New MBA headphone minijack quality

[MacBook08]

Hi

I have a fourth gen iPod Touch and a MacBook. Listening to any audio on the Touch is great with my Sennheiser HD280s but listening to audio on my MacBook is disappointing. There is a constant hissing/whirring noise that I can hear when my music is turned down. I don't experience this on my Touch, however. My Touch is dead silent.

Anyway, I was wondering how the headphone minijack on the 11.6" Air compares?

 

[Bluemeanie1976]

Can't hear any hissing on mine... have you tried different headphones?

 

[MacBook08]

Can't hear any hissing on mine... have you tried different headphones?

Awesome. Yes, I've tried Apple's In Ear Headphones as well and the hissing is worse.

BTW, nice site.

 

[Bluemeanie1976]

I'd take it back in then. I am getting no hissing, or bizzing, etc, from my headphone jack. Also have big Princess Leia Stennheiser headphones, and the apple in-ear ones. No problems at all.

(Thanks re:site)

 

[highscheme]

I know what you mean about not having a clean headphone jack. Honestly, even iPhones/iPods have this problem which is why most people with really nice headphones get a dock connector audio out instead of using the cheap headphone jack.

Once I buy my Air, I am hoping to find some kind of portable / decently cheap USB headphone adapter but I am not sure if what I am looking for even exists. I don't want a full sized audio interface because it would defeat the purpose of carrying around a tiny notebook

 

[pfjellman]

I know what you mean about not having a clean headphone jack. Honestly, even iPhones/iPods have this problem which is why most people with really nice headphones get a dock connector audio out instead of using the cheap headphone jack.

Once I buy my Air, I am hoping to find some kind of portable / decently cheap USB headphone adapter but I am not sure if what I am looking for even exists. I don't want a full sized audio interface because it would defeat the purpose of carrying around a tiny notebook

i've never experienced this issue before on any apple product. ipods, touches, iphones, ipads, laptops (EDIT: i did experience this on one out of many apple products, my 2007 MBP 15"), desktops, you name it.

i currently have 2 iphones, an ipad, mac pro, mbp 15" and mba 13" and they all sound clean and crystal clear with my headphones. i've used apple earbuds, sennheiser hd280 pros, able planet noise canceling headphones and bose quietcomfort noise canceling headphones.

 

[Corax]

My new MBA 13" also is dead silent when nothing playing at all, even when I crank up the volume at its fullest.

 

[Bluemeanie1976]

I know what you mean about not having a clean headphone jack. Honestly, even iPhones/iPods have this problem which is why most people with really nice headphones get a dock connector audio out instead of using the cheap headphone jack.

Once I buy my Air, I am hoping to find some kind of portable / decently cheap USB headphone adapter but I am not sure if what I am looking for even exists. I don't want a full sized audio interface because it would defeat the purpose of carrying around a tiny notebook

Ooooh... You're one of those 'audiophiles'...
*backs slowly to the door*

 

[The Viking]

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On nice speakers or headphones, every time my sound card kicks on I get a lot of low-level static on my MacBook Pro. The built-in audio interface is extremely "dirty". It's super distracting, and much worse than any sound quality issues on the iPod/iPad.

I'm not holding out much hope for any improvement in my forthcoming Air, but I'll post some critical listening results when it shows up.

 

[highscheme]

Ooooh... You're one of those 'audiophiles'...
*backs slowly to the door*

Are you serious? I am not talking about spending $5000 on 4" thick speaker wire, and I don't consider myself an "audiophile".

I am talking about if you have a pair of $300 studio headphones, you can hear the difference between a headphone jack or a cleaner audio out. It's not even close.

The iPod touch is actually relatively decent compared to some past ipods, but in general it's better to use a dock line out if your signal chain warrants it.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Are you serious? I am not talking about spending $5000 on 4" thick speaker wire, and I don't consider myself an "audiophile".

I am talking about if you have a pair of $300 studio headphones, you can hear the difference between a headphone jack or a cleaner audio out. It's not even close.

The iPod touch is actually relatively decent compared to some past ipods, but in general it's better to use a dock line out if your signal chain warrants it.

Those "oxygen free veal copper" wire types crack me up. OK, the power company still uses "crappy" cable from the power generator to your house, through your breaker box and in the wall to your outlet, but replace the 3 feet between your outlet and your amp and you'll have godlike tone.

 

[mcvaughan]

No hissing, and crystal clear between my MBA and Klipsch earbuds.

 

[pfjellman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

On nice speakers or headphones, every time my sound card kicks on I get a lot of low-level static on my MacBook Pro. The built-in audio interface is extremely "dirty". It's super distracting, and much worse than any sound quality issues on the iPod/iPad.

