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How good are iMac internal speakers?

M

mindquest

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 25, 2009
537
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How good is the quality of the current iMac speakers? I am not a headphones person so I use the speakers almost all the time. From gaming, to all variety of music I enjoy good sound. Looking to buy an iMac in the next couple of months.

What are your thoughts on the internal speakers sound? I saw the Companion® 2 Series III multimedia speaker system which look pretty good.

www.bose.com

Bose Companion® 2 Series III Multimedia Speaker System

Explore the Bose Companion 2 Series III multimedia speaker system: it can deliver better performance than the speakers that came with your computer.
www.bose.com www.bose.com

Any thoughts are appreciated!
 
They sound pretty good for a monitor that has built in speakers. But I prefer to use my high quality headphones vs built in speakers. My views are on the late 2015 5K iMac. I'm not sure if they made changes to them since then and if the 21" 4K iMac is comparable.
 
They are quite good. If you're not an audiophile, you might find that the built-in speakers are good enough. I'm not sure if the speakers are better on the 27". Back in the old iMac days, 17" and 20" had the same speakers. If you find them lacking, I think they'll be enough to get by on until you can get externals.
 
2017 27" iMac here – I'm not sure whether they've been updated.

They'll get you by, but a $100 pair of Presonus Eris monitors (they emphasize they're aiming for a flat response that doesn't try to mess with the audio, in contrast to Bose's reputation) was a big improvement to my own setup.
 
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Sound quality is highly subjective, so only you can be the judge. Try them out, and decide whether they're good enough for yourself.

Personally, I found the internal sound quality from my old 2007 20" to be better than my 2019 27", albeit without extensive listening.

Most decent pairs or external speakers can trump the internal speakers, so that was always going to be my preferred route.
 
I find the speaker quality on iMacs to be surprisingly good. I use decent external speakers when I use a PC (because most don't come with built-in speakers unless you have an AIO), but I'm never even tempted to use them with my iMac because the iMac speakers are already so good and it's not worth the additional wires and clutter.
 
Interesting that your 2007 sounds better. I find that my 2010 iMac sounded better than my 2007/08 units. I never play sound from the 2019 in my sig, work machine. If/when I get a new iMac I'll have to see how they compare. As you said though, it's subjective.
 
The 2019 iMac speakers are fairly good for casual media consumption but I think they're too bassy. For gaming I used them a bit when playing through Borderlands 3 and they were ok, but the sounds of the guns were noticeably muffled and muddied in with the music/background sound effects. I think you'd want something better for gaming.
 
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I have the 2011 iMac, and it sounds ok to me. Recently I heard a 2015 iMac's speakers, and I was blown away by the quality of the sound.
 
2017 4K iMac here: speaker quality is very good for built-in speakers. No problem for YouTube videos, gaming etc.

But if you really want to enjoy music, you should get external speakers of course.
 
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The laptop line up increased the quality of the internal speakers twice over the last 3 years..the imacs are not updated for over 4 years..so i expect the next gen will adress this also
 
Audio is an infinite domain.

I personally dislike ANY built-in speakers, mobile speakers, sound bar, etc.... It's always cheap, sound is mediocre in ANY of which I heard.

My Mac is plugged to a Schiit stack. Schiit Gungnir (+Schiit Asgard 2 for Audeze LCD-2) + Onkyo TX-8255 (nice integrated power amp for the price) + a pair of KEF Q150. Schiit Ragnarok is also a nice all-in-one amp for headphones + speakers.

This is the only setup that satisfies me at the moment.

KEF LS50 are a really nice pair of bookshelf speakers too.
 
The internal speakers are... ok... but...

... just about any pair of EXTERNAL speakers, self-powered, of fair-to-middlin' quality (or better) are going to sound much better.
 
Sooby said:
The 2019 iMac speakers are fairly good for casual media consumption but I think they're too bassy. For gaming I used them a bit when playing through Borderlands 3 and they were ok, but the sounds of the guns were noticeably muffled and muddied in with the music/background sound effects. I think you'd want something better for gaming.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply! (and everyone else chiming in!) Any other 2019 iMac owners have any thoughts about the speakers?
 
Sooby said:
The 2019 iMac speakers are fairly good for casual media consumption but I think they're too bassy.
Click to expand...

Some speakers aren't really capable of reproducing those frequencies without an artificial bass bump that ends up muddying the sound.

What's your budget?
 
I'd say it depends on what you're using them for how critical you are in terms of sound quality. They are fine for speech and have good clarity. But almost any external speakers will be better for any kind of critical music listening.
 
A previous discussion on the forums

Powered Speakers for Mac under £200 The pound has cratered against the dollar, so it's kind of within your stated budget. Certainly the Edifiers mentioned there are affordable.

(I have B&W 303's hooked up to an AudioSource AMP100. In an ideal environment, they would have an amazing soundstage. But as computer speakers-- meh... Perhaps if they didn't have to contend with so many flat surfaces-- desk, 27 inch imac, they would really sing. )
 
jerwin said:
A previous discussion on the forums

Powered Speakers for Mac under £200 The pound has cratered against the dollar, so it's kind of within your stated budget. Certainly the Edifiers mentioned there are affordable.

(I have B&W 303's hooked up to an AudioSource AMP100. In an ideal environment, they would have an amazing soundstage. But as computer speakers-- meh... Perhaps if they didn't have to contend with so many flat surfaces-- desk, 27 inch imac, they would really sing. )
Click to expand...

will check it out!
 
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