MacBook Pro 13" 2018 Audio Disappointment, Audio Out of Sync & Speaker Quality

[M-1]

Overall pretty happy with the 2018 MBP 13" touch bar except for the audio. It's subtle but I've been noticing on video playback that the audio is ever so slightly out of sync which makes things feel unnatural to me when watching movies, youtube or tv series.

I'm an audio engineer by profession and these things stand out to me what may otherwise be unnoticeable to some others. From what I've read it could be due to the T2 chip which handles the audio. The mac is a fresh install, I've played back the source on different Macs and it only happens on this model. I don't know if Apple is aware of this or will even fix it but I sure hope so. I'm sure the majority haven't even noticed or been bothered by this because it's so subtle, but it's definitely out of sync to me by a few small milliseconds. It's mostly noticeable when you look at the lip sync of the audio during speech and with things like hand claps.

I also find it amazing that these speakers are raved about in the reviews so positively. With this model, I find voice harder to hear, less separated from the background and an overall boomy sound that doesn't feel balanced. Sure they've made improvements, have more bass and have some nice stereo separation for a small notebook but I find that there are some really odd imbalances in the frequencies. Overall audio should be flat and human voices easy, comfortable and pleasing to hear.

I'm not sure if it was intentional but it is quite typical of some commercial audio processing practice to create the impression of bigger better sound. However it comes at the expense of clarity and quality. It's very reminiscent to SRS WOW and other 3D audio processing which to me sounds awful and creates a displeasing effect similar to audio phase. To the trained ear it's something that takes getting used to and one can get used to it but it's not something I wish to get my ears accustomed to. I also wish Apple included some built in system wide OS equalizer like in iTunes or an ability to turn this effect off. Sure if I plug in external speakers or earphones, things sound better but the out of sync audio issue also still exists.

I'm considering to return the Mac for this alone which would be a shame but I'd like to hear some feedback on the topic and if any one has experienced similar or know if a fix is in the works. The out of sync audio and lack of speech clarity are my main concerns.

 

[giffut]

The T2 processor problems - in my opinion - makes using any actual mac for music a no go at the moment. This is an ongoing issue since the introduction of the iMac Pro in 12/2017. There is no firmware/software fix working or possible at the moment. It all indicates a hardware based error/malfunction and therefore prone to stay with the machine for its entire lifetime. The T2 processor is at the heart of many severe problems with all macs utilizing it.

I regard any T2 based mac not reliable for music production. It´s a shame, really. Music was the last rock solid professional usage case for macs. It´s gone now, too. You can remedy some sorts of with a thunderbolt based interface - but even here are first reports with similar errors developing - and you wouldn´t escape all the other T2 based issues.

USB-C/thunderbolt 3 is implemented in a very unhealthy way by Apple. They basically externalized any functionality on third party vendors. USB-C in general is a huge annoyanca and hit and miss with cables and adapters. It´s crazy as we came from a rather mature environment, especially with USB2 based interfaces which improved strongly compared to firewire/thunderbolt based ones in the last years. Adding to the insult core audio seems to depreciate steadily with each macos update, starting around high sierra in my opinion.

For music best advice seems to be using any mac before 2015 and avoid all USB-C macs, especially any T2 processor based ones at all costs. If that´s not possible, go PC (windows/linux) and try to establish an os independant workflow.

 

[M-1]

So have you been experiencing the same out of sync audio? Not sure if the reply is an issue towards the T2 chip itself or from sharing the same experience.

Also personally I find USB C to be the way forward and I enjoy the new standard. I believe functionality and compatibility may have more to do with third party implementation and will mature with time. However I'm also sure Apple can do more in their part to help with that, may that be with core audio or other support. I do have to say I do find it concerning that Apple support for pro apps seems to be lacking but I also get the impression that many third party software developers and manufacturers are being lazy during beta phases of new OS releases for example and then blaming Apple when it gets released for breaking their software. I've heard and seen it time and time again where Apple gets blamed for something which the developer had time to work with Apple on but only does so after updating to the newest software.

Now about the T2, that's a different story and all on Apple. I don't know if it's speculation or in fact the T2 but a lot seems to point towards the T2. I do believe the T2 is having some problems handling tasks while communicating with the Intel chip. I'm sure Apple is working to implement their own ARM based chips on their Macs and that the T2 chip is a seed towards. However we're not here to be their guinea pigs to test this out before it gets implemented. The T2 should be working flawlessly alongside the Intel chip upon release and if that's not the case much like the out of sync audio, then this is very poor.

