Some 2018 MacBook Pro Owners Experiencing Crackling Speakers

[davidec]

Dear apple, it's a sample rate conflict. Force audio / midi to lock to 44.1kHz on your next update and it will fix the issue. Then get your team to look at how T2 is clocking to the DAC within the MPB to fix it going forward.
Or, get some one within the Logic team to help you!

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Seems like just about every new version of an Apple device has some sort of issue. So what are we going to label this one? Speaker-gate? Crackle-gate?

 

[drewyboy]

What’s the price have to do with anything? That’s the nature of tech sometimes, is that there are glitches and bugs, just like it is with the Apple Watch, the iPhone, the iPad, those all have patches that repair intermittent issues, as it’s not perfect.

If I buy a Ferrari, I sure as heck don't expect to be dealing with common recalls/fix notifications crap that your typical GM, Ford, Chevy, Etc do all the time.

 

[CreeptoLoser]

That's because there's vinyl "crackle" and "pop" effects in the song. Doesn't take a genius to work that one out.

You missed the joke.
[doublepost=1533783450][/doublepost]

This issue also exists with iMac Pro... and it isn't really "crackling speakers" since the problem occurs both on internal and external speakers. It is therefore sound chip problem, most likely with T2. Apple has now had quite a long time to fix it but it hasn't

The driver needs a full rewrite. It's as if it is using a legacy driver.

Changing the sound settings to 48hz has a limited effect.

 

[john123]

Don't lose time, there are 3 type of people, those who hate anything Apple does and criticize it, those who love it no matter what and will tell you it is the user fault, and then there are smart people who like what there is to like and criticize what is to be criticized (and pretend what they paid for), the 3rd group makes too much sense for the others 2 to understand

Don’t forget how people in the third group get accused by people in groups 1 and 2 of being in the “other” group. The whole thing is mind-boggling.

 

[Pootie Tang]

If I buy a Ferrari, I sure as heck don't expect to be dealing with common recalls/fix notifications crap that your typical GM, Ford, Chevy, Etc do all the time.

Entire 2017 Ferrari Lineup Recalled for Takata Airbags
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-ca...7-ferrari-lineup-recalled-for-takata-airbags/

 

[Feenician]

Entire 2017 Ferrari Lineup Recalled for Takata Airbags
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-ca...7-ferrari-lineup-recalled-for-takata-airbags/

Boom. Exactly.

Almost no-one, except for the most basic of products makes the whole product from start to finish themselves. If you’re making something as simple as cheese on any scale, you’re buying milk from someone. If you’re making cutting edge consumer electronics you’re buying some off the shelf stuff, designing some but outsourcing production and if you’re really differentiated designing and manufacturing some yourself. Even Samsung, who are the exception in that they theoretically have the capability of making the whole thing themselves buy Qualcomm chips, Corning Gorilla glass and so on.

Nearly 100% of capitalism is acquiring things, adding value (in phones and tablets the OS and Software are the biggest, but not the only differentiators) and selling them at a profit the market will bear.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Yes, this can probably be fixed with a software update, but why should there have to be 1000x patches for a $6000 computer to perform like it should?

———

You think people would be a little confused or upset about new issues arising, but I guess not

Oh no. There’s a problem somewhere in the world. Quick! Someone call Overreaction Man!

 

[Apache1]

Yes, this can probably be fixed with a software update, but why should there have to be 1000x patches for a $6000 computer to perform like it should?

———

You think people would be a little confused or upset about new issues arising, but I guess not

I think this probably pales in comparison to the number of people that died due to GM's bad ignition design or nearly all cars using defective air bag that caused severe injuries or death. The price of these are $30,000 to $90,000.
[doublepost=1533794035][/doublepost]If all these Apple laptops are so bad why do I see half of all laptops in major airports MacBooks or MacBook Pros? Its like a sea of Apple products everywhere you look.

 

[pipis2010]

Might have some plugin maybe.



That's exactly what I set it at, just luck I guess.

Fyi, 32-bit/48KHz doesn’t even make sense in general audio terms - 24-bit/48KHz makes more sense... Anyway, we will soon know exactly what is happening and why
[doublepost=1533796119][/doublepost]

Last few years there's a huge markup on MBP's, in most countries in Europe they are €500-600 more than about 4 years ago, so yes, they got a substantial price increase.

