4 ms·

Has any laptop ever had decent sound? There's not exactly a lot of space there to put in a proper speaker, so it's really amazing the sound is as good as it is

Has any laptop ever had decent sound? There's not exactly a lot of space there to put in a proper speaker, so it's really amazing the sound is as good as it is. Also, modern form factors and aesthetics prohibit placing speakers next to the screen, where they'd be pointed at the user's ears. If you want good sound from a laptop, the answer is pretty simple: 1) plug in some decent headphones, or 2) plug in some real speakers. You can get a pretty decent set of "PC speakers" consisting of satellite speakers and a subwoofer for not much money. You're not really supposed to listen to the laptop speakers if you care about sound and you're not traveling.

barkingcat 4y ago
Try the macbook pro 16 speakers. They are decent-ish I find it funny that a lot of HN posts will expound in expletives about how a certain tech product is the best in class for example, how great macbook pro speakers are and then another poster will say that no laptop has ever had decent speakers… Also, in one post “this dolby surround atmos reproduces everything about the concert, with hundreds of musicians it’s like I’m there” and then in the next post “speakers will never reproduce even the sound of one acoustic piano that’s been mistreated and mistuned, the piano will still sound better and the speaker will never replicate the magic of acoustic instruments” and then in the very next post start quoting how the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem proves that nobody ever needs anything over 44khz to reproduce exactly the sound of all acoustic instruments that ever existed. The story, as always, is more complex than any of these hot takes, and tech folks usually refuse to accept that there are multiple factors at play.
- AlecSchueler 4y ago
  Best in class doesn't have to mean they're good, if they whole class was abysmal to begin with.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Who's the best-in-class dictator? Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, or Franco?
    - hilbert42 4y ago
      I've a firm opinion on that and it doesn't follow the usual orthodoxy (that's if anyone's counting). It's off-topic so I'll only add that they were all despicable ratbags that the world could have done well without.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >I find it funny that a lot of HN posts will expound in expletives about how a certain tech product is the best in class for example, how great macbook pro speakers are and then another poster will say that no laptop has ever had decent speakers… This is not contradictory at all. "Best in class" means exactly that: the best out of the available selections. If they're all terrible, the best-in-class is the least terrible. MBP speakers may be best-in-class (I'm assuming, I don't know), while still being "crap" to someone who values high-fidelity sound.
  - barkingcat 4y ago
    You can try listening to them, some stores have demo models, etc.
hilbert42 4y ago
"You're not really supposed to listen to the laptop speakers if you care about sound and you're not traveling." It's more than just audio quality. Whilst I could spend time on quality, I'll address a serious issue with all modern laptops, that is they simply do not have enough audio gain. Desigers design to the dynamic range allowed by the bit level and power output of the speakers/audio amplifiers—there is never anything left in reserve. Let's go back to my 1930s radio receiver for comparison. Back then, a radio set with say a 5 Watt audio output would give 5W output when the radio station reached 100% modulation of its carrier signal. And to reach this condition the radio receiver would have its volume set to about half way (the volume potentiometer set to about 12 o'clock), so the listener could always increase the gain to 5W on soft low level audio. This was the normal situation with just about every radio receiver ever built in the pre-digital era. That scenario is no longer possible with modern laptops (and much other digital equipment). In a noisy environment, you can no longer trade quality for distortion/clipping which one often wants to do. Same goes for audio recorded at low level, here one cannot reach full volume as there is no reserve audio gain. How many YouTube videos and MP3 files have you heard that have such low level audio that they're essentially inaudible? If you're like me then you'd have to answer hundreds if not thousands. The fact is modern digital designers haven't a clue what to do when it comes to listener audio ergonomics. That they don't is a damn nuisance. The fact that they need to spend some weeks training in an ancient radio factory is an indictment on the poor state of our modern tech education (why didn't their educators tell them to always design in reserve gain in situations such as this?).
- kalleboo 4y ago
  While the average speaker setup may have regressed, the quality of headphones or IEMs you can get for low prices ($15-$50) blows anything from that era out of the water. > In a noisy environment, you can no longer trade quality for distortion/clipping which one often wants to do Whenever a laptop comes out that lets you raise the volume to clipping, inevitably a bunch of users blow out their speakers and it become a support/warranty issue.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    "...inevitably a bunch of users blow out their speakers and it become a support/warranty issue" I once worked in the prototype lab of a very well known company that designed audio and television equipment and I can assure you speaker/amplifier matching is well known and understood. Designing speakers that would clip (bottom out) and not self destruct happens all the time, it's a non issue as it doesn't really cost much extra (essentially nothing with small speakers). The real issue is that some manufacturers started to use second rate products then they all followed suit—even those with 'named' brands that one paid extra for (but who got little in return). The real problem was that both users and equipment reviewers didn't complain (or they didn't do so with sufficient vigor) and manufacturers let it slip, which was easy given the highly competitive nature of laptops where manufacturing cost are important. — Edit: I should add that this was rarely an issue in the past when substabtial gain reserves were a normal feature in equipment. Although it was occasionally a problem in high powered HiFi equipment, it was essentially never so in domestic radio sets. The question remains — then why is it now a problem in laptops?
conradfr 4y ago
I usually use studio monitors but my work Pro M1 has really decent sound for a laptop. But of course not to play or compare virtual pianos.

