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MaryAnne asked: “I have a problem that happens almost every day when my friend calls. I talk on a Galaxy 5 that I love. He talks on an iPhone 5. We’re talking along and all of a sudden he says “Stop screaming at me. You’re making my phone vibrate.” I can’t tell that I’m doing anything different. I’ve Googled. I don’t know how to fix it. I’m willing to work on the problem and he’s willing to blame me. Oh, by the way, Did I tell you we’re old? But you probably knew that part.”
Well, MaryAnne, that’s certainly a good one. Our research shows plenty of people complaining that their volume is suddenly too low, but no one saying that it’s suddenly too high. Except for you and your friend, of course. It’s really hard to determine which end the problem is on.
We would begin by asking our friend some questions, if we were you. Since you talk on the phone every day, you must be close enough friends that it’s worth trying to troubleshoot this issue. What we’d want to know is whether they ever experience this sudden volume jump with anything else. Any other phone calls? Listening to music? Watching video? Has his iPhone 5 ever suddenly cranked up the volume doing anything else? If so, then the problem is likely on his end. Most of the time when an iPhone starts losing control of its volume, the problem lies with a third party app. Equalizer apps would be the first place we’d look. In addition to controlling tone and frequency, they can all control the phone’s volume as well. If there aren’t any apps on his iPhone that seem to make sense for this, then he might have to go so far as trying a factory reset of his phone. Be sure that if he does, he makes multiple backups of his phone’s data first.
If the problem appears to be on your end, then it might be Samsung’s Wise Voice system
If the problem appears to be on your end, then it might be Samsung’s Wise Voice system that attempts to adjust the microphone gain when it detects that you’re speaking quietly or holding the phone too far away from your mouth. You can try disabling Wise Voice in your phone’s sound settings.Also, the S5 has two microphones. Normally one is used for your voice and the other for picking up room sounds and doing noise cancellation. If you have your phone in Interview Mode or Conversation Mode, with respect to the microphones, rather than Normal mode, you might be experiencing some rogue microphone behavior.
There isn’t really a cut-and-dried answer for you, MaryAnne, we’re sorry. Hopefully we’ve given you enough tips that you can go do some troubleshooting. Good luck!