And it doesn't stop there, for instance, iPhone got a substantial price increase as well amongst other products.

Funny how Americans think that the rest of the world has similar Apple prices to them... even funnier now that the Chinese import taxes will increase dramatically...
[doublepost=1533796701][/doublepost]

The T2 chip handles the DAC audio portion. When you connect an external device through HDMI, the T2 DAC portion is bypassed and the stream is sent as digital audio (PCM or Dolby Digital) to your TV which your TV converts it to analog then amplifies that analog audio to its speakers.
[doublepost=1533775602][/doublepost]Temporary fix IMO is to buy an external USB DAC and send all your audio to that device. Crackling gone until software update

Sure add an extra $100-$200 to the already overpriced laptop... sorry, don’t agree with you, but this is a temporary solution

 

[Sovon Halder]

Thank GOD!

I was worried there for a second that people had nothing to complain about 2018 models.

Now the universe is balanced.

 

[darkinners]

I am pretty sure it's software issue because it doesn't only fart when using internal speakers and internal sound driver.
It farts randomly even I am using thunderbolt external audio interface and external speakers connected to that audio interface. It doesn't happen quite often, about once in a few days.

 

[Guy Clark]

Boom. Exactly.

Almost no-one, except for the most basic of products makes the whole product from start to finish themselves. If you’re making something as simple as cheese on any scale, you’re buying milk from someone. If you’re making cutting edge consumer electronics you’re buying some off the shelf stuff, designing some but outsourcing production and if you’re really differentiated designing and manufacturing some yourself. Even Samsung, who are the exception in that they theoretically have the capability of making the whole thing themselves buy Qualcomm chips, Corning Gorilla glass and so on.

Nearly 100% of capitalism is acquiring things, adding value (in phones and tablets the OS and Software are the biggest, but not the only differentiators) and selling them at a profit the market will bear.

And that is precisely the issue Apple, Samsung and a whole host of other tech companies contract out their work to China so they have little to do with the manufacturing stage therefore insufficient quality control inevitably becomes an issue.

 

[EternalKitties]

I've seen a few people who own the 2018 macbookpro to face this issue together with the fact that the speakers crackle. The issue other than the fact that the speakers cracks is that whenever you play like a youtube video, sometimes audio will cut, it will buffer forever and no matter what you do you can't play it again. You have to restart the application for the video to load properly. After testing again and again, it can sometimes be triggered by a different application, like opening quick time player, causes the audio on the youtube video and the .mov video itself to cut audio and not play.

It only works again after relaunching the application. I've reformatted/factory reset the computer, reinstalled MacOS, the crackling has disappeared (so far I haven't heard anything in 12 hours of usage since) but the audio cutting still presist, however with youtube video, I do not need to restart the application anymore but by simply opening a new tab. (it still happens with like spotify etc).

To note, I've sent my computer into an authorised service center and they were unable to diagnose any issues with it. It seems that my friend who also got his 2018 macbookpro from the same shop at the same time, the 1st batch in country doesn't have this issue.

 

[upandown]

I have the crackling speakers in my 2018 13.

 

[Substance90]

Some of the above comments are not surprising already, as this really is a non-issue, as a software patch *should* be able to repair this problem. But some will make it seem like the 2018 MacBook Pro is a ‘failure’ because of the sound crackling.

Such small "non-issues" are a real slap in the face when you've forked over 4-5 grand for a laptop.

What’s the price have to do with anything?

Price has everything to do with it because that's always been Apple's justification of the huge markup on the PC components inside - that it just works compared to other OEMs laptops. Well nowadays MBPs sadly don't "just work" anymore. Not more than a comparable premium Windows laptop.

 

[MacBH928]

As long as the stock price grows and Apple keeps hitting the $1T mark, he must be thinking people are excited to have faulty-underpowered-overpriced machines.

I say vote with your money.

 

[curtvaughan]

Horrible? Will this MBP fiasco ever end?

Or is it just gonna keep getting worse and worse?

It will worsen until they finally get out of the Mac business altogether and just stick with phones.

 

[EvilEvil]

Reminds me of my 2010 MBP's crackling speakers.

