MacBook Pro 13" with M1 - Volume is way too low

Same problem!

Bought a MacBook Air M1, the speakers were out of this world amazing. My wife and I were impressed. I decide to return it and get a macbook pro m1 because I found a good deal on Adorama. These speakers are so soft its unbelievable. What every body on here is experiencing is exactly what I am experiencing.

• Unusable at 50% volume
• Max power is what it takes to hear anything clearly,
• And Max Power isn't even loud nor crisp.

It is honestly surprising that the speakers are this bad. I like all of you am hoping this is a software issue.

I disagree. You may have set it up wrong.

I think the M1 speakers are bad enough as it is and I genuinely believe that since installing the sound quality is much clearer and more defined. Certainly louder.

However, there are articles and forums about Boom 2 causing speaker damage but I am not sure if it affects Touch Bar Macs? Anyone with a scientific explanation?

Well, I have just updated mine to Big Sur 11.5.1 and I would say theres a slight improvement as well. Maybe a 10% increased? Or else, my brain is just playing with me now.

But definitely no where to the sound quality of Intel MBP in which I did compare it side by side as my wife uses MBP 2019 and even with the update its significantly muffled at 50% volume.

I just reported the issue as well. Hope everyone here will do it to get their attention.

Same here (MacBook Pro M1, 16Gb, 512GB SG). Well ok this is not a huge "problem" but for sure the sound is not as good and loud as on a macbook pro 13 2020 with intel cpu...

Has anyone found a solution. How do you get Apple to look in to this? - to my understanding, this is nothing to do with the NVRAM and it does not need to be reset because it is automatically checked and resetted if needed to upon restart

I have the same issue. This is not as advertised by Apple. Pro should sound better than Air. It looks like for M1 this is not the case.

I hope this is just a software issue/tweak and not hardware problem.

If, so then I'll be returning my unit.

Thanks for this - but everyone PLEASE DON’T try factory resetting your MacBook at this time!! The problem is that Apple haven’t made this possible for M1 machines, which can render your laptop unusable unless you have a second Mac.

Thank-you for your reply. Yes, I apologise, please DO NOT factory reset your M1. Apple hasn't made it possible to do a reset.

You can - but users are reporting that there M1s are now bricked (don't work anymore)

I've found an interesting folder on my M1 concerning audio, see if you can find it on your Mac:

Macintosh HD>Library>Preferences>Audio

There a few files in here concerning audio output and sound - I have no idea what any of it means but someone might be able to make sense of it

Sweet, thank-you for sharing. Do you think that the sound is now the same as the Intel MacBook Pro/ airs now? - or kinda hard to say?

Also, yes, there were no notes that their were fixes done to the speakers - I wonder if its because apple made such a mess of it, they just decided to keep quiet about it and quietly fix the software driving the speakers

Anyone else noticed an improvement? :)

Hi

First the air pods not connected to the M1 MacBook Pro and now this . The volume is incredibly low and mine is straight out the box with Big Sur .

Also there’s a funky cursor issue as well where the cursor gets stuck .

I imagine hundreds, if not thousands - knowingly or unknowingly have been affected by this issue. It is really poor.

I don't want compensation for this, I want it fixed if it is a software issue. If its a hardware issue, oh well, it doesn't matter as much.

edit: looks like my free speech regarding the speaker issues has been moderated! - unconstitutional!

[Edited by Moderator]

I have the same exact issue. I just bought 13 inch MacBook Pro m1, the reason I bought is the sound of my old MacBook Pro early 2015 sound had issue (buzz sound in speaker output), and now I found the sound output is very quite, my wife challenge me with her 12 inch Macbook and sound is amazing in her MacBook ! how ironic old models sound is much better than newer MacBooks.

Big Sur 11.2 is out!

Has anyone noticed a change from the speakers? - as the new MBP/MBP will be released this year, Apple are probably quietly slowing the Macs down every update until the next release, forcing you to upgrade.