The right speaker on my Macbook 2.0 sounds distorted. I went to the nearest Apple Store to do an exchange bringing my iPod along to compare the sound quality with the other Macbooks there. They all had the same right speaker distortion. To take it further, I tried an old Powerbook. No problems at all. Clean sound from both speakers. I just cant see all of those Macbooks having defective right speakers. Assembly or Software problem? What do you guys think?
actually, this sounds pretty good. The distortion would be much worse as you wouldn't be able to get rid of it even when turning down the volume. I agree the speaker sounds a little distorted, but the problem we are describing in this thread is much much worse.
Sounds pretty good? Are you insane!? If you guys get more distortion then that your truly insane not to turn back your MBPs. That would make the speakers totally unusable
I was only saying that compared to the right speaker distortion we are discussing here that sound sample you provided sounds pretty good. If you had the "real" speaker distortion you wouldn't be able to understand the voice unless you panned to the left and lowering the volume wouldn't help a bit. And yes, the right speaker is unusable with the speaker distortion we are discussing here. I returned 2 MBPs because of that. I wouldn't have for the example you showed us, because it's bearable and not worth the hassle.
Play the sound while panning from right to left. If you can hear a very significant distortion on the right speaker, but no distortion on the left speaker, welcome to the club. If it sounds pretty much the same on either left or right, then your speakers are up to spec.
what is the current status of your speaker distortion? Could you please post an audio recording of the issue?
Email me @gmail.com if you need assistance.
Marc,
Right now I sent in my replacement MBP because of whine/speaker distortion and a loose trackpad button. The distortion was pretty bad.. Using your test sound file would make the right speaker sound muffled while the left sounded good. I have sent it away with that file in itunes hoping they will see the difference. Also listening to people speaking would sound terrible for example (diggnation podcast, and zefrank.com's video blog). I shipped it away DHL yesterday so hopefully I'll hear something soon.
Hi Marc,
sorry to butt in on this topic set, but I wanted to contact you about the same problem with entourage that I was having, ie I can not get previews of pictures or documents to resolve in the preview window when trying to attach in entourage. I noticed you had a discussion going on this a while ago and wondered if you had found a fix? If so I would be sooo pleased to hear about it as I can't seem to get any help for this anywhere and its such a natural extension for an old pc user (who also loves his mac) thanks
Hank
And no, I didn't find a solution. It apparently doesn't work on a Mac. You need to open the image folder first, in thumbnail view, select the images and then drag and drop into Entourage. For switchers this seems to be a little cumbersome, but that's the way to go right now. Maybe this feature will be implemented in 10.5. Who knows.
Verify sound is correct with external speakers/headphones. If sound is correct, check speaker wire and connections.
In Sound system preference pane, check balance. Compare same sound with two different units to make sure that sound is actually distorted.
Check speaker wire. If damaged, replace speaker assembly.
If the distortion is coming from the right speaker with sound balance shifted toward the left, remove the right speaker. Check the gasket in the speaker housing, if the gasket is deformed, move the gasket back into a circular shape. If gasket cannot be fixed, replace the housing. You need to order the speaker assembly.
This sounds like their standard procedure for "normal" speaker problems. But it won't work the way Apple describes it as numerous posts in this thread show us. What is necessary to fix the speaker issue is far more "unconventional" than replacing housings or assemblies. It just requires some electrical tape to be wrapped around the gasket.
Of course I don't recommend anyone to do this yourself, but if you end up getting several "repairs" with no improvement or if you already have the 6th replacement MBP, maybe you can convince a genius at the Apple Store to open the MBP for you and do the electrical tape trick together. That's the only thing that seems to work right now until Apple fixes the design flaw.
I recently send in my early-model MBPRO for numerous issues including the right speaker distortion. When I got it back they had replaced seven different parts.
Seven!
I thought it was interesting that they replaced not only the speaker assembly, but also the audio board (on the left side of the computer), and the cables that connect the audio board to the main logic board:
From reading through this thread a few times, I got the impression that Apple was only replacing the speaker assembly for the right speaker distortion issue. The Genius diagnosed the problem as follows: "customer's right speaker is tingy and loud, tested in store, with SW settings @ correct settings, speaker is still faulty". Not sure whether this description led to the additional part replacements?
In any case, replacing the other parts did no good, as the distortion is still as bad as ever. I guess I'm about to start down the frustrating path of multiple successive speaker/notebook replacements...
For me this is defenitely a speaker housing problem.
When I slighty squeeze the MBP casing near the right speaker the sound goes from distorted to crystal clear. Looks like a trip to the AppleStore for me.
Yeah, I had all of those parts replaced in my original week 17 and it did no good. Sounded a little better when I first got the computer back, but quickly regressed to it's normal distorted state. My week 29 still seems to be doing ok, but the right speaker is still noticeably worse than the left and sounds distorted just once-in-a-while instead of all the time.
MacBook Pro 15.4" 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 100GB HD @ 7200 RPM Mac OS X (10.4.6) PowerMac Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC, 1.5GB RAM
Did Apple replace your week 17 because of the speaker distortion issue, after the repairs proved to do you no good? Or was there some other issue(s)? Or do you just have multiple MBPROs?
I'm trying to decide what to do with my distorted machine. I've got a logic board on order, and the Genius hinted that the logic board might fix the speaker distortion as well as the whine. I wonder if I shouldn't just try to exchange for a newer machine though (mine is a Week 8).