 

[Hustler1337]

It's called the iFart - brand new feature for the MacBook Pro line.

This also explains why the 2018 line has thermal throttling going on.

 

[skitidetdu]

Some of the above comments are not surprising already, as this really is a non-issue, as a software patch *should* be able to repair this problem. But some will make it seem like the 2018 MacBook Pro is a ‘failure’ because of the sound crackling.

I have students with this problem with macbook pro's from 2015 so it is nothing apple have solved with any software patch yet

 

[Bacillus]

That's because there's vinyl "crackle" and "pop" effects in the song. Doesn't take a genius to work that one out.

Eddy will find some rapper to add a spicy effect to the crackle for under $ 20 million

 

[YaBe]

Entire 2017 Ferrari Lineup Recalled for Takata Airbags
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-ca...7-ferrari-lineup-recalled-for-takata-airbags/

Yes but 2 wrong do not make a right, and the comment you reacted was "If I buy a Ferrari, I sure as heck don't expect to be dealing with common recalls/fix notifications crap that your typical GM, Ford, Chevy, Etc do all the time."

He did not say it won't happen, but I am sure Ferrari was kind enought with its customer (read as more than just replacing the Airbags).... still, one case does not justify the other, hiccups happens, but in Apple case, it happens too often.

I am sure those Ferrari users were a lot more vocal than people around here , and Ferrari definetly won't be blaming the customers

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

It is a trillion dollar company! This is unacceptable. You could buy nearly seven international space stations ($150b each) for that, or seven entire Apollo mission, totalling in ~42 landings.

Why does Apple still make garbage hardware? They keep using capacitors which are not up to the task year after year despite knowing they fail, their flex damage is still a real problem in their smartphones with circuits popping off the motherboard. They still can't get a graphics card that doesn't die just after warranty. The list goes on.

Instead, we get excuses from the community instead of anger. Your iPhone 4 signal dies? "You are holding it wrong". Your MacBook PRO graphics card dies and throttles when you export video? "You idiot you should use a desktop for that". Your iPhone bends? "You are carrying it wrong". Your keyboard stops working? "You are typing wrong".

Now we have throttling AND crackling speakers on the new computer. None of these was picked up in QA? What else is wrong with them? it's not that they are losing their build quality but the components are now mid-range or less. That's even WORSE! All the while they are getting more expensive. The deltas on Apple products are getting worse for the consumer each and every year. But because it's happened over a decade we (some of us) haven't noticed.

Its time the community demands better, rather than make excuses for them. The people demanding better quality are also Apple fans, not your enemy. Apple has become garbage, its time for the community to stop making excuses for Apple and hold them to account. That way we ALL get better products.

Stop complaining about your mouth and agreeing with your wallet. Stop buying garbage.

 

[YaBe]

It is a trillion dollar company! This is unacceptable. You could buy nearly seven international space stations ($150b each) for that, or seven entire Apollo mission, totalling in ~42 landings.

Why does Apple still make garbage hardware? They keep using capacitors which are not up to the task year after year despite knowing they fail, their flex damage is still a real problem in their smartphones with circuits popping off the motherboard. They still can't get a graphics card that doesn't die just after warranty. The list goes on.

Instead, we get excuses from the community instead of anger. Your iPhone 4 signal dies? "You are holding it wrong". Your MacBook PRO graphics card dies and throttles when you export video? "You idiot you should use a desktop for that". Your iPhone bends? "You are carrying it wrong". Your keyboard stops working? "You are typing wrong".

Now we have throttling AND crackling speakers on the new computer. None of these was picked up in QA? What else is wrong with them? it's not that they are losing their build quality bu the components are now mid-range or less. That's even WORSE! Or while getting more expensive. The deltas on Apple products are getting worse for the consumer.

Its time the community demands better, rather than make excuses for them. The people demanding better quality are also Apple fans, not your enemy. Apple has become garbage, its time for the community to stop making excuses for Apple and hold them to account. That way we ALL get better products.

Stop complaining about your mouth and agreeing with your wallet. Stop buying garbage.

Exactly I did just that, I buy from Apple only what they actually work on, iPads and Accessories, since they are not a computer company anymore, no more computer from them