Apple Releases Studio Display Firmware Update to Fix Speaker Issue

[eRondeau]

As I said, the update went through without an issue for me (same with the previous update about the camera).

What might be related:

1. Which Mac mini model are you using, exactly?

2. Is your macOS version the latest one (12.5) or an older one?

3. How much space is left on your system drive?

4. What other peripherals are connected to the Mac and which ones are plugged into the ASD?

5. Is the ASD connected directly to the Mac or daisy-chained through other Thunderbolt devices?

Maybe some of those factors are in common among people who had experienced some issues.

All very relevant questions...

1. Base M1 Mac Mini (8GB/256GB)
2. MacOS is always kept fully up-to-date (currently 12.5)
3. Apx 50GB left on system drive
4. 1TB OWC Thunderbolt drive directly into Mac Mini; 2TB USB-3.1 Time Machine drive + Lightning cable in ASD
5. ASD is connected directly to the Mac Mini with the supplied Thunderbolt cable.

The M1 Mac Mini has been flawless since I got it at launch. Both external M.2 drives work perfectly. It looked great with a 4K Samsung display, and looks even better with the ASD. The ASD has been perfect except during firmware updates where (as stated) every one has failed and required multiple retries before they "took". Oh plus the one time last week when the speakers cut-out until it was unplugged overnight.

Thanks, and I hope my answers were of some help.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

The discussion was about whether it was even possible, and as my post proved - yes, it was very possible to have 120hz/5k.

You even mention there was 2 products already in the Mac line up which could take advantage of it at the time of release.

Incorporating that technology in there, is called future-proofing a product - which Apple chose not to do.
And is the exact reason people are disappointed/not buying it, as Apple did the bare minimum, called it "sensational" and slapped a nice Apple-tax on top.

Incorporating that technology and adding to the cost for a feature 97+% of Mac owners couldn’t enjoy day 1 is certainly not compelling and would lead to way more gripes here than we have already.

Also, they’re not losing sales to all the other 5K 120Hz Thunderbolt 4 displays on the market of which there are a grand total of zero.

 

[constructor]

VESA claims DSC is visually lossless and has done a study to support this. I've looked at it, but the problem is I haven't been able to find independent studies of DSC. So I'd say we don't really know if it's visually lossless or not. I.e., you're asserting you know DSC is not visually lossless. If you have something to support that, please share. I'm saying we don't yet know either way because no independent studies have been done.

It is mathematically inherent that you can't compress all signals to a smaller data size without losing some of the data in the process.

And the usual way to do that is to pick some "less noticeable" aspects of audio or video data which the algorithm then chooses to cut out (such as a loss of bit depth, for instance, or lowering the quality temporarily on animated content), similar to lossy audio compression losing certain frequencies.

But the thing is that with all lossy compressions you still do lose quality, which is why Apple doesn't run their displays in that mode except to allow for lesser GPU support, accepting lower visual quality in order to have the displays working with those inferior graphics processors at all which can't drive the full data rate to Thunderbolt.

But that is not the native mode and if you want the full quality of the displays you should use a GPU which properly supports the full data rate without lossy compression, basically like lossless audio vs. MP3/AAC.

And normally when you pay the substantial sticker price for those monitors it makes little sense to then cripple them with compressed video instead of using them at full native quality, except in a pinch when no full-quality GPU happens to be present.

As far as I understand it, it's a special mode so even the smallest AMD GPUs in the Intel Mac Pro can still drive the XDR which can't provide the full data rate.

As I acknowledged, driving it could be a problem. I imagine when Apple does evenually introduce large ProMotion displays, they'll do it alongside DP Alt Mode 2.0 in both the display and the new generation of Macs (the first source and sinks for this standard were certified by VESA a couple of months ago). Then I'd expect that older Macs could drive these newer displays either without the ProMotion, or with heavy DSC.

They could do that, but the problem is that once you switch a USB-C port to these special Display Port alternate mode you cut off any Thunderbolt functionality and all you have left is a puny USB2 connection beside the four lanes all switched to high-bitrate output for Display Port only.

Daisy chaining is not possible in that mode, except in the separate DP MST mode which has nothing to do with Thunderbolt and which does not support any data connections, only Display Port.

So far Apple has always chosen to support Thunderbolt consistently, ignoring those alternate modes which would cripple the Thunderbolt functionality (and so not supporting DP MST).

So I very much doubt they will go that route. Instead I expect them to upgrade to future Thunderbolt protocols with increased data rates where 8k video can still be embedded directly without losing any Thunderbolt functionality.

