[larrymcj]

Let me caveate this with *I LOVE THE TOUR* but everyone I have talked to in the past week has said I sound muffled (using the phone, not the BT or Hands-Free in car, which are both worse yet).

I didn't have any of the hardware issues that many have had, but there are probably thousands of complaints on the internet about how this phone sounds to the person you're calling. I had to find out for sure.

I called five people whose ear I trust using the Tour and I also left myself a voice mail on my home phone. Then I reactivated my old Curve 8330 online and immediately called these people back and left myself another voice message. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM said the Tour was absolutely no where near as good as the Curve. Also, listening to both on my own voice mail it's night and day difference. Now, we all know the Curve itself does not sound nearly as good to the called party as, say a Motorola RAZR, so that means the Tour must actually be quite bad.

Will this be fixed, along with all the other things (primarily BT), in a future OS update...I'm sure it will, but I have to use my phone to communicate and I just can't keep telling myself I can live with the beauty of the shiny new Tour when, in fact, it is clearly an inferior *phone* (not an inferior BlackBerry) than the phone portion of the Curve 8330.

Mine goes back first thing in the morning (sobbing) and I'll upgrade again once I see in this forum that all the news is positive and the bugs have been worked out. What a great peer support forum we have here!

[Mark Rinella]

I have had an identical experience with two different 9630's on Verizon. Using my B&O wired headset, the sound is incredible. Use the handset and I am underwater. The second Tour was a little less worse than the first, but still not acceptable. I left myself voicemails from five different locations in the East Bay and the sound was consistently muffled. Total shame because I otherwise love this phone.

[gbdog]

I did my own test as well, calling my other line (Moto e815) and leaving a VM. I talked right handed, left handed and speakerphone and I could not hear any diff. all were loud and clear. I also own a Storm and when I did the same test I the handset was muffled and the speakerphone was loud and clear..

[nofez]

Mine goes back first thing in the morning (sobbing) and I'll upgrade again once I see in this forum that all the news is positive and the bugs have been worked out. What a great peer support forum we have here!

If you wait for all the news on an internet forum to be positive, you'll never buy anything, ever.

(by the way, I ran a similar test, and my Tour's sound quality is fine. Among other things, no one I called could tell I had a new phone).

[jtoshiroh]

Posted this in another thread but thought it was valid here too.

SOLUTION THAT WORKED FOR ME AND MULTIPLE OTHERS

At first I didn't know the voice quality was an issue until I came across this thread. Prior phone calls on my tour I remember people asking me "what" a few times but I thought nothing of it since the sound in the ear piece was crystal clear. After reading this forum I sent myself a voice mail and was appalled by how it sounded! I tried everything in this forum, enhanced sound, boost treble and my messages still sounded "noisy" and mumbley (if that's a word). Tried my blue tooth and just like others, it sounded very clear. So I searched the web and came across this solution that someone said worked great for them and many others. So I tried it and IT WORKED AMAZINGLY!! My voice quality on my messages went from somewhat understandable to perfect! Here is what I did (I don't want credit for this solution, just passing it along):

Handheld Wipe
Here are the simple instructions for a Handheld Wipe:

1) Backup your Tour Using Blackberry Desktop Software Application. THIS IS IMPORTANT AS A WIPE GETS RID OF ALL YOUR DATA AND APPLICATIONS!!!

2) goto: Options, Security Options, General Settings, Then hit the Blackberry Key and choose "Wipe Handheld". It should take about 8-9 minutes but i can tell you that it works and its worth it the wait.

3) Send yourself a voicemail to verify that sound quality improved. You should save a voicemail from before you do this too so you can compare.

4) Restore your phone using Blackberry Desktop Software. Send yourself another message to verify that it is still clear. I did this and my voice message was just as clear as after I wiped the phone.

I am not sure why wiping the phone, then restoring it fixes the problem. But it worked perfectly for me and multiple other people's Tours.

[Thumb-Berry]

Sometimes my sound is less than perfect and sometimes it is perfect.

I just think it is because of where you are at the time.

[jtoshiroh]

Sometimes my sound is less than perfect and sometimes it is perfect.

I just think it is because of where you are at the time.

I agree with you in general. However, when I ran my tests, I stayed in the EXACT same location while recording each voicemail, before wipe and after wipe. There was a significant difference in the quality between the two. I wish I could post .wav files to show.

[clexman]

Everyone i call asks if I have the speakerphone on or my finger over the mic. I went to a Sprint store and they said that it sounded fine to them and would not do anything for me. I called customer service and they said it sounded fine to them.

People i call still say that my old 8703e sounded much better.

I love my Tour for all the goodness that it is, but WTF?

[mjs31]

Posted this in another thread but thought it was valid here too.

