Has anyone addressed the issue of the new 24" LED Cinema Display's Speakers?

[spaceballl]

I'm reading Apple's spec sheet and it claims to have a 2.1 Speaker System integrated. This is a bit curious to me, as there is no audio input, at least according to http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html .

So if there's no audio input, is the sound transmitted over USB? Very curious - I know these things don't come out until November, but I'd love to hear someone else's thoughts, or if there has been an article about this that I haven't seen.

 

[wordmunger]

I think the video-out interface allows audio transmission. But it could also be through the USB cable -- either one would work.

 

[kornyboy]

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I'm guessing that it probably does go through the USB interface. That seems pretty logical. This does not drop the possibility that it could actually travel through the mini-display port though. It just makes more since to me to have it going through the USB interface.

 

[spaceballl]

Oh you may be right!

I know that displayport is considered "better than" HDMI - And HDMI can pass an audio signal, and I believe displayport can as well!

I hope it uses displayport and not USB. If it uses USB, then it will take up some of the USB's bandwidth and use CPU to process that.

 

[Battlefield Fan]

the mini displayport can carry audio through it. Another reason why apple decided to go with mini displayport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_DisplayPort

 

[PlaceofDis]

ill echo others and agree that it is more than likely going through the display port connection rather than the USB. personally, i can't imagine the sound to be all that great though.

 

[spaceballl]

ill echo others and agree that it is more than likely going through the display port connection rather than the USB. personally, i can't imagine the sound to be all that great though.

Yeah - i can't imagine it will be that great either. I assume it will be on par with the current iMac's speakers.

 

[macintel4me]

Audio via USB!

I went to the Apple store yesterday at Tysons Corner here in Northern Virginia. and gawked at the new 24" LED ACD. Work of art. Anyway, I went into iTunes, played a song and then unplugged Mini DisplayPort cable from the attaching MacBook Pro. Yes, the audio kept on playing through the ACD's built-in speakers while, obviously, the screen went blank.

Another interesting note. No power button on the new ACD. Nope. Nowhere. Nada.

 

[Blaine]

I went to the Apple store yesterday at Tysons Corner here in Northern Virginia. and gawked at the new 24" LED ACD. Work of art. Anyway, I went into iTunes, played a song and then unplugged Mini DisplayPort cable from the attaching MacBook Pro. Yes, the audio kept on playing through the ACD's built-in speakers while, obviously, the screen went blank.

Another interesting note. No power button on the new ACD. Nope. Nowhere. Nada.

how was the sound quality?

 

[Trajectory]

In my experience, Macs have always had much better built-in speakers than any of the PCs I've owned.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Very curious about how the sound quality is as well. Really in a toss up on waiting for this new 24" to compliment my new MacBook Al 2.4ghz, or to look at other panels. The type of panel is important, and I've yet to find any info on what panel this new unit uses. Surely it won't be TN, but IPS, S-IPS, ??

 

[macintel4me]

how was the sound quality?

The Apple Store I went to for checking out the new 24" ACD had typical background noise for an Apple Store on a Saturday. I turned up the volume all the way and it was not all that loud actually. Like the person next to me could hear it, but clearly not to a point that it was overly noticeably.

In summary, I would say the new 24" ACD speakers are maybe one step over the MacBook Pro speakers, however, it was far from ideal listening conditions it is not a fair assessment. Clearly, though, these speakers are not even close to being in the same class as my Altec Lansing speakers. One is going to have to make a decision between great sound or reasonably good enough sound and save some clutter.