 

[constructor]

All very relevant questions...

1. Base M1 Mac Mini (8GB/256GB)
2. MacOS is always kept fully up-to-date (currently 12.5)
3. Apx 50GB left on system drive
4. 1TB OWC Thunderbolt drive directly into Mac Mini; 2TB USB-3.1 Time Machine drive + Lightning cable in ASD
5. ASD is connected directly to the Mac Mini with the supplied Thunderbolt cable.

The M1 Mac Mini has been flawless since I got it at launch. Both external M.2 drives work perfectly. It looked great with a 4K Samsung display, and looks even better with the ASD. The ASD has been perfect except during firmware updates where (as stated) every one has failed and required multiple retries before they "took". Oh plus the one time last week when the speakers cut-out until it was unplugged overnight.

Thanks, and I hope my answers were of some help.

The only thing that I could imagine would be that the Time Machine drive being plugged in during the update might have caused the hiccup;

Everything else looks just fine as far as I can tell.

And of course even any USB devices plugged into the ASD should not be a problem, but maybe when the the updater performs its various restarts it stumbles over certain connected USB devices.

 

[King_Kimbo]

Speaker problems? I haven't noticed any.

Zero issues with mine too

 

[theorist9]

It is mathematically inherent that you can't compress all signals to a smaller data size without losing some of the data in the process.

And the usual way to do that is to pick some "less noticeable" aspects of audio or video data which the algorithm then chooses to cut out (such as a loss of bit depth, for instance, or lowering the quality temporarily on animated content), similar to lossy audio compression losing certain frequencies.

But the thing is that with all lossy compressions you still do lose quality, which is why Apple doesn't run their displays in that mode except to allow for lesser GPU support, accepting lower visual quality in order to have the displays working with those inferior graphics processors at all which can't drive the full data rate to Thunderbolt.

But that is not the native mode and if you want the full quality of the displays you should use a GPU which properly supports the full data rate without lossy compression, basically like lossless audio vs. MP3/AAC.

And normally when you pay the substantial sticker price for those monitors it makes little sense to then cripple them with compressed video instead of using them at full native quality, except in a pinch when no full-quality GPU happens to be present.

As far as I understand it, it's a special mode so even the smallest AMD GPUs in the Intel Mac Pro can still drive the XDR which can't provide the full data rate.


They could do that, but the problem is that once you switch a USB-C port to these special Display Port alternate mode you cut off any Thunderbolt functionality and all you have left is a puny USB2 connection beside the four lanes all switched to high-bitrate output for Display Port only.

Daisy chaining is not possible in that mode, except in the separate DP MST mode which has nothing to do with Thunderbolt and which does not support any data connections, only Display Port.

So far Apple has always chosen to support Thunderbolt consistently, ignoring those alternate modes which would cripple the Thunderbolt functionality (and so not supporting DP MST).

So I very much doubt they will go that route. Instead I expect them to upgrade to future Thunderbolt protocols with increased data rates where 8k video can still be embedded directly without losing any Thunderbolt functionality.

I added some links to my post that you might want to check.

There actually is true lossless audio compression (e.g., FLAC and ALAC) and true lossless video compression, where there really is no information loss at all, because you can exactly reconstruct the original file from the compressed file. And while you can't losslessly compress all video files, you can losslessly reduce the size of most of them.

So the simple fact that a file size is being reduced doesn't mean information is being lost. To give a toy example, suppose you have an 8k video file that changes from all black to all white every second for an hour. That's going to be a big file, yet the instructions to reproduce that exactly could be contained in a very small file. That would be an example of a very efficient truly lossless compression.

But true lossless compression isn't what's being discussed here. We're talking about DSC, which is designed to be informationally lossy but visually lossless. And the question at hand is whether it truly is visually lossless, and that can't be answered mathematically. It requires careful and extensive subjective testing, which is what makes determining if something is visually lossless challenging. I.e., what you're really testing is people's perceptions, which is complex and messy. And unless you have specific studies demonstrating DSC is not visually lossless in a 2D application, you're not in a position to claim it is visually lossy. Likewise, VESA can't claim that it is visually lossless without multiple independent studies, which don't seem to exist. So the only scientific position one can take at this point is that the jury is still out.

 

[_Spinn_]

Good to hear Apple fixed the issue.

 

[StoneJack]

Just imagine Apple makes a smart mouse with OS - it will go crazy in a second!