 

[Ploki]

I also find it amazing that these speakers are raved about in the reviews so positively. With this model, I find voice harder to hear, less separated from the background and an overall boomy sound that doesn't feel balanced. Sure they've made improvements, have more bass and have some nice stereo separation for a small notebook but I find that there are some really odd imbalances in the frequencies. Overall audio should be flat and human voices easy, comfortable and pleasing to hear..

THANK YOU.

i thought i was going crazy when i first got my 15" 2018. The 2012 retina speakers had less bas and less SPL, but they sounded so much more clearer and faithful...

FWIW, the 13" is better than the 15". Speakers on 15" are pointless. They're loud and bassy but sound like crap. Listening back on the 2012 15" retina feels like going from multimedia speakers to studio monitors.

i'm not to fussy about it since i don't use internal speakers all that much, but damn...

i haven't noticed out of sync audio yet. i will pay attention to it.

as far as other things go; it works fine with my firewire RME interface.
USB has issues.

I don't know what will happen, i needed a new machine... If this is indeed a hardware issue apple will have to replace all our 2018 T2 machines.

 

[tjedora]

THANK YOU.

i thought i was going crazy when i first got my 15" 2018. The 2012 retina speakers had less bas and less SPL, but they sounded so much more clearer and faithful...

FWIW, the 13" is better than the 15". Speakers on 15" are pointless. They're loud and bassy but sound like crap. Listening back on the 2012 15" retina feels like going from multimedia speakers to studio monitors.

i'm not to fussy about it since i don't use internal speakers all that much, but damn...

i haven't noticed out of sync audio yet. i will pay attention to it.

as far as other things go; it works fine with my firewire RME interface.
USB has issues.

I don't know what will happen, i needed a new machine... If this is indeed a hardware issue apple will have to replace all our 2018 T2 machines.

Yes! I absolutely feel the same about it with the 13" 2018 MBP. I come from the 2016 one and while this had less bass, the sound was way more direct and clear. Clearly not an improvement to my ears.

@OP: Yes - audio is slightly out of sync for me too. It's not really noticeable but video playback feels sluggish due to this. At least I have no added latency when using a DAW with an Audio Interface.

 

[leman]

I never noticed any kind of audio delay and the speakers are the best I ever heard on a laptop Then again, I am not an audio professional, so I don't might have the ear. Can any other audio professionals comment on it? If this is indeed the case, then I am surprised that it hasn't been more widely discussed yet.

 

[tjedora]

I never noticed any kind of audio delay and the speakers are the best I ever heard on a laptop Then again, I am not an audio professional, so I don't might have the ear. Can any other audio professionals comment on it? If this is indeed the case, then I am surprised that it hasn't been more widely discussed yet.

It's like he described. The speakers were configured to sound like your average pseudo Hi-Fi sound by cutting off mids and boosting bass and highs. It sounds okayish for music but movies or podcasts sound really dull and damped due to it.

 

[leman]

It's like he described. The speakers were configured to sound like your average pseudo Hi-Fi sound by cutting off mids and boosting bass and highs. It sounds okayish for music but movies or podcasts sound really dull and damped due to it.

That very well might be so, but they still sound better than any other speaker in a Mac laptop before, no? I watch videos often on my laptop and — in my subjective opinion — it's miles better than any other laptop speaker I have tried. As far as music goes, I certainly would prefer not listening to music at all than listening to it on my MBP — the limited frequency range immediately becomes very evident.

I am more curious about the audio lag however. Can you (@tjedora) confirm that as well?

 

[Ploki]

That very well might be so, but they still sound better than any other speaker in a Mac laptop before, no? I watch videos often on my laptop and — in my subjective opinion — it's miles better than any other laptop speaker I have tried. As far as music goes, I certainly would prefer not listening to music at all than listening to it on my MBP — the limited frequency range immediately becomes very evident.

I am more curious about the audio lag however. Can you (@tjedora) confirm that as well?

i personally prefer the sound of 2012-2015 retina models.
they sound less impressive than 2016-2018, but are more accurate and less hyped.


the delay could be due to some audio DSP shenanigans introducing latency

 

[afir93]

Can't say that I can replicate anything like that on my 15" 2018 MacBook Pro. Chances are I would have noticed it before if they were out-of-sync since I oftentimes watch videos and the like on my MBP, but I just tried a few audio-video-sync tests like this one and can't say that I notice any delay at all, it syncs up perfectly as it should be. You say that it's just a very small delay, but as someone who's usually very sensitive to these kind of things (the ~0.2 seconds of audio delay when AirPlaying from a Mac to a HomePod for example make it pretty much unusuable for me for video consumption), I believe I (and probably many other people) would have noticed this in some capacity if it affected all T2 machines.

