Why does stereo separation ruin sounds on my phone?

[darkvoid26]

For weeks, whenever I tried exporting a song the volume of some of the synths (like the main lead, for example) sounds unusually quiet, especially on my phone.
For example, I had one lead that's at -6db, and a smaller lead that's at -12db, but whenever I played the track on my phone, the -12db lead was louder than the -6db lead!

So after weeks and weeks of trying to figure out the the source of the problem, I finally realized that the leads which had more stereo separation on them ended up quieter on my phone than the ones that had less.

I was just wondering why this does this? I'm guessing it's because my phone can't handle stereo separation very well? Also, is there a different way I can make my synths have stereo separation? I was just doing it with the natively-built stereo separation tool on FL Studio 11.

In case you are wondering, the stereo separation didn't really experience problems on my speaker system, laptop, or car, or when I listened to my phone with headphones; it was mostly just a problem whenever I played it through the phone's speaker. My phone is a Nexus 4.

Thanks for any help!

I hope I posted this in the right spot, I couldn't really find any good forum sub-category that this would fit into.

[Googly Smythe]

Maybe because your phone's speaker is mono? A lot of stereo separation techniques require, well, stereo.
Try listening to your mix in mono and see if the same thing happens. If it does you'll need to rethink your mix.

[thecontrolcentre]

I've noticed hard panning sounds seems to reduce their apparent volume on mono systems (even on PA systems). Your phone speaker is likely to be mono.

[darkvoid26]

Maybe because your phone's speaker is mono? A lot of stereo separation techniques require, well, stereo.
Try listening to your mix in mono and see if the same thing happens. If it does you'll need to rethink your mix.

I've noticed hard panning sounds seems to reduce their apparent volume on mono systems (even on PA systems). Your phone speaker is likely to be mono.

I figured that was the problem, but is there an alternative method to add largely stereo sounds instead of using the FL built-in feature? Surely there must be?

[darkvoid26]

Bump, still wondering if anyone has any tips for an alternative way to make my sounds more stereo.

[acYm]

nugen stereoizer has good mono-compatible algorithms, that's what I use in FL.