Volume triggered Muffled Speakers - 2016 MBP 15” Fault (w/ Video Demonstration)

I have this problem to, bringing it in to get serviced in about 5 days. pain in the *** as I use this machine for work and cant afford to be without it for 5-7 days. Nothing software related seems to fix it.

Piling on here. Same problem.

Was playing a little Depeche Mode for a co-worker to win a bet, and at 50% volume it sounded fine. I used the touch bar to slide that dope song up to the max volume, but somewhere around 80% it totally squelched down to a muffled version of the music. Lowering the volume would not return to previous performance.

Plugging in Headphones, I do not experience the same muffled experience. Unplugging the headphones, the speakers are still muffled.

A reboot "fixes" the problem, but that is only temporary... until I want to crank that volume and get some db's, y'all.

Note that I did have a lot running at the time, and the area of the MBP near the hinge was very hot to the touch.

Exact same thing happening here - this is now my second speaker issue with this machine (2017 15"). The top case and logic board were replaced three weeks ago for a totally dead right speaker, keyboard, and power/charging issues and now out of the blue today I went to adjust the volume and heard the left speaker go muffled like this. Exact same issue as your video shows but on just the left side. So frustrating - quality control has taken an absolute nose dive with these machines.

MBP 2017, 2.9MHz, same issue with both speakers. I hope this will get more attention from apple and they come up with a fix. I'm pretty sure this is not a hardware issue, because it can be temporarily fixed by software means.

I have this problem too. I bought macbook pro 2016 w touchbar in march 2018.

Speakers sounds normal in <50% volume or if i listen music without bass(only violin for example).

For reset to normal sound i change frequency in the midi dialog but volume should be less than 50%.

Maybe its overload protection?

Same issue with MBP with touch bar from 2016. We bought 14 MBP's for our company and already 5 machines are having this issue. The service of Apple on this issue is extremely poor, as this is certainly a design error so it should be treated the same as staingate for example, with a repair program.

Tech replaced logic board - no luck. Now the will replace top case for a second time....this will probably cure the issue for a few months (did the trick last time)....but there is a serious glitch somewhere in this model...

Same thing happened with mine, got it fixed by apple under warranty 6 months ago and today it happened again, except I am no longer under warranty... paid around 4500$ for this Macbook, I am very disappointed

I'd like to chime in on this.

I have a 2016 15" MacBook Pro that's already had a few repairs. I had keyboard issues shortly after buying in March of 2017 and what sounded like a plastic popping sound coming from the machine. The machine got sent away and I was issued a brand new MacBook Pro, sweet!

Around October of 2017, I had similar keyboard issues with the brand new machine. I decided I'd try and clean it: little did I know that seemingly 100% of the time pulling up the space bar key breaks it in what seems to be an anti repair feature. Paid $850 to get a whole new top case put in (there was supposedly no other option as individual key or whole keyboard replacements were not plausible (supposedly).

Fast forward to today where I discover that my MacBook Pro with a little over a year old top case now has a muffled left speaker. Apple Support on the phone had no answers for me and told me to go to the store which is about an hour and a half away from me. I set an appointment, we'll see what the verdict is.

If it's another $500 repair then screw that, I'm selling the machine and buying a Dell XPS or similar laptop and putting Linux on it, I can't believe how many problems I've had with this laptop since buying. It feels like a ticking time bomb.

Doesn't seem to be any permanent fixes for the above issues. Apple's solution is just to send them a new one or completely replace every part in the computer hoping that replacement parts don't have the same issues as the originals. The catch being, no parts have been revised.

I recently incurred the exactly same issue (Macbook 15, late 2016 with touchbar, Mojave 10.14.3). It came after I heard a cracking sound after plugging in power cord couple of days ago. Is there nay real solutions?

I have observed this issue further on my MacbookPro 2018 running Mojave 10.14.3. I've been streaming a movie and listening directly on my MPB speaker. The sound was normal, not muffled. At some point i have triggered one of those system sound you get when you press a key on the keyboard that returns no action. Immediately the sound on the movie i was streaming became muffled, like the speaker could not support both type of sounds. I still think this is not necessarily a hardware issue, but that is just a guess.

Hope someone addresses this issue because i see it spreads on several Macbookpro generations and it becomes increasingly annoying.

Exactly the same problem for me too (2017 15" MacBook Pro). I rarely listen to audio using the laptop speakers but on one of the few occasions I did there was a disturbingly loud pop from the speakers which was concerning but I didn't think too much about. Then the next time I listened to audio through the speakers the sound became muffled for no apparent reason (not listening to anything loud, machine not at top volume) there seem to be various ways to reset this but these are only temporary measures before the sound becomes muffled again.

Another design fault with this machine to add to the list. I've had the keyboard issue, flickering screen, frequent shutdowns and now this.

I have the same problem as you, I have a MacBook Pro 15 "2017.

unfortunately I no longer have a guarantee and today in the apple store they asked me for 450 € to replace the top case, it is absurd that apple does not do something to fix this serious problem for free since many owners of this 2016/2017 model are afflicted by this problem of the speakers

I had my top case replaced under the keyboard program in July. This means entire keyboard, trackpad, battery and speakers get replaced. Seemed to fix it for a few weeks, then one day - bam, same thing again. Play any video or music at above about 50% volume and it starts OK but then cuts to muffled version (seems to be both speakers) after between a few seconds and a minute. Such a repeatebale issue and pages and pages of people here suffering it (as well as numerous similar threads on other forums and on YouTube). What's going on Apple?