Speaker on right side louder than on left side?

[Bengt77]

It's only today that I noticed my MacBook's right speaker is considerably louder than the one on the left. I opened Sound panel in System Preferences to see if the balance was off, but it was set at dead center. Then, I dragged the balance slider all the way to the left to see if the sound coming from the left speaker was okay at all. Well, it sure isn't. Very muffled, muddy sound. No highs at all. Dragging the slider to the right side reveals a very different sound texture. Very crisp, as it should be. Really weird. Anybody else experiencing this odd speaker behaviour?

I googled for this problem and found this thread, right here on Mac Forums. It's a thread for the MacBook Pros, though. The people with a MacBook Pro think it's because there's a subwoofer on the right side. Well, the MacBook doesn't have a subwoofer, so it can't be that. Any ideas? Is it repair time?

By the way, I have a late 2008 unibody MacBook, the 2,4GHz model.

 

[toolbox]

Does it do the same thing when you plug in head phones?

 

[Bengt77]

Good question. Let me check. Haven't used headphones with my MacBook yet.

Hmmmm... no, sound is perfect when using headphones. What does that say? That I'll just have to accept that the MacBook's speakers are really bad? Do all MacBooks have this issue? Is it an issue at all, or a feature?

EDIT: Fiddling with the balance controls again, reveals that when I drag the slider all the way to the left, there's still only coming sound from the right. Muffled and muddy, but still only from the right. No sound from the left. I'm going to restart and see if it's this way in Vista, too. Let's see if it's a hardware or software issue.

 

[Bengt77]

Windows allows the user to completely switch off one speaker. Otherwise I wouldn't know that my MacBook's left speaker is broken. Well, it's the speaker itself, or either a wire or connection. When I had the right speaker's volume set to zero, I only heard a faint cracking sound from the left speaker. Not good. Will have to bring it in some time next weekend, as I won't have time earlier. Darn, I thought my MacBook was perfect!

 

[18whiterabbit]

Me too! for Macbook Pro

Hi, I just ordered a new macbook pro and received it in the mail two days ago. I haven't used the speakers much until today when I was playing music and realized that the sound in my right speaker was coming out much stronger than the left. I did exactly as you did and discovered the same thing. My speaker sound distribution is dead center, turning it to the left revealed that that speaker's sound was much softer.

I installed Windows 7 on my laptop yesterday and thought it might have to do with that, but I installed all proper sound drivers using Boot Camp and the speaker differences were the same running both Mac and Windows. Therefore I don't think it has to do with that.

Like I said, my Macbook Pro is brand new and I havent done much else on it so idk what the problem can be. I'm going to talk to my friend who is a software developer and see what he thinks. then I'll hit the genius bar. sigh.

I'll post an update if I have a better idea what it is.

 

[lonewolf66]

Does it do the same thing when you plug in head phones?

Im having this same issue but with headphones in. I have tried everything Bengt77 has tried but nothing. Getting what seems like 3 dBs louder on the left side but everything says its centered. Any aidea on how to fix this?