Where/in which situations have you noticed these delays? Is it possible that it may be caused by something software-related; for example, does it only become noticeable in specific applications (in which case it might be a fault with the software), or are you sure it's happening on a system-wide basis? If it's noticeable on a system-wide basis, did you ever install or use apps like Boom or AirServer that modify/re-route the system sound? (As, in my experience, these tools can sometimes be the cause for issues like this...)

If none of this is the case, maybe it's a faulty model? Does it happen aswell if you use another user account, or if you boot your Mac via safe boot? If this was a widespread issue with 2018 MBPs then chances are we'd have seen a lot more coverage/news about it; it's the first time I hear of anything like that.
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THANK YOU.

i thought i was going crazy when i first got my 15" 2018. The 2012 retina speakers had less bas and less SPL, but they sounded so much more clearer and faithful...

FWIW, the 13" is better than the 15". Speakers on 15" are pointless. They're loud and bassy but sound like crap. Listening back on the 2012 15" retina feels like going from multimedia speakers to studio monitors.

i'm not to fussy about it since i don't use internal speakers all that much, but damn...

i haven't noticed out of sync audio yet. i will pay attention to it.

as far as other things go; it works fine with my firewire RME interface.
USB has issues.

I don't know what will happen, i needed a new machine... If this is indeed a hardware issue apple will have to replace all our 2018 T2 machines.

Really? Admittedly I'm no audiophile, but I'm honestly pretty happy with the speakers of my 2018 MBP. I barely use them for music since I have my HomePods for that, but for videos, movies and the like, they are fairly good in my opinion. I've had a 2014 MacBook Pro for a few years and honestly, the speakers of my 2018 model sound leaps and bounds better to me. If they "sound like crap" as you say, then so do the speakers of most other laptops out there.

Either way. The sound quality is one of the most subjective areas of a laptop, and I'm sure that for some audio professionals or audiophiles, the MBP speakers aren't going to cut it. Not that anyone expects them to, anyway. But for me and most average users, I think these huge number of reviewers who praise the 2018 models for their sound quality are absolutely right. With almost every single product over the last 2-3 years, Apple has nailed the sound quality for their respective form factor, and I don't think the current MacBook Pros are an exception to this.

 

[Ploki]

Really? Admittedly I'm no audiophile, but I'm honestly pretty happy with the speakers of my 2018 MBP. I barely use them for music since I have my HomePods for that, but for videos, movies and the like, they are fairly good in my opinion. I've had a 2014 MacBook Pro for a few years and honestly, the speakers of my 2018 model sound leaps and bounds better to me. If they "sound like crap" as you say, then so do the speakers of most other laptops out there.

Either way. The sound quality is one of the most subjective areas of a laptop, and I'm sure that for some audio professionals or audiophiles, the MBP speakers aren't going to cut it. Not that anyone expects them to, anyway. But for me and most average users, I think these huge number of reviewers who praise the 2018 models for their sound quality are absolutely right. With almost every single product over the last 2-3 years, Apple has nailed the sound quality for their respective form factor, and I don't think the current MacBook Pros are an exception to this.

The problem is that they sound more impressive than the 2012-2015 model, but it's like engaging a "loudness button" on an old hifi receiver.
They just don't sound right, they sound wrong somehow.

The 13" is better tho, the 15" to me sounded horrible. Compared to 2012-2015 15" hey had more bass, they had more loudness, but they sounded wrong.

The 13" imo are usable, but 15" are like some hyped multimedia garbage speaker with some faux processing going on.

the 15" reminds me of tacky late 90s HiFis like this:

With "Techno" preset enabled.

Or the old winamp WoW plugin.

 

[Painter2002]

Overall pretty happy with the 2018 MBP 13" touch bar except for the audio. It's subtle but I've been noticing on video playback that the audio is ever so slightly out of sync which makes things feel unnatural to me when watching movies, youtube or tv series.

