Macbook Pro Audio Quality

[DLeeWebb]

Originally Posted by MOSA500

I've been lurking here for many years now. I hate that my first post here will make me out to be a huge Apple fanboy, but I honestly couldn't care less. I'm only posting because of the FUD some of the anti-Apple sheep are spreading in this thread.



Chipset is just one one thing in a long chain of components that makes up the sound that comes through your headphones and into your ears.

I have a perfect example for you.

I recently went through THREE HP laptops. The one I had purchased more than a year ago, the "loaner" I received while that one was "fixed" (the loaner ended up being defective), and then the system HP eventually replaced my dead laptop with.

All three used the exact same "Conexant HD Audio" chipset. But all three had vastly different sound coming out of the headphone jack. The original laptop, a dv5000z, was fatiguing, distorted, lifeless, and the volume couldn't be turned up passed 1/5 without becoming incredibly distorted.

The "loaner" dv6000z sounded more akin to a $50 modern portable CD player. Bloated bass and somewhat muddy mids. But not distorted or fatiguing like the previous system.

The final system they sent me, a dv6000t with the Conexant chip, again, sounds completely different from the other two. The sound is pumped up, bass is punchy, no distortion whatsoever. It actually sounds "decent".

So, even if a MacBook and a Dell had the same audio processor, that doesn't mean they will produce the same end results because of other components in the chain.

Also, many PC fans (including Linux users) forget the fact that Macs are bit perfect out of the box. Windows XP, Vista, and even Linux all resample to 48KHz.



I can't help but laugh out loud when people say things like this. It's just pure ignorance and it shows that the person in question has absolutely never used a Mac.

Anyway, most of us who have Macs are former PC users. We switched to OS X because we got tired of using an operating system that is still stuck in 1995. Macs are for people who want something that is easy to use, MODERN (unlike XP and Vista), and even more advanced than Windows.

Me? I've built multiple PCs, picking out each individual component that went into the system. I know how to use a computer. But Windows is just so maddeningly outdated that its ridiculous.

Everything from installing software to connecting USB flash drives is stuck in the past in Windows. To use my two printers in Windows requires gigabytes worth of drivers and software to be installed. In OS X? Simply connect them. No drivers to install, no "new hardware found" junk. They just work. Installing software in OS X? 90% of the time you simply click on the .dmg file and drag and drop the resulting icon to the Applications folder. In Windows? Run through the installer.

Then there are other problems with Windows. Even Vista is STILL built around the registry, STILL requires HDD defragmentation, etc. Whats worse is that security reports put Vista as even more insecure than XP! Even Microsoft admitted that its just as easy to run unsigned code in Vista as it is in XP.

Which brings me to another point. Avoiding viruses and spyware is not a matter of "having common sense". Why? Because both XP and Vista can and do run unsigned code without the users knowledge. You can have a virus or spyware installed without your knowledge at all. Even declining an agreement can result in software installed. Case in point is the Sony "rootkit fiasco". Browsing seemingly innocent sites can result in spyware or virus installation.



And here we have another comment that just makes me literally laugh out loud. These comments prove who has or has not used OS X.

How is it poorly designed? How is it unintuitive? Explain please. Give a real example.

You want to talk about unintuitive, lets talk about Windows/Linux (since most Linux window managers are poor ripoffs of OS X, like Gnome, or Windows 98 like KDE). Dealing with multiple windows? In XP/Linux you can alt-tab through them or click on the little bars on the top or bottom of the screen. In Vista you can do something slightly better by using Flip3D to scroll through them. In OS X you can hit F9 or set up hot corners. All your open windows show up on screen and you can click what you want. Its that simple.

Installing software? In XP/Vista you have to run everything through an installer. In Linux, for many things, you have to spend far too much time in the command line enabling "repositories" or other nonsense just to be able to do something. In OS X? Double click the .dmg and drag and drop the icon. Uninstall? Right click > send to trash.

And you, an admitted Linux user, how can you say anything about "unintuitive" when even the most "user friendly" Linux distros require far too much time spent in the command line to just get something as simple as DVD playback going. Installing drivers for certain GPUs or wireless cards, that would simply just work in OS X or Windows, can require 20-30 minutes in a command line configuring things, compiling packages, etc.

OS X simply works like a modern operating system should.



Again, completely untrue.

Whats wrong with the dock? It's more useful and more customizable than the taskbar or equivalent ripoffs in Linux. You can also auto-hide it.

Doesn't give you much to configure? Again, why not try to actually use Mac OS X before saying bad things about it? I can change just as much about it as one can in Linux and far more than XP or Vista.

Can't maximize? You can make windows fullscreen if you like. Though it is entirely pointless. OS X is designed to maximize the use of your screen space through things like Expose. Why would I want an application fullscreen anyway?

Every application is shareware? Again, try using OS X. There is as much freeware out there for the Mac as there is Windows. Whats better is that its not all junk like Linux. But compared to Windows, I only had to buy a couple of extra pieces of software. With my previous HP machine I had to buy an entire software suite to make it useful. With Linux you basically have second rate software that really isn't good for anything.



The iPod headphone out sounds bad? Says who?

I did a lot of research on MP3 players before I bought my first iPod a few years ago. I tried everything from the iRiver H320 to several different Creative players that were available then. None of them could stand up to the quality put out by the iPod.

Same thing recently. I put the 5.5G iPod up against the Zune, Zen Vision: M, and iAudio X5L before settling on the iPod. The iPod simply sounded better than all of them. It was flat, natural, very detailed. All other players sound extremely bloated and muddy in comparison. Especially that iRiver H320. I remember people here at this very forum describing the H3x0 series as "mud".

