The Sound Effects settings remain at the top of the Sound Pane with Output & Input choices just underneath them. But now all that's left under them is the Output volume slider and Mute box below it.
Mac mini (2018)
Sorry I wrote this. Figured out what's going on. Since I bought the Mac Mini in 2018 I've always had a cable plugged into the ⅛" audio out jack on the back of it. Yesterday I had to pull it out. Now I'm finally seeing that I lost the balance slider because that cable is not plugged in anymore. After reinserting it into the audio out jack, the Headphones port shows up in the list of Outputs and the Balance slider appears at the bottom of the Sound pane. Without that plugged in there's no way to adjust the balance of any output including Built-in speakers, Display Port or AirPlay. Thanks guys for responding.
Sorry I wrote this. Figured out what's going on. Since I bought the Mac Mini in 2018 I've always had a cable plugged into the ⅛" audio out jack on the back of it. Yesterday I had to pull it out. Now I'm finally seeing that I lost the balance slider because that cable is not plugged in anymore. After reinserting it into the audio out jack, the Headphones port shows up in the list of Outputs and the Balance slider appears at the bottom of the Sound pane. Without that plugged in there's no way to adjust the balance of any output including Built-in speakers, Display Port or AirPlay. Thanks guys for responding.
Sorry. Wrong again. The balance slider is only available for me to use with the headphone port output. It disappears when I move to any other.
Try booting into Safe Mode then restart normally. Sometimes that will fix anomalies.
FWIW, I just looked up some specs on the 2018 Mac mini. It only has one built-in speaker so there would be no reason for a balance control other than for the headphone output.
It is still here on my mac after updating. What is the selected sound output?
Balance control slider disappeared in macOS 13.4.1 sound settings
