Just how bad is that tiny speaker in the M1 mini?

[jazz1]

I love my MacMini M1. But the internal speaker is really not usable. I’m not talking audiophile level here. I guess potential buyers should know that like adding a monitor, keyboard, trackpad/mouse an external speaker/headphones are a must. It is not really surprising, but even for FaceTime the stock, internal speaker is just too weak.

This is my first MacMini, and in fact I never saw/used one. But with the small enclosure should we be surprised? Did the Intel MacMini have a better speaker?

 

[Erehy Dobon]

There are three main usage cases for the Mac mini.

The first is to plug the device into a monitor (probably one with built-in speakers) and use it as a desktop computer.

The second is to use it as a SOHO server perhaps headless. That doesn't require good audio.

The third is to deploy many of them in a datacenter setting. That doesn't require audio at all.

The audio speaker in the Mac mini is just sufficient for things like desktop notifications, system sounds, etc. It was never intended to be the primary audio device in a desktop PC environment.

In that sense the Mac mini is no different than my ghetto $180 Windows 10 HTPC. I'm not even sure if that has a built-in speaker.

The Mac mini's speaker is adequate for system sounds and things like the odd voice memo. Between the stereo miniplug output, USB, and Bluetooth there are plenty of avenues for better external audio performance from the Mac mini beyond what could possibly be crammed into that small box.