 

[svish]

Good to see Apple releasing an update. Hope speaker issue is now fixed.

 

[hagar]

Once again, it's a kind of extorsion but I need to see sharp visuals for my job, and I'll try to enjoy it for what it is.

I considered the possibility of waiting for a mini-led option, but it'll be outrageously expensive and mini-led is not strictly necessary; also I wouldn't be able to watch disney+, netflix and prime video with my apple TV on it (or game) as it would only be usb-c input.

Why is it extorsion? If this screen is the only option in the world to see sharp visual for the job, they would fly of the shelves. And it wouldn’t be extorsion.

Ans why do you need to attach an ATV to the same screen? You can use your Mac to stream.

 

[tobybrut]

I had to connect my ASD to a laptop running Monterey in order to see the update. Ventura beta was out of luck. Once the update ran, though, it ran flawlessly. I never saw the problem beforehand, but here's to hoping it is fixed.

 

[PhilipGearSolid]

Installed update, did not solve issue.

However, I seem to have the worse variation where audio from the Studio Display just stops and any associated video playback (local files, streaming, etc) won't play. When it happens F-key functionality for Brightness and Volume control and things like About this Mac, Restart and Shutdown are not responsive/severely delayed.

This is the second brand new Studio Display I’ve received from Costco (not sure it can be the same batch since I had to wait for them to come into stock months later to get this one) that has this exact problem.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Going to pick up my ASD in 1 hour.

 

[Jdizzle188]

I can't help but think the whole Studio Display and Mac Studio are a clever way for Apple to pretty much double the profit on the iMac 27" users who were waiting for the Apple Silicon redesign.

Then maybe like with the MacBook Pro ports were brought back after years of being absent I can't help but feel that this is a reply of this scenario.

I went from a 27" iMac to the M1 Max MacBook Pro, I'm just trying to convince the girlfriend that I need the studio display now 😂

 

[JippaLippa]

Why is it extorsion? If this screen is the only option in the world to see sharp visual for the job, they would fly of the shelves. And it wouldn’t be extorsion.

Ans why do you need to attach an ATV to the same screen? You can use your Mac to stream.

I meant "extorsion" in an ironical sense.
I meant extorsion as I have a good 4K panel I'm perfectly happy with, but something between macOS and After Effects doesn't work well with non native scaling.
Extorsion also because I can barely afford this expense and I'd have rather gone without.
Anyway, having bought the thing, I'll focus on enjoying what good it'll have to offer.

With regards to the Apple TV, Prime Video and Disney+ don't support 4K HDR on macOS.
I like to consume content in 4K HDR, and the only way to do so with these apps is to use a smart TV or a Smart Box.

 

[ashdelacroix]

There's no doubt the ASD is expensive, and I don't feel too good about it, but I went for it because I couldn't find a comparable 5k screen with this build quality, sound system and other features. I do not regret my purchase. It works seamlessly with the Mac Studio.

Yes, I did have the audio bug where sound cut out on one occasion: I switched the ASD from the mains and after a restart it worked flawlessly again. Hoping the firmware provides a permanent fix.

Seems to me that while a few ASD owners have enduring issues, most of the complaints about ASD come from non-owners, which tells its own story!

I think most owners really like the display. Yes, I wanted a brand new, larger iMac but I like the fact that I can keep my display and swap out the Mac Studio for an upgraded model in a couple years' time.

I'm saddened how Apple really pumped up the price of this system, I think they were greedy, but I don't regret buying a Studio system one bit.

 

[dumastudetto]

Only Apple can do this because they control the full stack.

Also, Only Apple can do this because they devote resources to enhancing the human experience. Fixing bugs and security issues is never left lingering on a deprioritised task list.

 

[chucker23n1]

I ultimately went with two Dell 24-inch 1440p displays.

	Dell	Apple
Total screen estate	✅ 5120x1440	2560x1440
Pixel density	122	✅ 218
Color depth	8bpp	✅ 10bpp True Tone Reference modes
Brightness	300 nits	✅ 600 nits
Camera		✅ (but not exactly receiving rave reviews)
Speakers		✅
Ports	USB ports at the bottom and the side, where you can actually access them Display connects with HDMI or DisplayPort	USB-C ports at the back, for people who hate their backs An 1.8m cable is $129. That's not a typo.
Stand	✅ VESA-mounted ✅ Tilt- and height-adjustable stand included	VESA mount is a BTO option Height adjustment is $400
Power	✅ A standard frigging cable you plug into the back ✅ A button on the bottom edge	Prepare for some more back-of-the-desk crawling
Firmware	Not an entire frigging mobile OS	Has already seen two updates; requires you to reboot your… Mac??
Price	$400 each for $800 total	$1600 if you don't need height adjustment

Yeah, I wish my displays were Retina. But a $1600+ display twelve years after they gave the iPhone a Retina Display isn't going to bring us any closer to the Retina on desktop future. If anything, it has brought us further away, as other monitor manufacturers must be laughing at those prices.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I ultimately went with two Dell 24-inch 1440p displays.

