Mine is MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) laptop. With upgrade to macOS Catalina, speaker sound of the laptop has turned so bad that I am not able to understand even words over an ongoing call or from any kind of music audio track being played.
I noticed that it's primarily coming from the left-side speaker of the laptop.
How can this be fixed? Is there any support/fix from the Apple Care itself?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15
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.
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.
Hi everyone.
I am having the exact same issue, both speakers started to sound as if blown right after updating to Catalina.
2015 Macbook PRO retina. Not happy about it.
I followed Boyd Porter advise and reported it on feedback site. Hope our voices are heard and issue is acknowledged.
Good luck.
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.
Whoops! My previous reply (above, mentioning "command-D") was for "Apple silicon" (the CPU). The linked article also mentions holding down just the "D" key alone on powering up, for Intel processors, which is what I actually did (and most likely for most users these days). Sorry about that.
And here's another article, from the online "macOS User Guide" (select your edition) confirming the "D" key: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/diagnose-problems-mh35727/mac
Sorry for any confusion...
Hi,
These settings didn't work for me. I am able to get perfect sound from an external speaker, connected via Bluetooth with my laptop. But internal speakers don't work as usual. Sound is coming from them but totally distorted.
UPDATE: When I first posted this issue here, only one of the speaker (left-side one) was having this issue. For 2 days I used only right-side speaker for output by changing speaker balance from the setting. Now, both the speakers are giving me distorted sounds.
I have tried these already, none of them worked as a resolution for me.
I doubt if the reason for damage, if they have actually got damaged, happened due to playing at a very loud volume. As I mentioned at the very beginning, this all started when I upgraded my OS from Mojave to Catalina only. I didn't find any issue with my laptop's speakers before these from the date I purchased this laptop.
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
I have the same issue. I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015). Left speaker wasn't working properly, so I used the right speaker to balance the sound out and now the right speakers not working either just like you. I did not go blast the speaker out as I rarely play music on my computer. This definitely has to do with their upgrade. Mines just sound like crap right now. It's awful.
Sorry to hear that. Sadly, Apple support is not recognising this and is blaming laptop hardware for the root cause of this issue. I wonder how this can be escalated and reach to right group in this situation.
@mario49 - Any suggestion?
Hello Curryshark,
I have the same issue too. My laptop is the same as yours.
It started on mine after 10.15.7 upgrade. Zoom meetings have been terrible. Same as OP, left speaker affected. Right speaker seems fine for now.
Every issue on this thread reads as identical to issues with my mid-2015 MacBookPro since recent Catalina upgrades.
I’ve never played music on the laptop speakers, no issues with the speakers at all until recently.
The right speaker is so distorted that it is painful to listen to an informative podcast.
Apple certainly must be more responsible and engage issues as they become apparent in consumer use of their product.
Yes, the recent software update 10.15.7 did not fix this problem.
I have tried downgrading the OS to High Sierra, I could still see the distorted audio output.
This is very painful. I hope Apple takes notice of this issue and provides a fix.
This is clearly not a hardware issue.
Posted a report to feedback and have heard nothing from them. I did receive a “Discovery” point, however points do not address the update/speaker issue at hand. Apple failure to engage their problems, again.
Sadly, in hope that it will solve the issue I just upgraded to Big Sur, but no luck... same issue persisted.
It happened right after I upgraded to Catalina few months ago and it looks like apple isn't going to address it :(
Speaker has too much of noise after upgrading to macOS Catalina
