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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

#71

Post by lloeki »

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…

> all audio/video across the whole OS plays in slo-mo. I have to turn my headphones off and back on to fix it.

Sounds like a sample rate inconsistency issue, maybe a trip to Audio MIDI Setup.app could give hints.

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

#72

Post by peachpossum »

I used to own a 2014 VW GTI and would play my preferred audio from a USB/Lightning connected iPod touch through its entertainment system. The audio system was flipping L/R balance every few minutes, without any input from my end (volume adjustments, play/pause, etc.). It drove me crazy. I always chalked this up to a quality issue with the VW entertainment system since I have never experienced this on any other playback system in my home or in my other cars.

I've heard the occasional random pop or click audio artifacts from my Mac mini home recording studio setup but never experienced the L/R balance issue. And with the more recent macOS versions (Ventura and Sonoma) I don't think I've heard any audio clicks or pops. I'm using an older Roland OctaCapture audio interface, but have tried the Focusrite Scarletts and some MOTU devices without incident.

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

#73

Post by atribecalledqst »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #69

Man I remember having to deal with this multiple times a week, weirdly it stopped maybe from the 2015 MBP onwards for me never encountered it again and assumed it was fixed. But all my computers between the Titanium Powerbook and then had it.

At first I was thinking "huh, I don't think I've ever seen this before..." but come to think of it, there have definitely been a few freak occurrences of the balance suddenly getting out of whack. It throws me for a loop at first because usually the balance suddenly going out in headphones is an indicator that one or the other side is starting to die.

It's pretty rare, I've only seen it a few times, but yeah. Pretty obnoxious

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

#74

Post by voidpointer »

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…

I did experience the issue with an FIIO headphone DAC too. Basically, when connecting the device, the balance slider in audio settings would get initialized to what seemed to be a random value. I am using several other audio interfaces (both USB and Thunderbolt) as well for music production/recording and I have never seen that issue with any of those devices. I suppose it is an interoperability problem between the USB audio class driver and core audio that only manifests for certain types of devices. Still, if it is common enough for people publishing apps to fix it, Apple should get it sorted out.

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

#75

Post by atribecalledqst »

yungporko wrote: post #50

as a long term apple user, their blatant disregard for fixing bugs is really starting to piss me off to the point where next time i upgrade my phone and computer, i'm probably going back to android/linux. their software is literally a microsoft-tier experience (maybe even worse at this point) across the board now, and i'm not going to keep paying a premium for non-premium bullshit full of stupid bugs any junior dev c…

The fun surprise for me after upgrading to Monterey (which I will never stop bringing up in "Mac OS X bug" threads here in case an Apple employee is lurking) is that in new versions of Mac OS X you can't use both Home Sharing in Apple Music and bluetooth headphones at the same time. You can Home Share from Apple Music with wired headphones, and you can use bluetooth headphones with other functionality in the OS. But Apple Music specifically is broken. Possible that this is related to the home sharing being hosted on a really old Mac, but it worked fine on High Sierra!

Apple Music is in general much buggier than iTunes but that's the real dealbreaker for me.

I mostly just use MPD instead, but even that program occasionally has issues, there are a handful of music files that basically cause a fault in the headphones and they dont work right unless I switch to a different song. Still no idea whose fault that is though (OS X? the headphones? MPD?)

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

#76

Post by Adverblessly »

bzzzt wrote: post #56
andrelaszlo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. The annoying thing that used to happen with bluetooth headsets, where macos suddenly decides to use them for input as well as output and the audio quality drops noticeably (full duplex, bitrate, blabla), now happens even when the microphone isn't selected. It really sucks. I'm not using a regular bluetooth headset, these are my hearing aids and my only way to get decent sound in meetings. Switching to mac last…

Any application or website can select the default microphone or a specific audio device which can cause that bluetooth issue. And lots of applications are enabling the microphone even if they don't need it. I don't think switching away from mac would solve that.

On KDE at least the Bluetooth widget lets you pick which audio profile to use, so if for some reason it decides to switch to a duplex profile you can just switch it back, though I can't remember the last time I was forced to do that.

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

#77

Post by Dalewyn »

cm2187 wrote: post #36
sammorrowdrums wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I’ve very much discovered and confirmed this behaviour independently, I was so shocked to learn that it was a known issue. I know it’s silly but it helped me with imposter syndrome to see such a major OS that prides itself on seamless “it just works” experiences tolerate bugs like this. That and the fact if you airplay a movie to Apple TV it thinks you want it to cast over the top of it with random advert videos…

But a lot of those bugs are basic functionalities, it is just that they are not the path Apple wants you to take. For years now, and across iphone models and iOS versions, my iphone randomizes the artwork of the mp3s in the music app (ie display the wrong album cover). I see people complaining about that in forums but I guess if you are not using Apple Music they don't care. I don't seem to be able to copy files from…

Whether you will enjoy using Apple products depends significantly on whether you are willing to go down and only down the One Apple Way(tm).

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

#78

Post by user_7832 »

10729287 wrote: post #64
kpmcc wrote: post #42

The fact that this has existed for so long and is common enough to warrant a third party program devoted to resolving the issue is an embarrassment for Apple. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/balance-lock/id1019371109?mt=1...

There are so many bugs and even more poor ergonomic choices that have been unfixed for years on Apple Devices. It's fascinating considering the whole cult regarding the company's so called attention to details.

Attention to detail, but only when they can market/advertise it, perhaps?

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

#79

Post by te_chris »

I’ve just switched to using a big screen with laptop closed and a usb webcam. I’m now on my second webcam model (razer kiyo pro, after logi brio 500 was not good) and still people I call say my audio distorts after about 5 minutes. It’s so frustrating and seems to be a problem with Mac usb audio. I actually produce music too, but have a thunderbolt interface so that works better

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

#80

Post by frankfrank13 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #69

Man I remember having to deal with this multiple times a week, weirdly it stopped maybe from the 2015 MBP onwards for me never encountered it again and assumed it was fixed. But all my computers between the Titanium Powerbook and then had it.

Agreed, I thought it had been fixed as I haven't seen it on any mac newer than 2013. I really hope someone someday breaks down why this happens. I can't believe its only manifested in <10% of the total macs I've ever used/owned.
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