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Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

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Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#101

Post by bombcar »

anon22981 wrote: post #26

I’m not sure if a bug or a feature, but on two different iphones I’ve had the issue where the volume suddenly aggressively goes up or down without me pressing the volume button. Has happened at least in netflix and youtube. Always when I’m actively using the phone. Might an ill fitted case or something, but those phones had different cases. Anyone know if this is some bug or am I being dumb?

Mine (possibly related) is volume will look normal but be super quiet - touch the control at all and suddenly it’s as loud as it looked.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#102

Post by pdimitar »

bombcar wrote: post #98
pdimitar wrote: post #95

Long ranty post. I'll use the occasion to crap on macOS because yes, I experienced this, not to mention random devices disconnecting in conditions of higher memory pressure (i.e. starting a k8s cluster and doing tests, then tearing it down, then starting another etc.) -- one time even my keyboard disconnected which was annoying to say the least. To this day my $300 dock sometimes doesn't at all get detected after I w…

I’m lucky my current Mac sleeps well, but in the past I’ve resorted to sleeping the display only (and never sleeping the Mac itself) when I’ve had wake from sleep issues. The additional power and heat is incredibly small in the long run, and without spinning rust it likely even extends the life as it doesn’t have cool/heat cycles.

I considered it but the iMac Pro has high idle power draw.

Though I probably wouldn't feel it because no matter what I tried I couldn't make it not wake up for 30s each 5 minutes anyway...

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#103

Post by rado »

coldtea wrote: post #100
rado wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if the next app has a text input in focus.

Not sure what you mean. With this setting, I never have to "switch back to the default language", it only switches when I explicitly do so with a "next input source" keyboard shortcut. Regardless if the "next app has a text input in focus" or not, the language I have set (english or my local one), sticks when I change apps.

Also, open Spotlight when in an app with alternative input language. Spotlight should switch to default, but it doesn’t, and adopts the unwanted alternative language.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#104

Post by elSidCampeador »

donatj wrote: post #18
tmikaeld wrote: post #14

The left/right channels drifting randomly is one thing (SoundSource fixes it), but it gets worse.. I've been trying to raise awareness of Apples horrible audio issues for quite a few years now. Driver re-starts and USB re-connects, for no apparent reason. [0][1] I have the issue on Mac Mini (2018) Intel, Mac Studio M1, Macbook Pro M2, so it's not device specific. [0] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/132423 […

I use an external DAC and encounter this crackling problem regularly. I have to unplug/replug my DAC to get it to go back to normal. I just thought it was a hardware problem with my DAC because it’s getting up there in the years, thought the caps might be going. Hmm…

TIL! So far I'd been thinking that it was maybe an issue with my headphones (Bose QC45, connecting to the MBA M1)

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#105

Post by conradfr »

tmikaeld wrote: post #14

The left/right channels drifting randomly is one thing (SoundSource fixes it), but it gets worse.. I've been trying to raise awareness of Apples horrible audio issues for quite a few years now. Driver re-starts and USB re-connects, for no apparent reason. [0][1] I have the issue on Mac Mini (2018) Intel, Mac Studio M1, Macbook Pro M2, so it's not device specific. [0] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/132423 […

I've definitely had the crackling on my M1 Ventura.

Also I use an old AudioBox USB and it sometimes dies and needs the unplug/replug.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#106

Post by murermader »

chedabob wrote: post #55
izacus wrote: post #15

And I don't think it'll get better, with Sonoma I'm seeing more and more audio switching bugs and weird behaviours when I connect headphones. At least this balance bug disappeared, although it was plagueing me on my previous MacBook.

I am currently experiencing an unbelievably annoying bug where once I finish on Google Meet in Firefox, all audio/video across the whole OS plays in slo-mo. I have to turn my headphones off and back on to fix it. It's something specific to these headphones (Sony WH-C700N), as they do something different to get higher audio quality when using the microphone. Apple have helpefully removed Bluetooth Explorer from Xcode…

That is so funny, sometimes I experience the exact opposite. After connecting my MacBook to my projector (ViewSonic 747), all video (Chrome, Quicktime, IINA, etc) plays like 30x faster. The only thing that helped was rebooting the laptop.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#107

Post by coldtea »

rado wrote: post #103
coldtea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean. With this setting, I never have to "switch back to the default language", it only switches when I explicitly do so with a "next input source" keyboard shortcut. Regardless if the "next app has a text input in focus" or not, the language I have set (english or my local one), sticks when I change apps.

Also, open Spotlight when in an app with alternative input language. Spotlight should switch to default, but it doesn’t, and adopts the unwanted alternative language.

The behavior I want (and get) is: nothing switches input language, except me explicitly.

So,if I'm in an app "with alternative input language X" it means at some point before I excplitly set X as the active input language (and that gets enforced system-wide). Then if I change to Spotlight, it still uses the same X language.

I understood that to be what you also want, but perhaps you want the opposite (which I haven't tried and don't really want - to have apps remember their own input language each. Then the same toggle looks to be able to cover that, but perhaps not well, as you say).

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#108

Post by TillE »

goblin89 wrote: post #43

I have been producing music on macOS for 8+ years on multiple laptops (from x86 to ARM), different external DACs, wired and wireless headphones, etc. I am very sensitive to L/R balance and sometimes have to adjust the panning ever so slightly if my ears are off (e.g., after pressure change during a flight) in phone’s Accessibility settings. The fact that there is an Apple-specific L/R audio balance bug, which now see…

In terms of serious Mac audio issues, when I got my new M1 MBP I quickly noticed a faint crackling sound (unaffected by the volume setting) in the headphone jack when plugged in via MagSafe or a left side USB port. So I just have it plugged in to power on the right side instead.

Other people have reported it too, so it's not just a one-off defect. I know electrical engineering is hard, but it's a really annoying problem to exist on a super expensive laptop.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#110

Post by knute »

donatj wrote: post #22
tmikaeld wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 4 external all different sound cards and AMPs (USB), it's the same on all of them. There is no software remedy, only re-connecting physically works (temporarily)

Well dang. I have had intention on buying a new DAC largely due to the issue; for better or worse there goes that plan.

I also didn't realize that this problem was common, but I switched to using an optical toslink cable to an external DAC which seems to have fixed it for me. Although now the system volume control doesn't work, but I can work around that with the volume control on my amp.
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