The iPod has extremely good sound quality. Hence the reason it has sold more than 100 million units and everyone else has basically failed in comparison, especially iRiver.



What "Admission of incompetence" did he have? Please explain that.



Thats funny because I had an Audigy 2 ZS and the MacBook absolutely blows it away.

I do love how all of the anti-Apple sheep here do seem to forget that Mac OS X is bit-perfect out of the box and doesn't subject sound to awful resampling like Windows and Linux.



Proof? Sorry, its hard to believe negative comments about Macs coming from a Zune owner.

Anyway, now that all that is taken care of, I am a former PC user. After getting tired of Windows problems and having a not even 1 year old HP system die on me, only to have it replaced with a "loaner" that was defective as well, I bought a MacBook.

Aside from the fact that OS X is leaps and bounds beyond any other OS and works like a modern OS should, the sound quality out of the MacBook is amazing. Its certainly MUCH better than the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook I had previously, and better than any other Creative card (or MP3 player) I have heard. It's not quite up to my 80GB iPod, but the sound quality is nothing short of amazing compared to the HP systems I have had and the Creative cards I had in the desktops I built myself.

Amen! I refuse to get into these Apple v. PC debates anymore. Shouldn't even be a debate.

[senns&nonsense]

Mosa, you silly "kid", don't you realize that Macs have mediocre sound because they use that Realtek chip....wait, I was wrong, no, I guess they have mediocre sound because of that Sigmatel chip, yeah that's the ticket, it is the specs on that Sigmatel chip that I didn't know about until you proved that I was wrong on the Realtek....oh whatever, if it has an Apple logo I became desperate and pathetic and just start losing it.....oh and please ignore that huge crowd of Mac owners behind the curtain who keep coming to the same conclusion on their surprisingly fine SQ after spending most of their lives hassled and underwhelmed by PCs.....they just must not hear that bottleneck at the Realtek, I mean the Asus factory, I mean the Sigmatel, I mean, oh just forget it.....

[ozz]

if the internet radio would just bump up their quality things would be great
the music i send out in lossless over the optic to the hi-fi is great the i-tunes
at higher rate is ok but internet radio is only tolerable.

[drizek]

The chipset in my laptop is a sigmatel. It is older than the one in the macbook but it is the same chipset. It is horrible, far worse than the integrated audio in my desktop(nvidia nforce2). I guess it would be different than the one in the d620, although id assume also that it is the same chipset that HP uses in their laptops with spdif.

Anyway, as for installing codecs in ubuntu/kubuntu, all you have to do is install the "ubuntu-restricted-extras" package. You dont have to enable any extra repositories to do this.

As for video card drivers, Intel integrated video works out of the box(along with intel audio and intel wifi). In other words, you can install ubuntu on a macbook and you would have 100% of the hardware supported out of the box. Some ATI cards like my 9600xt have opensource drivers for them that ati developed and are included with all linux distributions. Again, these drivers work out of the box and you can run beryl with them no problem. In fact, beryl runs on many video cards that vista wont work with, such as slightly older intel laptops. As for nvidia cards, a new driver is being developed by the community which will allow nvidia cards to also have 3d acceleration out of the box. It will be a few months before it is included by default, but so far development is going well. If you dont want to use this driver, all you have to do to install the nvidia one is go into Add/Remove programs and click on "nvidia driver".

Notice nowhere above did it say compiling. I used to compile everything by hand when I first started using linux. I cant even remember the last time I compiled a program anymore. With 20,000 packages available straight from ubuntu as well as thousands of packages from the net.

[maarek99]

Hm...Macs suck. There are no programs, no utilities, nothing to tweak, noothing.

I use an 8-core mac pro for work (video editing) and it sucks too.

p.s The basic mac mouse is a sick joke.

[mushishi]

Originally Posted by senns&nonsense

Mosa, you silly "kid", don't you realize that Macs have mediocre sound because they use that Realtek chip....wait, I was wrong, no, I guess they have mediocre sound because of that Sigmatel chip, yeah that's the ticket, it is the specs on that Sigmatel chip that I didn't know about until you proved that I was wrong on the Realtek....oh whatever, if it has an Apple logo I became desperate and pathetic and just start losing it.....oh and please ignore that huge crowd of Mac owners behind the curtain who keep coming to the same conclusion on their surprisingly fine SQ after spending most of their lives hassled and underwhelmed by PCs.....they just must not hear that bottleneck at the Realtek, I mean the Asus factory, I mean the Sigmatel, I mean, oh just forget it.....

Yours probably an ALC885. His uses a Sigmatel. Both are nothing more than the successor to AC97 integrated audio chips. Both are comparable only to low quality, several-year-old separate cards. That is all there is to it.

Anything else is wishful thinking by the impecunious but ostentatious.

[deathBOB]

Has anyone done conclusive testing on this? What laptop has the best sound?

I only ask because I'll be buying a laptop in a little while and sound is one of those important things that's always ignored in reviews...

[drizek]

Any laptop with a pcmcia slot or a USB port will work fine. You will need an external solution every time. You can either get the audigy2 zs pcmcia card(which may or may not fit in your laptop) or get a USB DAC. USB sound cards like the turtlebeach micro are fairly decent ive heard too, and it has toslink if your laptop doesnt already.

[bowraboy]

Originally Posted by maarek99

Hm...Macs suck. There are no programs.

Plenty of applications though.

[Macwizard]

Who cares? Go optical out and bypass the soundcard with a highend dac. Don't excpect much from any soundcard, the most noisy and expensive pieces of junk people make you think you need to buy.