I'm not holding out much hope for any improvement in my forthcoming Air, but I'll post some critical listening results when it shows up.

please do. i'm not an audiophile, but i have very high standards for audio. i remember refusing to download 128kbps mp3s back in the day when mp3s were fairly new, because no music was better than crappy quality versions of music lol.

i've done a lot of audio engineering, recording, mixing, etc. i have a 13" mba and am completely pleased with it's headphone jack. as i said in my earlier comment i've used several medium/high-end headphones ($300-$600) and some low-end ones as well for testing.

now if only it had a firewire port so i could try out my mk2 active powered monitors -- those things sound amazing. but for now i'll leave them hooked up to my mac pro where they belong. =)

 

[Bluemeanie1976]

Are you serious? I am not talking about spending $5000 on 4" thick speaker wire, and I don't consider myself an "audiophile".

I am talking about if you have a pair of $300 studio headphones, you can hear the difference between a headphone jack or a cleaner audio out. It's not even close.

The iPod touch is actually relatively decent compared to some past ipods, but in general it's better to use a dock line out if your signal chain warrants it.

It was a joke, old chap... Hence the *backs slowly to the door*...

 

[The Viking]

No hissing, and crystal clear between my MBA and Klipsch earbuds.

I trust Klipsch earbuds. I have a pair of Image X10s. On them and my Beyerdynamics, I get tons of hissing on the MBP that is clearly audible during music and a few seconds during/after every sound (i.e. new mail notification).

I'm feeling a bit cautiously optimistic, we'll see when my MBA shows up (Hurry up, shipping!)

 

[pfjellman]

I trust Klipsch earbuds. I have a pair of Image X10s. On them and my Beyerdynamics, I get tons of hissing on the MBP that is clearly audible during music and a few seconds during/after every sound (i.e. new mail notification).

I'm feeling a bit cautiously optimistic, we'll see when my MBA shows up (Hurry up, shipping!)

yeah now that you mention it, i've experienced this exact same issue on my 2007 MBP 15"', with the popping sound a second before and during sound -- just haven't had headphones plugged into that thing in a long time.

you won't have this issue with the new MBA. just double-checked with some high end noise canceling able planet and sennheiser studio pro headphones. no hiss/pop before or during any sound, just perfect, crystal audio. =)

 

[MacBook08]

Thanks everyone for the input. I can't wait to get my 11.6" Ultimate!

 

[DreamLand]

Hi

I have a fourth gen iPod Touch and a MacBook. Listening to any audio on the Touch is great with my Sennheiser HD280s but listening to audio on my MacBook is disappointing. There is a constant hissing/whirring noise that I can hear when my music is turned down. I don't experience this on my Touch, however. My Touch is dead silent.

Anyway, I was wondering how the headphone minijack on the 11.6" Air compares?

I hear hissing/whirring noise when the MBA is connected to power adapter. My wife has same issue as well. We both have 1.6 4GB 11.6". Very strange problem!

 

[Murl]

Those "oxygen free veal copper" wire types crack me up. OK, the power company still uses "crappy" cable from the power generator to your house, through your breaker box and in the wall to your outlet, but replace the 3 feet between your outlet and your amp and you'll have godlike tone.

Lol I love this, other people trying to justify a ludicrous amount of money for copper wire are so perplexed when I present this argument.

 

[Over Achiever]

I just plugged in a set of headphones, and I don't hear any buzzing. Doesn't matter if it's plugged in or not. Sorry I wasn't able to replicate it =/

Tested on an 11.6" MBA

 

[DreamLand]

I just plugged in a set of headphones, and I don't hear any buzzing. Doesn't matter if it's plugged in or not. Sorry I wasn't able to replicate it =/

Tested on an 11.6" MBA

Did you try while the MBA charger is plugged in?

 

[Over Achiever]

Did you try while the MBA charger is plugged in?

Yes, it didn't matter whether the charger was plugged in or not, I could not hear any buzzing or hissing.

 

[DreamLand]

Yes, it didn't matter whether the charger was plugged in or not, I could not hear any buzzing or hissing.

For me I don't hear the hissing sound immediately after I plug in the charger. Hissing sound starts whenever I play a song or a video. I'll try again with another headphone and see if the issue resolve.

 

[mbairdennis]

I know what you concern about the macbook air. I also have the exact concern on choosing my new laptop. I can clearly tell you the headphone jack of the new macbook air is dead silent all the time. I had a macbook pro 13 mid 2010 base model just before I bought the air. I used it for 3 months and the headphone jack was silent when no sound output from the laptop. It had the very very low level of white noise in the background once I played any song or sound output from the laptop. And I could even hear the white noise suddenly stop seconds after the sound output was stopped. Which means the noise didn't start and stop at the moment the sound output came out. The noise actually start before the sound output come out from the headphone and stop some seconds after the sound output stop. This is disappointing when happen on macbook pro.

To conclude what I just said: the macbook air's headphone jack is like those in iphones or ipod(dead silent at the time).
In the other hand, the macbook pro 13 still have the flaw on the headphone jack noise control.

 

[XiaoLongBao]

I hear a hissing sound too. I first noticed it when I was on youtube and had my Denon AH-C351 plugged in. I realized that whenever Youtube was trying to load a flash ad, I could hear a pop sound followed by a sustained hiss. A minute after I leave the site, the hissing goes away.