio Quality (Read the Title of the Post)....  Hence I again doubt about some "individual preferences/ears" thing....
 
"Think" before you post... Cheers !!!

[tonttula]

Yes, please lets stop the "you got wrong headphones" stuff right away. It got 3.5mm jack and i'am headphone junkie with 6 different higher end in-ears. They all suffer from the absolute lack of any low freg bass. GSMarena also on their review pretty much had crappiest scores ever for it's music quality. This problem is killing the other wise great phone for me.

[fladimir]

so for me its also the same problem with sound quality, The lumia just dont make a good sound no matter which headphones are plugged in. Good quality headphones, which sounds very well at any other devices, just sound flat at the Lumia. With the Lumia headset its even a little bit better, but also not good and at least not acceptable .

for sure this is not a problem of headphone combatibility.

Im using Nokia phones for a long time and none of them sound as worst as the Lumia.

And thats just one thing, sound quality of the build in speker is even worse.

I dont understand why Nokia dont accept that they have to bring an update for this.

Should the Lumia 800 be "the first real windows phone" that cant play Music in a acceptable quality...

its really killing the phone

[c_leckie]

I'm having the exact same issues with my Lumia 800. There's just so little bass available and it makes the high end feel tinny.

For reference I'm currently using a set of Sennheiser IE7's with it these aren't cheap earphones and can't be blamed for the problems. This leaves it squarely aimed at the handset.

It's ashame because the lumia was the phone I've been waiting for in every regard, just a bit of a let down, my partners iPhone 4 makes it sound like a toy in comparison.

I've tweeted to Nokia regarding this and they replied saying it has been passed on as to wether it's a software or hardware fault. Time will tell, I'm not going to return my phone until any manufacturing problems have been corrected.

Moderators note: Link has been removed at it led to a dead link.

[newneotoo]

I have noticed sound quality on Lumia as not being good. I listened to the Inception score on my other halfs Xperia ray with the standard head phones and it sounded warm, treble and bass were where the should be the same score on the Lumia with the same head phones sounded weak zero bass and harsh trebles.

I do actually believe this can be sorted with a software fix. A start would be if Nokia accepted that there is a problem and started the work to correct this.

I had a Samsung Omnia 7 before this it wasn't brilliant but it was better. Some of the problem for me lies with the OS don't get me wrong I'm loving WP7 and love my Lumia (in cyan) but Nokia need to step up and sort this and make it the iPhone killer it really should be.

I went away from Nokia years ago and came back with this beautiful device dont let me and others down now.

[Flakmonkey]

Its a shame to hear some people are having such serious issues with audio on this phone, ive had the cyan version of the phone for about 2 weeks now and have to say its the best audio ive heard on any mobile ive owned, really punchy bass and great highs, easily tops my old sensation xl and that had beats audio branding (although some equaliser settings would be nice!) It sounds great regardless of the headphones used, the only exception is if i try to use my old iphone headset, where i get a problem with crackly distorted sound, but this is purely down to the contacts on the iphone headset being in slightly the wrong positions for this phone, pulling the connector out by half a milimetre or so will correct the problem, obviously in this specific case i just dont use my iphone set, ive actually just ordered nokias own purity in-ear set just because they match the phone... sad i know!

I doubt its a software issue, since all lumia 800s should now be running with 1600.2479.7740.11451 update either out of the box for newer phones or an update via zune and only a select few are experiencing this sound problem.

A work friend of mine bought the black version back in november and had the audio problem even with the software update, it seems as if an early batch of lumia800s did exhibit a hardware fault with the 3.5mm connector, a quick trip to the Orange store and a replacement solved my friends problem.

Maybe its worth a try just swapping it at the store, since its the store that sold you the device thats responsible for replacing it if its faulty, at least in the first month or so, after that its down to nokia`s warranty.

Unfortunatly looking at the phones packaging there seems to be no obvious way to tell the date of manufacture of the handset so its a bit of a lottery and means you may have to test it before leaving the store.

[ekw88]

I too have horrible audio quality. My main complaints are the internal and external speakers. I can barely hear anything, and I usually have to resort to texting because I can't hear the people on the other line. I've been carrying out a bluetooth headset more often now so I can take calls and actually hear them.

[rahulxsinha]

@ Flakmonkey  >>  I am glad that you are experiencing great sound from Lumia 800. Cheers...

However, unfortunately for most of us, the issue seems more of a missing low freq bass. The volume is loud enough for me, but it seems that the songs are getting processed in a "Treble Booster" EQ Way.... I hence doubt that its a component failure... A few Songs with very high mid freq bass, sounds well though. I am more than willing to share some samples which can isolate the issue to a software fault (if requested)...

A component failure, would have resulted in killing all the songs irrespective of the Genre. Also, I tried to create some punchy synth beats in FruityLoops and saving them in high decible levels. They turn out to be quite Okay...

NOKIA: I don't understand- What's stopping you to reply to the post. MODS are blazingly fast to edit a post (so it would be wrong to assume that Nokia is not aware of this post), however, there is absolute silence from Nokia on this very imp Issue. C'mon, accepting the fault won't bring down your sales figure... !!!