Something weird is happening when I listen to music on my new MacBook Pro. It's kind of hard to describe, but there seems to be some sort of mild dynamic range compression in effect. It's not specific to iTunes because I've noticed the exact same effect when playing music through QuickTime and VLC. If the song you're listening to has a lot of peaks in rapid succession, like a hi-hat trying to cut through some loud vocals, the MBP sounds like it's raising up the quiet bits to match the loud bits. Those of you familiar with dynamic range compression may know what I'm on about. It's like listening to the radio, where the volume of the music is fluctuating constantly so that quiet passages can be heard over your car's engine.
What's even weirder is that if I go into the iTunes equalizer and simply reduce the preamp to -6dB, then raise the overall system volume to compensate, the effect goes away. The music sounds flatter but more accurate to how it should sound through tiny laptop speakers. I'm totally baffled as to what's happening.
What's even weirder is that if I go into the iTunes equalizer and simply reduce the preamp to -6dB, then raise the overall system volume to compensate, the effect goes away. The music sounds flatter but more accurate to how it should sound through tiny laptop speakers. I'm totally baffled as to what's happening.