Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are not getting paid for your servers you are the VC/Angel.
How does that make them the VC/Angel?
They provide the capital required for that venture.
A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
151–160 of 301 posts
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#152IDK, it pales in comparison to any decent monitor speaker. Even the cheapest. Laptops unfortunately always sounds "from inside a cardboard box".
I disagree. The new 16" Macbook Pro design introduced in 2021 has fantastic speakers. They sound extremely good, and I'm not sure I would hear the difference to my 3.5" studio monitors in a blind test (assuming you volume match them). I don't know how they are doing it, but listening to those speakers seems unreal. I opened the Macbook to look at them, the speakers look pretty big and they seem to have a long resonan…
> I disagree. The new 16" Macbook Pro design introduced in 2021 has fantastic speakers. They sound extremely good, and I'm not sure I would hear the difference to my 3.5" studio monitors in a blind test (assuming you volume match them).
That's rather hyperbolic. I think superlatives such as "fantastic" and "extremely good" should be reserved for stuff that's truly exceptional. I have a 14 inch M1 MBP and yes, the speakers are surprisingly good for what they are, but comparing them to monitors tells me your love for this product is clouding your judgement. Or that your hearing isn't all that great.
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, one of the hilarious things about this hobby & engineering science is that 98% of that insane hardware & software engineering work is only necessary because we're trying to cheat the laws of physics in order to deliver decent sound from tinier and tinier speakers. If you're willing to go in the other direction, and tolerate bigger speakers, you can have very very enjoyable sound from the sorts of dumb big-box s…
I've got room for the big boxes. Does anyone sell reasonably affordable ones these days?
Thrift stores, generally.
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#154I wonder how they model the energy output of the speakers. In principle you could have a function that calculates the energy of the spectrum and integrate that over time. If you put out too much energy, what do you do? Reduce the overall volume, apply a frequency cutoff, or a low-pass-filter? I feel there are so many variables here, and it is going to be hard to replicate what Apple does. I know the Asahi-Linux peopl…
The other question is how much is done in software vs hardware? I can imagine an opamp doing the integration to kick in a volume reduction to avoid damaging the speakers when there's been too much power pushed, and Ghidra could never show you that.
It does appear it's done in software, this post is talking about the Free reimplementation: https://github.com/chadmed/speakersafetyd/blob/main/src/type...
(Nobody does maths with opamps any more, it's less area and lower power to ADC the signals you want and do it in digital. It's also much easier to tune)
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Total audio noob here: are you talking about hardware or software DSP? If I had a pair of decent speakers and a microphone hooked up to my PC, how would I go about "tuning" the speakers?
> If I had a pair of decent speakers and a microphone hooked up to my PC, how would I go about "tuning" the speakers? Blatant plug: https://github.com/erdewit/HiFiScan
Thanks, will give it a try.
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're talking about laptop speakers here, where power consumption is important.
In a laptop's energy budget, power spent driving the loudspeakers is probably one of the last concerns. If you integrate the actual power consumed over the playback duration of typical program material, you would find figures that are essentially irrelevant compared to the cost of running the backlight or WiFi radios.
I saw a nice demo recently of the use of chargepump power control to stop the backlight dimming if the audio got too loud, a microcosm of the "PA so loud your lights dim" situation.
(no, I've not been able to find it to show hn)
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, all the bloggers I was reading on the old web were paying for their hosting a few bucks a month and no VC were involved. Some of them included ads but they were mostly in a sidebar.
They were paying for the costs? Then they were the VC. Some of them actually grew to be huge and wealthy.
me paying $5 to wordpress: i'm a venture capitalist now mom
(seriously, this is a very silly way of using terms to cover extremely small amounts of capital)
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#158Is this post part of a longer one? Because after reading it I still don't understand a thing. Did they mean it's done in software (i.e. not hardware)?
Software, surprisingly: https://github.com/chadmed/speakersafetyd/blob/main/src/type...
I'm aware of hardware solutions that do the same thing.
Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most
#159I wonder if malware could bypass the speaker safety daemon and potentially damage hardware or even start a fire? Looks like Apple is relying too much on TrustZone and Secure Boot to prevent physical hardware damage? Also, Apple can now say that jailbreaking the devices could present a physical safety issue. So one more reason for making jailbreaking illegal?
"Modification can lead to danger." has been an excuse used against end-user modification for as long as the concept of legal liability has existed.
It's why most things have "warranty void if removed" stickers and warnings against messing around all over the place. Once anything is intentionally moved out of spec, the manufacturer wants nothing to do with it (and rightfully so).