barkingcat 4y ago

Try the macbook pro 16 speakers. They are decent-ish I find it funny that a lot of HN posts will expound in expletives about how a certain tech product is the best in class for example, how great macbook pro speakers are and then another poster will say that no laptop has ever had decent speakers… Also, in one post “this dolby surround atmos reproduces everything about the concert, with hundreds of musicians it’s like I’m there” and then in the next post “speakers will never reproduce even the sound of one acoustic piano that’s been mistreated and mistuned, the piano will still sound better and the speaker will never replicate the magic of acoustic instruments” and then in the very next post start quoting how the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem proves that nobody ever needs anything over 44khz to reproduce exactly the sound of all acoustic instruments that ever existed. The story, as always, is more complex than any of these hot takes, and tech folks usually refuse to accept that there are multiple factors at play.

AlecSchueler 4y ago
Best in class doesn't have to mean they're good, if they whole class was abysmal to begin with.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Who's the best-in-class dictator? Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, or Franco?
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    I've a firm opinion on that and it doesn't follow the usual orthodoxy (that's if anyone's counting). It's off-topic so I'll only add that they were all despicable ratbags that the world could have done well without.
midoridensha 4y ago
>I find it funny that a lot of HN posts will expound in expletives about how a certain tech product is the best in class for example, how great macbook pro speakers are and then another poster will say that no laptop has ever had decent speakers… This is not contradictory at all. "Best in class" means exactly that: the best out of the available selections. If they're all terrible, the best-in-class is the least terrible. MBP speakers may be best-in-class (I'm assuming, I don't know), while still being "crap" to someone who values high-fidelity sound.
- barkingcat 4y ago
  You can try listening to them, some stores have demo models, etc.

hilbert42 4y ago

"You're not really supposed to listen to the laptop speakers if you care about sound and you're not traveling." It's more than just audio quality. Whilst I could spend time on quality, I'll address a serious issue with all modern laptops, that is they simply do not have enough audio gain. Desigers design to the dynamic range allowed by the bit level and power output of the speakers/audio amplifiers—there is never anything left in reserve. Let's go back to my 1930s radio receiver for comparison. Back then, a radio set with say a 5 Watt audio output would give 5W output when the radio station reached 100% modulation of its carrier signal. And to reach this condition the radio receiver would have its volume set to about half way (the volume potentiometer set to about 12 o'clock), so the listener could always increase the gain to 5W on soft low level audio. This was the normal situation with just about every radio receiver ever built in the pre-digital era. That scenario is no longer possible with modern laptops (and much other digital equipment). In a noisy environment, you can no longer trade quality for distortion/clipping which one often wants to do. Same goes for audio recorded at low level, here one cannot reach full volume as there is no reserve audio gain. How many YouTube videos and MP3 files have you heard that have such low level audio that they're essentially inaudible? If you're like me then you'd have to answer hundreds if not thousands. The fact is modern digital designers haven't a clue what to do when it comes to listener audio ergonomics. That they don't is a damn nuisance. The fact that they need to spend some weeks training in an ancient radio factory is an indictment on the poor state of our modern tech education (why didn't their educators tell them to always design in reserve gain in situations such as this?).

kalleboo 4y ago
While the average speaker setup may have regressed, the quality of headphones or IEMs you can get for low prices ($15-$50) blows anything from that era out of the water. > In a noisy environment, you can no longer trade quality for distortion/clipping which one often wants to do Whenever a laptop comes out that lets you raise the volume to clipping, inevitably a bunch of users blow out their speakers and it become a support/warranty issue.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  "...inevitably a bunch of users blow out their speakers and it become a support/warranty issue" I once worked in the prototype lab of a very well known company that designed audio and television equipment and I can assure you speaker/amplifier matching is well known and understood. Designing speakers that would clip (bottom out) and not self destruct happens all the time, it's a non issue as it doesn't really cost much extra (essentially nothing with small speakers). The real issue is that some manufacturers started to use second rate products then they all followed suit—even those with 'named' brands that one paid extra for (but who got little in return). The real problem was that both users and equipment reviewers didn't complain (or they didn't do so with sufficient vigor) and manufacturers let it slip, which was easy given the highly competitive nature of laptops where manufacturing cost are important. — Edit: I should add that this was rarely an issue in the past when substabtial gain reserves were a normal feature in equipment. Although it was occasionally a problem in high powered HiFi equipment, it was essentially never so in domestic radio sets. The question remains — then why is it now a problem in laptops?

conradfr 4y ago

I usually use studio monitors but my work Pro M1 has really decent sound for a laptop. But of course not to play or compare virtual pianos.