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Air speakers vs. Pro speakers

onthecouchagain

onthecouchagain

macrumors 604
Original poster
Mar 29, 2011
7,382
2
How are the 13" Air speakers compared to the Pro 13" (or 15/17") speakers, if anyone has had the opportunity to listen to both?

During the short period which I owned a 2011 Pro 13" (long story short: returned it and am waiting for the Air refresh), I remember being very impressed with the speaker quality for a laptop. Is the Air's speakers just as good, better, or worse?
 
I haven't tried MBP's speakers but I'm very pleased with the quality of 13" MBA's speakers. For such a small laptop, the speakers are great.
 
kazmac said:
much better speakers than the 13" MBP. I don't remember the speakers on the 15" MBP, but the 13" Air speakers are great.
Click to expand...

How is it that they are better? That's really impressive considering how slim the Air is compared to the Pro. Magic? =O
 
I'll add my two cents worth...I have had a first gen MacBookPro 17", a second gen MacBookPro 15" and now a MBA 13". I find the sound quality to be better on the MBA and louder to boot than the MacBookPros in comparison. Bear in mind this is my opinion based on my circa 1962 Mk 1 ears :D
 
11" speakers are pretty good for a laptop of this size/thinness. Certainly not as loud or clear as my pre-UB MBP 15" or M11x but it's still decent.
 
Last edited:
onthecouchagain said:
How are the 13" Air speakers compared to the Pro 13" (or 15/17") speakers, if anyone has had the opportunity to listen to both?

During the short period which I owned a 2011 Pro 13" (long story short: returned it and am waiting for the Air refresh), I remember being very impressed with the speaker quality for a laptop. Is the Air's speakers just as good, better, or worse?
Click to expand...


I have a new 13" MBA and just got my girlfriend a new 13" MBP. They sound the same to me. Granted, I have not purposefully sat down and done a side-by-side, but I use both all the time and notice no difference, -as opposed to the colors on her MPB which look far better than on my Air and was very noticeable.

Bottom line, it's a laptop. You're not gonna be rockin out to RUN DMC or anything. It capably conveys audio information like any other laptop.
 
I just bought a 13" air, and my friends are all really impressed with how loud the speakers are.
 
I tested both machines and the pro is better in my opinion (13 pro vs 13 air),
the bass level in the pro and the overall sound quality of it is much better, but hey, its remarkable how they even managed to fit a speaker in the air !!,
considering the size of it.
 
My MBA speakers and my sisters' MBP speakers are pretty good compared to all the other laptops we've had.

But still, they're just laptop speakers.. Don't expect flawless sound reproduction or anything close to that lol. :roll eyes:

If you asked me to compare the MBA vs the MBP, they're pretty much the same
 
I owned the 13" MBP, 15" MBP and 11" MBA.

The volume is about the same on all three machines. The 13" MBP and 11" MBA sound similar. You get a bit of distortion when playing at max volume since the sounds goes through the keyboard. The sound on the 15" MBP is a bit clearer, but it's not louder.

I definitely didn't expect such good speakers on the 11" MBA though. Given its tiny size, I expected its speakers to sound like an iPhone or iPad. Nope, it can feel your room with sound at max volume. The MBA impressed me the most of all the three, the volume/size is just incredible.
 
Well, I think the quality is clearly superior in the Pro but the Air can't possibly dissapoint considering that it's a laptop we're talking about. Having said that the volume in the Air seems a bit higher than on my 15" 2010 Pro.

The only thing that kinda bothers me is that the speakers on the Air seem to be located underneath the keyboard or something like that. Which can be a problem because i like to use keyboard protectors like Moshi's or Sonnet's and they "cover" (more muddy) the sound
 
I've had the MBP 13", MBA 13" and MBA 11" (all 2010 models), and I've done tests comparing the speakers on all of them.

Even though laptop speakers are not the best thing to hear music from, there are situations when it's the only thing you might have, and I watch videos and do Skype conferencing a lot, so good speakers are very important to me.

The MBP 13" and the MBA 13" are virtually the same level. I did some tests while transitioning between the two machines. I believe the MBA can match the MBP because it's speakers are newer technology than the MBP, which is a design from a couple of years before. Point is, playing music from the two at the same time, you can't notice the difference.

Early this year, I've bought a MBA 11 to use primarly at work. There's a big difference between the loudness on the MBA 13 and the MBA 11. The 13" model can be much louder and clear than the 11" model, specially for Skype conferencing.

Because of that, display size and battery life, I've decided to keep using the MBA 13" as my single machine for home and work, and I've sold the MBA 11". Which is a shame, because I really love the smaller size of it.
 
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