Does anyone else find it extremely annoying that the Macbook Pro essentially has two right speakers? This makes listening to music and using the speakers nearly impossible. Why would they put both speakers on the right side of the computer? This is a 2000$ laptop I purchased for doing professional video and sound editing... obviously the majority of the time I'll be using speakers and headphones, but every so often I need to demo something quick. This configuration is noticeably terrible and sub par.
It's a design flaw and Apple most certainly knows about it and has deliberately decided to remain quiet about it.
I had to take my new macbook pro to the Genuis Bar here in Tokyo as the firewire is not working. I also mentioned the sound balance issue and the guy looking after me knew all about it as soon as I mentioned it. What he explained about the different models and sub woofer placement confirmed what I have read on the teardown sites.
Not impressed. False advertising. Unless someone can point me to the documentation that states "Due to design space limitations certain models of MacBook pro, while physically appearing to have balanced stereo output, will have a right side bias due to sub woofer placement off center"
Add me to the list. Just bought my MBP 2.53 15". The tone tester app showed same results as the others regarding different output above 1000hz. Considering the number affected by this issue it certainly appears to be a design issue and considering the scale and scope I would guess Apple will ignore it.
As for those posters on here with several "blue squares" indicating the number posts in these forums (NOT apparently correlative with level of expertise). No need to single any of you out as all one has to do is read your posts but if you have nothing helpful to say and need to be critical of the poster then take it somewhere else. We have paid a premium price for these laptops and it seems all too often with Apple in recent years that you can never get a product without some kind of widespread issue of some kind e.g. displays, hard drive, superdrive, vibration, battery etc. etc. etc. I had hoped with the new design (unibody) that this would be a thing of the past but alas here I am again with another MBP "issue". Meanwhile my wifes "plastic" DELL for 700.00 runs like a champ other than a crappy operating system.
I too am a sound engineer and was most disappointed to find with my new 13" MacBook Pro the left speaker to be lacking in HF compared to the right I proved this with by playing pink noise through the speakers and panning it left and right. Now I know speakers in laptops are a compromise however I don't have this problem on my G4 PowerBook.
Upon noticing the fault I contacted apple as I am still in my 90 days arranged a warranty repair www.group8.com have now replaced my left speaker however the problem still exists.
Ok, well, now that I have all of your posts, I see that this is a design flaw. Now to cancel my support request. This is pretty crappy, for a machine where they brag about using the 'best of the best' component wise, how could they mess something like this up?
I just exchanged my 13 inch MPB to this new 15 inch (paid the restocking fee too...) and now I find my own unit (2 days old) has imbalanced audio in the built in speakers and apparently this is attributed to a design flaw...
I think I speak for the majority of the user's here when I say: For sure there is a problem; and I could care less if it's design related or otherwise, the important thing is, what is Apple going to do about this?
Are they going to force their loyal customers to take this and treat this as acceptable? I paid for quality and I EXPECT to have it. Else I'd go with a PC....
Baopee: Return your machine while you still can if you don't like it. Its design can't be changed now.
It should go without saying that anyone who wants to listen to the built-in speakers can't expect to be taken seriously when claiming to be concerned with sound quality.
I have a new 15" Macbook Pro, and im having this problem as well. The audio on the right side is clearly "louder" than on the right side. So i guess we are all in agreement that this is a design issue on the 15" and not because of a bad hardware thing?
No, and there won't be any unless the machine's internals are redesigned. At least in the 15" unibody MBP (I don't know about the 13" and 17" models) the so-called "subwoofer" is closer to the right side of the machine than the left. Because it can't reproduce frequencies low enough for the direction they're coming from to be imperceptible (as it is with a real subwoofer, which is why a real subwoofer can be placed anywhere in a room), the low(ish) frequencies it does emit come noticeably more from the right side than the left, causing the sound to be unbalanced. But the built-in speakers sound crummy at best, quite apart from being unbalanced. So anyone who cares what his or her music sounds like won't listen to the built-in speakers at all, and will use headphones or external speakers instead.
The only time I use my speakers is when I'm watching a Netflix stream (soon to be replaced by my PS3), or when I'm listening to a podcast away from my desktop speakers, or a quick YouTube video. I can say that the audio quality of the 15" MBP is much less than my old 17", but that was because (I learned) it had more speakers, and all that jazz. Plus, I'm sure the solid aluminum makes the sound vibrate differently, and the sound probably is more tinny as a result.
Anyway, with speakers just inches apart, you can't expect to have much separation at all. And you really can't talk about this setup in terms of what an audiophile might say about a $10,000 system. Good sounding speakers aren't generally made to be buried in a slab of aluminum. I guess we get as good as we can get with this design.
All the information anyone needs about the cause of the issue *in MacBook Pros* is right here in this thread. But of course you have an entirely different computer model, and this isn't the place to look for information about it. Try here:
But be sure to say in your post that you have the late-2009 model, because that forum concerns plastic MacBooks manufactured both before
and after the Aluminum unibody models. There is no forum just for the late-'09 MacBooks.
"No, and there won't be any unless the machine's internals are redesigned. At least in the 15" unibody MBP (I don't know about the 13" and 17" models) the so-called "subwoofer" is closer to the right side of the machine than the left. Because it can't reproduce frequencies low enough for the direction they're coming from to be imperceptible (as it is with a real subwoofer, which is why a real subwoofer can be placed anywhere in a room), the low(ish) frequencies it does emit come noticeably more from the right side than the left, causing the sound to be unbalanced. But the built-in speakers sound crummy at best, quite apart from being unbalanced. So anyone who cares what his or her music sounds like won't listen to the built-in speakers at all, and will use headphones or external speakers instead."
I believe, eww, that you are, unfortunately right about the (flawed) design of the new MacBook Pro, and the directionality of the speaker that is erroneously called a subwoofer. There are obviously also strange, and probably software-unfixable phasing problems going on with the three speaker system in this computer's case. However, I think you are being a bit snobby and naive in your criticism of "anyone who cares what his or her music sounds like". I, too am a long time audio engineer and lover of fine audio, but, as a frequent user of a laptop in environments or situations where connecting to an external speaker system or headphones is cumbersome or outright impossible I am ACUTELY aware of the quality, however scant, of the little speakers in my laptop, and this particular annoying balance problem. And, as an audio engineer I also have to be aware of the wide variety of audio-listening apparatus used by
everyone, from the fanciest to the lowliest, and adjust the resolution of my ear to whatever equipment the sound is being reproduced on (all engineers maintain a variety of specific and trusted "lo-fi" references and "real-world" sources). The lowly laptop speaker system, as you can imagine, is a ubiquitous one...probably used as a listening source by FAR more people that folks who own Klipsch speakers and a vintage MacIntosh amplifier. My previous generation MBP's speakers were tinny, sure, but they did their job with a reliable and predictable Left/Right balance, both in volume and equalization. Not having at least this one reliable reference, however compromised quality-wise, is a very serious design flaw for anyone but the most indiscriminate. There's a lot to like about the Uni-Body design, but the sound of the speakers, for me, is on the edge of being a deal breaker...an extreme disappointment.
I tried a 15" at the Apple store today and definitely noticed the right side was much louder. I adjusted the balance about half way to the left and it sounded fine. Am I missing something or is there a problem with doing that?
