Speaker has too much of noise after upgrading to macOS Catalina

Updating my Dec 5, 2020 complaint. Apple Store diagnosed hardware problem and replaced both speakers. Speakers are replaced in pairs which cost $120, including mostly 1 hr labor and tax. The fix worked great.

BTW, when I lost all video and my screen went black two years ago, The Apple Store replaced my logic board and the cost was $475.

A couple things to try…

How to reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

If neither works it's possible the speakers were damaged by playing at too high a volume. You would have to have your MBP looked at if that's the case.

Issue sorted with a new speaker module installed. Easy to replace it DIY

Hi udaychandra,

Thank you for contacting Apple Support Communities. Based on what you stated, it seems like one of the speakers on the MacBook Pro sounds distorted.

If you use different speakers does the sound work correctly?

Change the sound output settings on Mac

If you can’t hear sound from your Mac speakers

Please don't hesitate to let us know if the steps resolved your issue or if you need additional assistance.

Cheers.

Replace speakers.

I just started having the same problem! I have a mid-2015 15-inch retina display MacBook pro. I am currently running Mojave (not ready to update yet). The left speaker sounds horrible - staticky and awful! I called Apple Support today and we tried the SMC and NVRAM resets, neither worked. They said I need to bring it to an apple store. Possibly need the speakers replaced OR the entire Logic board! Anyone have any updates on this??

On a side note, anyone know how much it would cost for new speakers OR a new Logic board?

I take it you tried updating your 2015 to the latest OS since Wednesday evening and it didn't help that right speaker? (Imagine meeting you again online... and thanks for sending me to this thread!)

If the speaker is actually/physically damaged, I did find other online posts about applying certain glue/adhesive to the speaker(s) to repair rips that is said to cause the buzzing which some others say did help. But these many reported occurences do seem suspiciously coincidental to recent OS upgrades.

A couple of years ago I did have a similar audio problem on my Windows notebook after manually updating a seemingly-unrelated driver (something like wi-fi or graphics or USB); but knowing that was the only recent change I was able to reverse it and all returned to normal -- weird. If it had been one of the frequent overnight Microsoft updates I probably wouldn't have had a clue what to do about it as they often arrive and get auto-updated in bunches of separate packages, many hard to reverse.

Hi! Unfortunately updates did not fix the issue. I don't think the speaker is damaged since it can play tones and other signals very cleanly, just not audio files. But it also seems to be a very deep software issue as it remains even when I boot to a drive with older macOS versions on it. At this point I was planning to throw in the towel and just trade this machine in for whatever value I can get. Because of the design of the machine replacing/repairing the speaker is a very involved job with what I feel is a low chance of success.

Also "discovered" (for myself) a diagnostics mode: hold down the "command-D" key combination when powering up: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

However, it doesn't reveal any details about what is being checked: on my machine it simply reports that all is OK in Apple's "keep it simple" style, so I don't know what details are shown if there is a problem. Supposedly "reference codes" (with no reference to speakers): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203747

Also, without asking/involving the user to confirm that sounds are being produced, I would be surprised if it COULD detect any speaker issues at all (especially physical issues like rubbing/buzzing or torn "cone", trapped/rattling dirt/debris). During my own diagnostics test no audible tones/sounds were produced.

Possibly software self-testing of hardware could detect only an open circuit (speaker disconnect); but, again, I'd be surprised (pleasantly) if that's being done now.

Maybe they should add a test loop using a tone/frequency sweep with the built-in microphone analyzing how clean the audio is that comes out the individual speakers (with appropriate privacy/permission notice, of course, due to the active room recording in progress at the time), and distinguishing between characteristic distortion caused by, say, cone buzz vs circuit overdrive crackling, etc, for a logged report result. That would be pretty cool.

OK, in the interest of completeness, if you have trouble starting the diagnostics: hhttps://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/46344/why-is-apple-hardware-test-aht-not-loading-when-pressing-key-d-on-system-start

...and THAT"S ALL!

FTY; I have a MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2014, and experienced the same problem with speakers (only distortion). Mid last year is started with the left speaker; at that time Catalina was installed. Recently, I did a clean hard disk installation and upgraded to Big Sur. The left speaker continued with the distortion, and this weekend the right speaker started to sound distorted as well (I do not play high-volume sound on these speakers). I am now forced to use the headphone output and this sounds perfectly well.

At work, I have a second machine with an identical configuration and the speakers sound fine, so far.

Did you report it to Apple through the feedback site? Posting it here does not go to Apple as we are users like you.

The same exact issue happened to me - No loud music were ever played on those speakers - no issues prior to upgrading to Catalina 2 days ago. But within the first 24hrs, post upgrade, the right speaker sound degraded a lot and is now very saturated / noisy / distorted. The sound is fine when using headphones.

This looks like more more like software / driver issue than a hardware one.

Please provide real working solution.

Best regards,

Valerie