Headphones Noise

[Vidd]

Whenever I plug headphones in there is noise whether or not sound is playing.
This happens with both my Sennheiser and iPod earphones.

It's very irritating and I'm wondering if it's normal.

By noise I mean signal interference.

 

[Sesshi]

If you mean stuff like "blip blip blip blip eeeeeee" then yes, it's normal. The built-in sound of any Mac is just as bad as the cheapest PC.

You can decrease it by putting in an in-line volume control like this and using it as much as possible (i.e. turn the Mac volume up to full), but it won't completely go away.

The only real solution is either to go digital or get an external soundcard

 

[Vidd]

It's not just beeps (I might be imagining those rather than remembering them) but pretty nasty static.
So it's a common fault with cheap PCs? That's a bad show for a >£1000 machine.

What do you mean by going digital exactly? Bluetooth headphones? I really like my Sennheisers so it's pretty disappointing.

 

[nout72]

Yep, mine has noise as well.
The noise appears when a song or movie has stopped playing and I launch or switch to another application or for instance open a map in Finder.
Static noise that will disappear when I alter (increase or decrease) the volume level.
It will reappear when I switch to another app, again I have to alter the volume level to get rid of it.

Weird.

 

[Sesshi]

It's not just beeps (I might be imagining those rather than remembering them) but pretty nasty static.
So it's a common fault with cheap PCs? That's a bad show for a >£1000 machine.

What do you mean by going digital exactly? Bluetooth headphones? I really like my Sennheisers so it's pretty disappointing.

It can be static, a fizzing, the aforesaid rapid blips, etc. Even the Pro has an inferior soundchip in terms of analogue performance in comparison to some competing workstations (where audio performance could be hardly said to be critical, unlike the use many Pros would be put to).

Going digital is using a DAC (digital to analogue converter) or a home-theatre receiver - or if you're feeling fancy, a pair of headphones with built-in DACs (not bad actually) - from the built-in optical digital output of Intel Macs (Pros have separate outputs, others have combined line out / optical out jacks). While the sound capabilities of the chips are once again not that great, the digital output will get the most out of it without extraneous blips, fizzes or scrunchings. The other alternative is as I said an external soundcard.

 

[Vidd]

Incredible! That's very disappointing.
Oh well, I tend to use the built-in speakers anyway and I find them to be excellent.