MacBook Pro (#7): Sound quality -- right speaker seems worse, certain apps affected

Sound quality -- right speaker seems worse Users continue to report poor sound quality from the MacBook Pro under a variety of circumstances.

Mark Qandil reports that, in his case, the issue may be restricted to certain applications. He writes:

"The only noticeable issue so far is the sound quality. There is something else going on with the sound other than just hardware. I had no luck adjusting the equalizer in iTunes, as changes did not do anything. After 30 minutes I was able to adjust. The sound quality while using non apple applications such as VLC, or MPlayer sounds so much better than sounds from iTunes, or QuickTime player and even better than my G4 15" 1.67 powerbook. Somehow it appears sound issue is related to apple applications."

Meanwhile, users continue to note that the right speaker sounds significantly worse than the left speaker.

MacFixIt reader Jordan writes:

"I have a MacBook Pro 2.0GHZ and I definitely noticed a sound quality issue exactly as described here. Distortion in the right speaker noticeable at louder volumes."

George Kopp corroborates:

"My MacBook Pro speakers exhibit the same behavior. The Left speaker sounds normal but the right speaker is tinny and weak. Overall, the volume of the speakers seems less than my G4 PowerBook too."

David Schloss has a simple way for users to demonstrate the right-speaker distortion problem. He writes:

"I wanted to report I'm also experiencing the speaker issue with the MacBook Pro. It's my right speaker as well. A simple test of this is to open up Adium with the Tokyo Train Station soundset on. This soundset uses a tone that rings using stereo, so it's right, left, right. You can hear the distorted speaker clearly when doing this."

Some users have found that turning the volume down slightly reduced distorion. One reader writes:

"When I first played a tune from one of my playlists I too got slightly distorted sound from my right-hand speaker but on closer inspection I realized that the volume was turned up fully. After adjusting it down a notch every thing was nice and clear. I'm not sure this 'distortion' can be described the fault of the MacBook Pro or typical with small speaker systems. My experience with the small speaker systems on laptops is that on full volume you get some distortion."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Previous coverage:

• MacBook Pro (#5): Notes from service manual; Poor sound quality; more
• MacBook Pro #4: FireWire 800 cards for ExpressCard/34 slot on the way
• MacBook Pro #3: Ship date; Lack of third-party adapters; Adding a FireWire 800 port; ExpressCard issues
• MacBook Pro (#2): SuperDrive apparently not dual-layer; S-Video out gone; No internal modem
• Apple releases MacBook Pro Core Duo: 4-5X faster than PowerBook G4, shipping February

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