Beeping/bleepy sounds from headphone output

I'm doing experiments into human audiovisual integration

I hope that's not some CIA euphemism...
I found this under PowerMacs, hope you guys find some clues here. Personally, if it was important to me (I have gigantic external speakers, live next to a highway, haven't heard it), I would have Apple look into it. Best of luck.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2033

This thread regarding sound issues on the MacBook Pro:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9530160#9530160

touches on many of the issues mentioned here. It seems Apple are incapable of a) listening to their customers, b) acknowledging problems with their products and c) rectifying them in later releases.

To summarise the (lengthy!) thread:

-Don't expect Apple to magic this away with an update - its a hardware problem caused by issues a), b) and c) mentioned above.
-High impedence headphones (40-50 ohms or higher) reduce the bleepy nonsense to the point where it may not be noticable. Not GONE. Just not AUDIBLE. This is a medium-expensive workaround (not fix).
-Some people have eliminated the problem by using a Firewire audio interface. This is an expensive and impractical solution for a laptop. Maybe not so impractical for a desktop.
-Many users have reported that a cheap-as-chips "Volume control headphone extension" from Radio Shack does the trick. Turn up the volume on your computer and turn down the volume control on the doohickey to the appropriate level. This is a cheap workaround that, like high impedence 'phones, supresses rather than eliminates the problem.

Now you don't have to plough through 181 messages about this problem which SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIXED IN THE TWO YEARS APPLE HAVE BEEN RECEIVEING COMPLAINTS ABOUT IT!!!

"Geniuses", my **ing arse.

Hi Rami,

I'd take the lack of replies as no one having a clue, including me. I couldn't even find a decent trouble shooting article under Mac Pros that mentions it. Might call Apple on this one. If it's a defect they should definitely take care of it for you. As you know, or as I think, electrical problems are the main culprits for problems like this. But I'm sure you've ruled that out by now.
Out of curiosity though, are you one of those rare individuals who can hear the sound degradation from analog to digital, and from digital to MP3 digital?
If so, I envy you your ears. 🙂
Good luck.

Aha - not just me then.

I'm getting occasional constant pure tones at random pitch in my headphones after a noise event stops. The phones are high quality and I get the same problem with another high quality set of a different make, so it's not that. Sometimes the tone is in one ear, sometimes the other and sometimes different tones in each ear (in other words my Mac is playing chords!). It doesn't seem to occur with the internal speaker, just the phones. A new audio event, such as the apple 'squelch' when I change the volume, or the playing of a wav file, either wipes out or changes the tone. The tones are quite quiet, but I'm doing experiments into human audiovisual integration with this Mac in a controlled (i.e. quiet) environment, so this is really problematic.

Cheers, Craig

I learned long ago in the 68040 days to never EVER depend on Apple's internal sound A/D D/A. I have always used some sort of external audio i/o. I have never had any issue with the bleeps or clicks when I use a usb/firewire box. Sometimes I get some weird sounds if the computer and the i/o box arent sharing the same AC ground, but once that is corrected the sound stops. Don't rely on Apple I/O! Most systems are fine but, I choose to avoid the problem all together.

Tavon Markov
Erie, PA

I have now circumvented the headphone jack by using an altec lansing USB audio adaptor. Its a USB doohickey with a headphone output and a mic input. I cannot find an example of the exact one online, but it looks basically like this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012ZOC24/ref=ascdf_B0012ZOC24809871?smid=A1CUXCEWGAZ8O2&tag=shopzilla_rev1329-20&linkCode=asn

or this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-2-0-to-Audio-Adapter/dp/B000CCZP06

I can't comment on the quality of these two examples, but the altec lansing one seems to produce decent audio and crucially, NO R2-D2!!!

A slightly different solution would be to use USB 'phones, if you can find high enough quality ones...

Absolutely pathetic that a high end machine like the Mac Pro needs a crap fix like this!

C

Oh, and using high impedence 'phones (64 ohms) didn't do diddly-squat to exorcise the ghost of R2.