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Wow, those macbook speakers sure do suck

W

wako

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 6, 2005
1,404
1
So today while I was forced to goto the mall, i went to mac store while everyone else was buying their crap.

I was toying around with a 2.0 white macbook and surfing around on youtube just looking at random videos (had to watch the mac saber battles!). The volume was at the max and I could already barely hear the videos.

Then some guy across from me with a macbookpro 17'' starts listening to some rap music and TOTALLY cancels out all my sound. Could not hear a thing! I even tried putting my ear up to the MB and was only barely making out the sound.

The equivalent (in my opinion) of the macbook max setting on sound was like my a 12'' PowerBook with 6 bars!
 
That makes me wonder what the speaker size difference is between the macbook 13" versus the 12" PB. I wouldn't be suprised if they were smaller, given the form factor.
 
Definitely beats my G4 iBook's speakers. These ones have at least a little bass response. Hey, they're laptop speakers anyways.. What the hell dyou expect.
 
I like my MB speakers. Perhaps they don't go as loud as the MBP's, but they have better bass than PB/iBook G4, and go loud enough.:cool:
 
This is the only downside to the MacBook, IMO. Yes, the Macbook's speakers really really do suck. Thankfully they made up for it with the optical in/outs, but it's lame (especially because it's a Front Row Mac) that if you play a movie on it, you can barely hear it. :(

Maybe Apple can come out with a "Boost" software patch for this model. Playing around with VLC and other software, made the sound MUCH MUCH better then you could pull off with apple's max audio setting. They need to fix this.
 
Josias said:
I like my MB speakers. Perhaps they don't go as loud as the MBP's, but they have better bass than PB/iBook G4, and go loud enough.:cool:
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Absoutely no way. My Powerbook G4 12" is almost twice the volume as the Macbook. Something is wrong here, and I think it's just a software issue, not actually the speakers themselves.
 
The speakers on the MacBook are horrible. But then again, after owning the 17" MacBook Pro, all notebook speakers simply can't compare to the speakers on the 17" MBP. :D

I do understand the limit in space with the macbooks, but c'mon Apple; you aren't exactly selling the blackbook at a bargain.
 
theyve managed to cram a lot of computer in not a lot of space. The speakers wouldn't be any more than about a centimetre each. Of course their not gonna have great bass response or go up too loud. I just plug mine into my bass amp to get some fat vibrations :p
 
I would love for someone to test out the Macbook speakers in Boot Camp.

With my Mac mini, the volume is consistently lower in OS X than in Windows. I have to put the volume slider to 20% in Windows, the Mac mini speaker is so loud. :eek:

Like okwahtev says, it's probably a software issue.
 
While my sound expectation from the MacBook was not exactly high to begin with, I believe what one gets for the price charged is inadequate. I went to the ITMS site to listen to a 30 second preview of a song and while it was audible, I had to strain to hear it in conditions that were fairly quiet ... a modest 15 percent boost would satisfy most.
 
I know this may sound stupid but did you set the "two" volume controls correctly? There's a volume setting for whatever media player your using *and* the Mac OS X volume control. If either one is not turned up, the output from the speakers is reduced.
 
After G said:
I would love for someone to test out the Macbook speakers in Boot Camp.

With my Mac mini, the volume is consistently lower in OS X than in Windows. I have to put the volume slider to 20% in Windows, the Mac mini speaker is so loud. :eek:

Like okwahtev says, it's probably a software issue.
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This is true....when I ran Boot Camp, the volume which I normally use in OS X is lower than when I run it in Windows. I had to turn down the Windows volume cuz it was sooooo loud. :(
 
I thought they were pretty bad myself. The MBP spanks the MB easily. I don't really think the MB speakers are better than my iBook G4 speakers were...
 
You use the speakers on a laptop, and expect good sound quality?

Buy some decent headphones or external speakers. You won't regret it.
 
By contemporary standards, they really do suck. You won't catch Bose or Harmon Kardon attaching their names to these.
 
emotion said:
You use the speakers on a laptop, and expect good sound quality?

Buy some decent headphones or external speakers. You won't regret it.
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In my experience, and what seems to be the experience of others here, it's not that the quality sucks, but that they're too quiet.

Headphones will work for sure, but I shouldn't have to get out headphones if I want to listen to a short audio clip.

As stated above, it must be a software issue. Hopefully there will be a third party fix if Apple doesn't offer one.
 
If they do suck the so what (I can't say they do haven't heard them)

But c'mon it a laptop with 0.000001 inch woofers....my iMac sounds great compared to what I was expecting from built in speakers....this is what makes Apple, Apple....but laptops...13.3" nahh....not even thing about it :cool:
 
netdog said:
By contemporary standards, they really do suck. You won't catch Bose or Harmon Kardon attaching their names to these.
Click to expand...
i certainly wouldn't buy anything with "Bose" on it anyway...

but the speakers do stink...i actually think the ibook's speakers are better...but i usually use headphones for listening anyway, so it's not too big of a problem...
 
A friend of mine bought a white 2 ghz macbook last week. Being a switcher I helped her setting everything up. Needless to say she was very happy with her machine. The speakers were ok, but not spectacular in my opinion. We compared them to my 15" powerbook. Sitting side by side the macbook played Alice Cooper and my pb ACDC. All you could hear were hells bells. The powerbook rolled tonight on the guitar bite, while the macbooks lips were filled with poison.:)

Btw her macbooks runs great. Temperature was moderate warm after 5 hours of installing & testing. No dead pixels, no scratches, just perfect.
 
mkubal said:
In my experience, and what seems to be the experience of others here, it's not that the quality sucks, but that they're too quiet.

Headphones will work for sure, but I shouldn't have to get out headphones if I want to listen to a short audio clip.

As stated above, it must be a software issue. Hopefully there will be a third party fix if Apple doesn't offer one.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but it's super easy to blow speakers when they are that small and they are confined by such a small space (the speaker need to move air to work remember). I'd imagine that things are very cramped in the Macbook.

Personally I never use the speakers on laptops, the sound quality is always appauling (I have even had a Dell laptop with Harmonn Kardon speakers that was easily worse than my two subsequent 12" pbooks, to address the post above).

Depends if you actually want the _hear_ the sound produced by the computer or not.

I admit I'm reasonably fussy about audio though.
 
emotion said:
Maybe, but it's super easy to blow speakers when they are that small and they are confined by such a small space (the speaker need to move air to work remember). I'd imagine that things are very cramped in the Macbook.

Personally I never use the speakers on laptops, the sound quality is always appauling (I have even had a Dell laptop with Bose sound that was easily worse than my two subsequent 12" pbooks, to address the post above).

Depends if you actually want the _hear_ the sound produced by the computer or not.

I admit I'm reasoably fussy about audio though.
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Agreed, laptop speakers are crap for quality. That's why I got some nice Sennheiser's for my laptop and desktop. But, my old TiBook speakers are much louder than the MB's. I don't need better, just a bit louder.

I got a fever, and the only prescription is louder MB speakers! ;)
 
No one should have to buy external speakers or headphones or anything for decent quality. A person should be able to listen to music or watch a dvd and not be blown away, but the sound should be good for the average user.
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
I dont know about the speakers but any machine with integrated graphics has to suck, thats just how i see it speakers included.
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Do you work for ATI or some other video card company? Every post i see of yours contains bashing of the integrated graphics. Do us a favor and give it a rest.

The speakers are a bit quiet, but overall fine for a laptop. Thats why there is a headphone jack on the MB.
 
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