I'm an audio engineer by profession and these things stand out to me what may otherwise be unnoticeable to some others. From what I've read it could be due to the T2 chip which handles the audio. The mac is a fresh install, I've played back the source on different Macs and it only happens on this model. I don't know if Apple is aware of this or will even fix it but I sure hope so. I'm sure the majority haven't even noticed or been bothered by this because it's so subtle, but it's definitely out of sync to me by a few small milliseconds. It's mostly noticeable when you look at the lip sync of the audio during speech and with things like hand claps.

I also find it amazing that these speakers are raved about in the reviews so positively. With this model, I find voice harder to hear, less separated from the background and an overall boomy sound that doesn't feel balanced. Sure they've made improvements, have more bass and have some nice stereo separation for a small notebook but I find that there are some really odd imbalances in the frequencies. Overall audio should be flat and human voices easy, comfortable and pleasing to hear.

I'm not sure if it was intentional but it is quite typical of some commercial audio processing practice to create the impression of bigger better sound. However it comes at the expense of clarity and quality. It's very reminiscent to SRS WOW and other 3D audio processing which to me sounds awful and creates a displeasing effect similar to audio phase. To the trained ear it's something that takes getting used to and one can get used to it but it's not something I wish to get my ears accustomed to. I also wish Apple included some built in system wide OS equalizer like in iTunes or an ability to turn this effect off. Sure if I plug in external speakers or earphones, things sound better but the out of sync audio issue also still exists.

I'm considering to return the Mac for this alone which would be a shame but I'd like to hear some feedback on the topic and if any one has experienced similar or know if a fix is in the works. The out of sync audio and lack of speech clarity are my main concerns.

Not to diminish your frustration, but honestly as a person who loves music and good quality audio, I use headphones when I want good quality music. You can’t realistically expect tiny speakers on a laptop to give you a truly balanced audio.

The reason these speakers are raved about is because compared to others on the market, they are some of the better laptop speakers, with more depth and base. They are far from perfect, but compared to what’s available they are up there.

But for me, if I am listening to music or something that I care about audio quality for, I’ll use headphones, no matter how good the laptop speakers are supposed to be.

 

[mavericks7913]

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...e-for-some-professional-audio-interface-users
https://www.dpreview.com/news/26109...iencing-adobe-premiere-pro-audio-bug#comments

 

[Ploki]

Not to diminish your frustration, but honestly as a person who loves music and good quality audio, I use headphones when I want good quality music. You can’t realistically expect tiny speakers on a laptop to give you a truly balanced audio.

The reason these speakers are raved about is because compared to others on the market, they are some of the better laptop speakers, with more depth and base. They are far from perfect, but compared to what’s available they are up there.

But for me, if I am listening to music or something that I care about audio quality for, I’ll use headphones, no matter how good the laptop speakers are supposed to be.

Obviously, i have 3 pairs of high quality headphones and two pairs of studio monitors, but every now and then when i happen to use built-in speakers i'm reminded of that.
But really, 13" is much better than 15". 15" speakers annoyed me, i was really really disappointed with them.

 

[Painter2002]

Obviously, i have 3 pairs of high quality headphones and two pairs of studio monitors, but every now and then when i happen to use built-in speakers i'm reminded of that.
But really, 13" is much better than 15". 15" speakers annoyed me, i was really really disappointed with them.

Fair enough, I guess I just never expect much from internal laptop speakers so it doesn’t get to me when I do use them. And I’ve seen a heard much, much worse speakers in my time so these aren’t as bad as they could be.
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But really, 13" is much better than 15". 15" speakers annoyed me, i was really really disappointed with them.

I do find this weird though, you’d think the 15” would be at least on par with the 13” speakers, I mean it is more expensive after all.

 

[Ploki]

Fair enough, I guess I just never expect much from internal laptop speakers so it doesn’t get to me when I do use them. And I’ve seen a heard much, much worse speakers in my time so these aren’t as bad as they could be.
[doublepost=1549647646][/doublepost]
I do find this weird though, you’d think the 15” would be at least on par with the 13” speakers, I mean it is more expensive after all.

I never expected anything from them, i just didn't expect them to sound more muffled than the 2012 model.

They whole muffled boominess is even more pronounced than on the 13".
it has a degree more bass and SPL, but it's all so muffled and sloppy.

i personally find 13" nice, but 15" exaggerated, but going to 2012 is still an "oh so this is how it was supposed to sound" moment.
they sound processed. the 2012-2015 didn't

the 15" didn't feel right anyway as a whole.