SOLUTION THAT WORKED FOR ME AND MULTIPLE OTHERS

At first I didn't know the voice quality was an issue until I came across this thread. Prior phone calls on my tour I remember people asking me "what" a few times but I thought nothing of it since the sound in the ear piece was crystal clear. After reading this forum I sent myself a voice mail and was appalled by how it sounded! I tried everything in this forum, enhanced sound, boost treble and my messages still sounded "noisy" and mumbley (if that's a word). Tried my blue tooth and just like others, it sounded very clear. So I searched the web and came across this solution that someone said worked great for them and many others. So I tried it and IT WORKED AMAZINGLY!! My voice quality on my messages went from somewhat understandable to perfect! Here is what I did (I don't want credit for this solution, just passing it along):

Handheld Wipe
Here are the simple instructions for a Handheld Wipe:

1) Backup your Tour Using Blackberry Desktop Software Application. THIS IS IMPORTANT AS A WIPE GETS RID OF ALL YOUR DATA AND APPLICATIONS!!!

2) goto: Options, Security Options, General Settings, Then hit the Blackberry Key and choose "Wipe Handheld". It should take about 8-9 minutes but i can tell you that it works and its worth it the wait.

3) Send yourself a voicemail to verify that sound quality improved. You should save a voicemail from before you do this too so you can compare.

4) Restore your phone using Blackberry Desktop Software. Send yourself another message to verify that it is still clear. I did this and my voice message was just as clear as after I wiped the phone.

I am not sure why wiping the phone, then restoring it fixes the problem. But it worked perfectly for me and multiple other people's Tours.

Be aware that you need to keep track of your 3rd party serials since wiping the phone will cause you to have to reenter them. Also make sure you back up 3rd party apps unless you want to redownload them.

[larrymcj]

@mjs31:

I wiped mine at least four times...no difference. All you have to do is Google "BlackBerry Tour call quality" and you'll see just how many of these units have a problem. Again...I LOVE the phone and have been a BlackBerry user since they made their very first one, but I can't ignore the fact this phone has inferior audio quality just because it's a such a nice phone, otherwise. And I sure don't want to go back to BlackBerry OS 4.5 after using 4.7, but I have to talk on this thing...not just play with it.

[usood89]

im going to try this tonight...actually i have a paul mccartney and dave mathews concert tonight and tomorrow...so ill probably end up doing it thursday but ill def try and post up let you know how it goes. thanks!

[navywife0712]

I have actually heard the complete opposite about my 9630. Everyone said that my 8330 sounded muffled and like I was "stuck in a tin can", since I've been using the 9630 I've had no problems. It must be a luck of the draw thing I guess?

[spenchey]

I was concerned about this issue, so when my sister was going to be at a VZ story i had her call me from a Tour, it didn't sound any different than any other person that has called me.

[anon(5239516)]

I was concerned about this issue, so when my sister was going to be at a VZ story i had her call me from a Tour, it didn't sound any different than any other person that has called me.

I"m going to try that too. I returned 2 Tours and reverted back to my Moto E815. I"m going to try the display Tour at the VZW store and leave myself a msg before trying a third one. Interestingly I called 3 VZW stores and of course was told I am the "First" to report a sound issue on the Tour. One store actually laughed at me. P.S no sound issues on BB Curve 8330 but thats only for work.

[jhendrickson]

Until they work out these sound quality issues to where the quality of my voice is on par with lossless FLAC I am returning this piece of garbage.

The people I talk to deserve a high fidelity conversation.

[failure]

I've never had any complaints with my new Tour, with or without a headset. My car uses bluetooth as well and that hasn't had any complaints either.

The first thing I do when I get a new BlackBerry is wipe and Strip-A-OS to get maximum memory (few things **** me off more than Voice Dialing not being an optional install).

Amazing phone, no complaints from me.

[waterfrontmgmt]

i am going to test my tour tour now. i just activated my old curve and will leave a long voice mail to my office line...then switch back to the tour and do the same.

will post results later.

[eazymac]

Until they work out these sound quality issues to where the quality of my voice is on par with lossless FLAC I am returning this piece of garbage.

The people I talk to deserve a high fidelity conversation.

Wow, you sound like you have some pretty important friends. Good for you!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[larrymcj]

i am going to test my tour tour now. i just activated my old curve and will leave a long voice mail to my office line...then switch back to the tour and do the same.

will post results later.

Please do. I'm going to try one last wipe and then test the quality before I install any apps, but I think it's a lost cause :-(

[waterfrontmgmt]

ok...just did two curve vmails and 2 tour vmails to my landline.

the tour actually sounded a little bit better than the curve, which had a VERY slight echo/reverb.

i think this is like the storm...there are variations in some of the builds.

[larrymcj]

ok...just did two curve vmails and 2 tour vmails to my landline.

the tour actually sounded a little bit better than the curve, which had a VERY slight echo/reverb.

i think this is like the storm...there are variations in some of the builds.

Thanks! I'll try swapping it out for a new one this morning and see if that works but I'm afraid then I'll get one with some of the other hardware issues people are having.

[717200]

Every one I talk to keeps saying "What" and then they explain that the voice is muffled, stupid question how do I leave myself a message? my wife keeps telling me I sound muffled.

[renny]

I have had absolutely no complaints about call quality, or the sound being muffled. I've used my Tour to make calls to people whose hearing is less than perfect and they have not complained about "being unable to hear me, or that I sound muffled." Are you sure that you're not covering the mic accidentally when you're using it?



[717200]

No I made sure that I am not covering the mic, don't know what to do?

I might call tech support and see what they have to say

[jhendrickson]

Wow, you sound like you have some pretty important friends. Good for you!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Grats on missing the sarcasm.