My support person got back in touch. Long story, but Apples support process is a shambles, and I got effectively put on IGNORE for a while.
Anyway, they asked engineers who had my device "sup" and the response apparently was "cannot replicate issue, still investigating". Which is an outright lie.
So here's the possibilities:
- They are lying because they don't plan a fix.
- They are actually completely incompetent and 'engineers dept' isn't just one, and they don't share information, and 'T2 audio issue' isn't even logged in any mainstream Apple documentation (this last one is almost known fact at this stage)
- They are lying cos admitting any fault at all will be evidence for court case when apple gets sued for all 2018's being faulty.
I replied to the support guy that I'd like to proceed with refund in that case.
Jumped through many hoops, because Support guy had to do various things before he could even initiate the refund process. Getting a $110 (will be refunded) service report to say "yeah this new replacement laptop has the same issue as last one we did report on".
Now I'm with the Customer Relations agent, kicking off the process. And it's another set of hoops. 6-8 weeks set of hoops. I've been asked about the case, and now apparently they are going to do back and triple-check from every other party on this case.
I guess with reduced profits Apple staff have been told to be super tight.