	Dell	Apple
Total screen estate	✅ 5120x1440	2560x1440
Pixel density	122	✅ 218
Color depth	8bpp	✅ 10bpp True Tone Reference modes
Brightness	300 nits	✅ 600 nits
Camera		✅ (but not exactly receiving rave reviews)
Speakers		✅
Ports	USB ports at the bottom and the side, where you can actually access them Display connects with HDMI or DisplayPort	USB-C ports at the back, for people who hate their backs An 1.8m cable is $129. That's not a typo.
Stand	✅ VESA-mounted ✅ Tilt- and height-adjustable stand included	VESA mount is a BTO option Height adjustment is $400
Power	✅ A standard frigging cable you plug into the back ✅ A button on the bottom edge	Prepare for some more back-of-the-desk crawling
Firmware	Not an entire frigging mobile OS	Has already seen two updates; requires you to reboot your… Mac??
Price	$400 each for $800 total	$1600 if you don't need height adjustment

Yeah, I wish my displays were Retina. But a $1600+ display twelve years after they gave the iPhone a Retina Display isn't going to bring us any closer to the Retina on desktop future. If anything, it has brought us further away, as other monitor manufacturers must be laughing at those prices.

This comparison chart has a lot of bias in it.

It is ok to find a different monitor better for you or a better deal, but should be fair with the comparisons at least.

 

[MajorFubar]

What I don't understand, the first instances of this fault showed up within days of launch. So you'd think Apple engineers/internal product testers would have noticed it before launch. Did they just go, 'meh, let it go, we'll patch it with a firmware fix in August.'?

 

[ProfessionalFan]

What I don't understand, the first instances of this fault showed up within days of launch. So you'd think Apple engineers/internal product testers would have noticed it before launch. Did they just go, 'meh, let it go, we'll patch it with a firmware fix in August.'?

It wouldn't be the first time a product launched without being perfect.

Not just from Apple, but other companies as well.

 

[Brownie77]

Firmware for a monitor.....It still cracks me up.

It shouldn't. The my 27" Apple Cinema Display from 2011 had it's firmware updated a year or so ago. They all have firmware.

 

[iBug2]

I love this display, best display I looked at so far except my 16" M1 Max MBP.

However, the issue with this display is that sometimes when it wakes up, the usb-ports are not working. I have my mouse connected to the display, and sometimes after wake up, mouse does not work. The only way to fix it is to disconnect the display from my MBP and reconnect it. This is an ongoing issue, which is still not fixed.

 

[colinwil]

How many people here had the problem with the speakers? I didn’t hear any issues with mine, so I don’t know exactly what people are hearing or not hearing. But then again, I spend a bunch of time on a headset. Is it crackling? Cut-outs? Stoppage? Or just poor quality sound?

Unfortunately, I’m running Ventura beta on the computer and don’t see the update, so I’m wondering if it’s worth the trouble of linking it up with one of my laptops with Monterey and updating it that way.

I’ve had it twice since I bought the ASD when it first came out. Both times in the last month or so - using Teams. Everything’s working normally, then suddenly you get a weird glitching sound for 3 seconds, followed by total silence. Rebooting the display by unplugging/replugging it from the power fixes it.

I’n not surprised you haven’t seen the issue. It’s only happened to me twice in several months.

Overall I‘m very satisfied with the Studio display. The image, sound (when its working) and style/quality are brilliant. The webcam is fine for Teams. Anything higher res would be downgraded anyway by the poor ‘up’ speed I get from my ADSL connection.

And if this firmware update fixes the sound glitches it’ll be perfect!

 

[chucker23n1]

This comparison chart has a lot of bias in it.

…it does? 🤨

The Apple display, as the chart shows, has a camera, speakers, higher brightness, and more capabilities for graphics pros.

It is ok to find a different monitor better for you or a better deal, but should be fair with the comparisons at least.

Feel free to point out a concrete problem with the chart.