I've had my Studio Display for about a month now. I love it! Moved from a late '15 5k iMac and in conjunction with my M2 Pro mini, I'm extremely happy with the monitor. I've been using it merrily, often having my playlist in the background through the speakers which I think are pretty damn good, given that they are situated in such a thin enclosure. I fell for the Apple hype about the force cancelling woofers etc and I've never had any reason to think that the output is anything short of excellent. I've just had reason to use my iMac again and, under the same circumstances, the speakers on that are blowing the Studio Display's away!!! In terms of loudness and the bass response, I'd never heard them back to back until now and, quite frankly, I'm shocked!
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Apple Studio Display speakers
- Thread starter dazzer21-2
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I've said this before - I really like the ASD but believe the speakers are overrated. They're totally fine. And pretty amazing given the form factor of the ASD. However if you listen to music, podcasts or stream video they may not quite be enough. For basic tasks - system alerts, FT, Zoom, occasional YT, etc. they are absolutely sufficient.
For most Apple products I've always said that I am impressed with the quality relative to the context (form factor, device type, etc) - But or most things I do, as impressive as it is, it's not enough. Hence a nice DAC and dedicated speakers.
I use a Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 for the DAC (both to run my speakers, my mic and plugging in my guitar). My speakers at present are AudioEngine A5+s. Looking to upgrade the speakers at some point. Looking at everything from Genelec to Adam but not sure where I'll land on that when I decide
While I agree that they're really just reasonably decent small speakers, most people use really cheap speakers or other monitors' built-in speakers -- so the speakers in the ASD are a massive improvement from those, which is why people seem to like them so much.
Yup, I can vouch for this. I previously used some Pebble speakers from Amazon with my previous monitor before upgrading to the Studio Display, so for my ears, the ASD speakers are a massive improvement for me.
I would agree that they're decent but they're getting more praise than they should be.
The thing the ASD speakers are only getting more praise since the other monitors with speakers from Samsung, LG, etc don't sound all that good in comparison.
I've read quite a few comments online that the ASD speakers are not better than more recent Intel 27" iMacs speakers, some saying they are too bass oriented.
Yeah the built in iMac M speakers are just amazing to me. I played this track to see if the little speakers can reproduce the BASS and not distort or not even produce it at all. The BASS played and the speakers did not distort. It sounded amazing coming out of an enclosure just 11.5 mm thin.
I think my ASD speakers are great. But not as good as the dedicated amplified bookshelf speakers on the same desk. No substitute for moving 5x the amount of air.
I'm really happy with the ASD speakers. I returned my desktop ones I had just bought for my LG Ultrafine (which I bought right before the ASD was announced).
