Audio too soft oh phone speaker, good on headset/earbuds

[BryanLL]

I'm new to OBS and not sure if this is an appropriate place to ask this, but ... I'm having an issue where my live stream is extremely soft (barely audible at all) when played on a smartphone (Android definitely, iPhone unknown). However, it's just fine when using earbuds or headset on the phone or when streaming from a PC. The only clue I have as to why this happens is that when I once tried using a tool like Audacity to convert stereo to mono, the result was similarly too soft to hear. So I'm wondering if it's just a result of how phones play stereo on their single speaker. But more important is what do I need to do to prevent this issue? Most things I view from my phone are fine on the phone's speaker, but not the content I created via OBS.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

You posted this in the Linux support forum, but the issue is true for all streaming platforms (OS versions, and application themselves.. ie not just OBS). There appears to be, and others have commented as well, that you can optimize for your sound for mobile device speakers, or everything else, but basically you'll be hard pressed to have one audio output that works well for both audiences. Compression will help, depending on your audio source (obviously not good for wide range classical music, or certain theatrical settings where wide audio range is desired, but may be the lesser of two evils in other settings)

My recommendation is to search on audio optimization settings. Good luck, I'm a newbie to streaming, and audio is my weakest area. But at least I'm aware of it... basic rule of thumb is for most content, you don't need stereo nor higher bitrate audio. focus on a quality pickup and work from there. Then depending on audio processing you do (and where, ie in or outside OBS) you'll potentially have to deal with audio/video synchronization if the 2 stream types follow a different physical and logical path

Hopefully others can give you better recommendations