Apple Studio Display has "Choppy Audio" from the display speakers

This started happening to me to. Spent 1.5hrs on the phone to an Apple tech, reinstalled Monterey on their advice, still choppy audio. Studio display has exactly the same choppy audio when connected to MacBook Pro. Unplugged the power cable for 30secs and issue is now fixed.

Apple obviously this should be a known issue. Please let your tech staff know and find a more permanent fix.

Hi tomac14,

Thank you so much for your suggestion.I tried it AND IT WORKED! Do you have any idea what had caused the problem and whether it's worth flagging up to Apple before any warranty runs out.

Thanks again

AMA 7185

Hi mcpete,

I, like some some others have had the choppy speaker problem.After following tomac14s advice to unplug the display for a while, it appears to have solved it. I have noted that I am on Monterey 12.31, but I can't find a way to ascertain my firmware status.Any advice on how to check this would be appreciated.

I had the same issue. I ended up updating the OS. After restart and installation, there is a separate firmware update available for the display. I read on another forum that you need to wait for the restart countdown to end, as opposed to clicking "restart now" in order for it to work correctly. The firmware update seemed to have fixed the problem for me. No more choppy audio, thank god. Still don't really understand how it can work fine for the first few weeks and then suddenly stop, all while running on the same firmware. Whatever. We paid too much money for these types of glitches to be happening

I just experienced a problem with the audio in my Apple Studio Display. The audio would play for about two seconds, and then just stop. I unplugged the display for about 10 minutes, which resolved the issue (for now).

The firmware in my display is version 15.5 (Build 19F77).

Today I experienced the same problem like apple_since_1977. I own the display since release.

Audio will play for a few seconds and then stop. I tried with apple music and safari -> youtube. Same problem. I unplugged the display from the Power source and unplugged the TB cable for 5 min. No issues for now. But still needs to be fixed.

I am on Display Firmware Version: Version 15.5 (Build 19F77) and can confirm the problem is still happening. This morning started to play a video, got about 5 seconds into the audio and it stopped. Tried playing song from iTunes, same thing - 5 seconds then stopped. Unplugged the monitor for 5 mins, and it cleared the problem.

I had the problem for the first time this morning and have the latest Studio Display firmware version 15.5 (Build 19F77). After powering down the Mac Studio and Studio Display for 30 seconds the problem was still present. Only after powering off the Studio display for 5 minutes did the problem finally clear. Hopefully the problem is not going to occur again - will report back if it does as this is an unusual workaround.

Exact same problem happened to me 30 minutes ago. Sound played from a YouTube video for a few seconds then went off.

I went into System Preferences > Sound and toggled between the internal Mac Studio speakers (which worked) and then back to the Studio Display speakers: again, sound played for a few seconds then cut off.

Like several people, I unplugged the Studio Display from the mains electric for about a minute, and then plugged it back in: sound now works fine.

Nasty bug. I agree with others that it would be helpful to have a 'restart monitor' option in System Preferences. I guess the Studio Display is basically an iPad that never gets restarted if you just sleep your system each night.

Same issue here. Experienced it first soon after purchasing the display and connecting to the Mac Studio. I updated the firmware that was made available at the time and that seemed to resolve the issue. Until today (July 20, 2022). The audio began cutting out again. I unplugged the power, waited about 20-30 seconds and reconnected the power. The monitor rebooted (3 dots appeared) and then connected. The audio was back to normal. So far so good, but I do believe this requires some sort of further investigation by apple and a possible firmware update or as someone else suggested, the ability to reboot the monitor through the Mac OS.

just want to +1 this thread, so infuriating. works fine with bluetooth connections but the second i try to use the studio display speakers, i lose audio within ~30 seconds. i got rid of my standalone speakers specifically because the SD ones were decent enough... now i have nothing! help apple.

The problem I had with sound from the Studio Display speakers was somewhat different:

I was looking at a video segment originally posted to Twitter. The sound cut out after a few seconds. I tried a couple of other sources of the same video: YouTube and The Guardian. The same thing happened.

Other YouTube videos played normally.

Today, I found another YouTube video with the exact same problem: a few seconds in, the sound cut out.

On all of these, using the speakers in the Mac Studio worked fine (though those speakers are pretty paltry)

I found this suggestion on another Apple Community Thread (where the user reported that Apple was aware of the issue) and here.

So I shut down my Mac Studio, switched off the power strip (functionally the same as unplugging the Studio Display), waited about 10 minutes, switched the power strip back on and restarted the Mac Studio.

Both videos which were cutting out now work as expected.

I will send my results to Apple Feedback.

So, thanks for the tip.

Display Firmware Version: Version 15.5 (Build 19F77)