My new iMac has a slight defect... it's Optical Out port is a little geared towards the right stereo channel being louder than the left. It's kind of annoying when listening to music. Is there a way I can fix, diagnose, or fiddle with the balance of my Mac's sounds? I figure if I tune it a bit to the left, it should fix the problem... I don't think I should return a new iMac and go through the process of reinstalling everything for such a small problem.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Balance?
- Thread starter cleanup
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
cleanup said:
Go to System Preferences, and in the Sound preference pane, under the output tab, there should be a balance slider. Is it in the middle?
Wow. I can't believe I didn't see the Sound pane. But that did the trick! The slider was a bit to the right. Not sure why - I've never touched those settings.
Thank you!
While we're at it, is there some sort of keyboard shortcut for locking the computer, or at least activating the screensaver (I already have a corner spot for activate screensaver, but I'd like to assign Option-L or Command-L or some such to lock the computer/activate screensaver, like in Windows [Windows-L])?
Thank you!
While we're at it, is there some sort of keyboard shortcut for locking the computer, or at least activating the screensaver (I already have a corner spot for activate screensaver, but I'd like to assign Option-L or Command-L or some such to lock the computer/activate screensaver, like in Windows [Windows-L])?
cleanup said:Wow. I can't believe I didn't see the Sound pane. But that did the trick! The slider was a bit to the right. Not sure why - I've never touched those settings.
Thank you!
While we're at it, is there some sort of keyboard shortcut for locking the computer, or at least activating the screensaver (I already have a corner spot for activate screensaver, but I'd like to assign Option-L or Command-L or some such to lock the computer/activate screensaver, like in Windows [Windows-L])?
Yeah, there have been some very weird bugs that cause the balance to shift on its own. It's rare, but it happens. Can't quite remember under what cirumstances.
As for locking the computer, I think having a hot corner for activate screensaver (like you have already) and simply throwing the mouse to the corner is the best solution. AFAIK there's no way to assign keyboard shortcuts for that. Do some googling, though, somebody might have written an app for it.
I'm curious what makes it happen, since my mac does it to me all the time. BTW, next time, do a quick Spotlight search since a search of "balance" brings up the Sound preferences.
-Chase
-Chase
Leareth said:
Yeah, it is a Tiger bug, but I can't seem to put a finger on what causes it.
-Chase
it happened to my emac with soundsticks II's running panther. it was fine with my old speakers (a line out to my stereo) but plugging in the soundsticks b0rked the balance. no idea why really. lol took me some time to realize they werent broken...rendezvouscp said:
igucl said:
No fix, but it's caused by moving the volume up and down quickly, so if you avoid that you should be ok.