Another weird question - Macbook Air 2014

Okay, so I was just listening to some music on my phone using the bundled in akg samsung earphones (yes i know, i’ve got better earphones, but it’s just convenient to use those akg tuned ones, because of the slightly pronounced mids and they’re relatively lightweight). Not really any bass on those, but I do notice them and they’re ok, when i listen to them on my phone. However this changes when i listen to them on my macbook air, the earphones sound flat, bass is totally gone, there’s nothing fun in them anymore, they’re like lifeless lol.

The question is why is this happening, i don’t feel like some earbuds, need better amp. Hmm maybe they’re not sensitive enough? I guess this is how i’ll feel when i get my headphones without an amp, the sound will be lifeless? :open_mouth: i’m scared now lol

I mean, it really just sounds like you would want a better dac/amp lol, pc and phone audio is alright, but to take advantage of higher quality headphones or iems, getting something fit to drive them helps

Those Samsung agk buds actually ain’t bad imo

I think it’s just bad onboard audio in the macbook… compared to my s10+ I found it pretty awful as well

lol someone understands the pain xD

hahah M0N, yeah i guess it totally seems like i would want one. But I need to prioritize xD Better headphones first! then worry about the rest later haha

And yeah i like the akg buds. I don’t find anything wrong with them.

Getting an amp and dac are really beneficial lol but headphones first for sure

Did you get an amp/dac? Did these make those earbuds better? just asking to be more knowledgeable.

Correct lol

Also the akg buds do improve with a better amp/dac but I would put the money toward better iem first lol

I have a few now yes… I havent tried them actually (I’m not an iem guy) but I have no doubt they’ll improve

Haha M0N yeah, i’m not considering to buy anything yet xD Just an observation I’ve made and wanted to ask about it. Btw Z made a video about the starfield, the ones we talked of earlier. Tempted.

Lol i even want the t2 too xD

Well if you ever look into getting some better IEMs, just ask us. :wink:

its a symptom of older computers just not having great DAC/amp’s built in. but the recent emphasis on better audio over the past few years have really improved things over time. my older acer laptops sucked audio wise and my 2014 hp was not good either but my new lenovo 2019 model is actually pretty good and quite servicable, Though it touts a audio by harman badge as in harman kardon a known audio brand. which is probably why they are decent , and my suspicsion is they put a very average chip in and just had a good amp implementation and shielding so it sound relatively clean and somewhat dynamic.
but as a persona that builds PC’s utilizing new and older hard ware I have noticed in the past few years around the release of the first gen ryzen motherboard manufacturers have started to really show off their mother boards audio capabilities while not great its good enough for most people including myselff to just plug in a basic headset or even a hd 58x into game , listen to music and what not with very little complaints.

apple is just one of the brands in this repect though they know real audio pros are gonna be using PC or a pro model of a mac using external hardware to produce music especially at the output stage, they know their consumer audience. and how they will just plug in pods or beats to the thing and use that or the built in speakers. but honestly personal gearaudio has just had a ton of major improvements in the past 6 years including PC’s laptops, phones look at LG for big example of this. apple is probably half decent now with the built in audio in their gear for all I know. except for the fact that they refuse to adopt APTX and LDAC fuck them for that,

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Well, I use a 2014 MacBook Air too and find its headphone output is better than my former LG smartphone, slightly better than my iPhone 6S, plus much better than my aging Win7 desktop. This is true for all the headphones I’ve plugged into it, including an anonymous in-ear that came with a portable radio. Just a bit tighter and cleaner sound than the smartphones. Definitely no sign of missing bass.

NWAVGuy did a review of the 2013 MacBook Air audio. It was generally quite favourable, except for one issue that was addressed in the 2014 model.

There aren’t any audio dsp “enhancements” on the macbooks correct? Also from my experience the Macs tended to have better audio than most desktops or laptops as well

Correct. The default audio player app on my Win7 box does that so I know what you’re referring to. On the MacBook the default “player” is iTunes.

Ok gotcha, because when I have heard MacBook audio it has been pretty nice compared to other laptop

I noticed that Fang Bian used a MacBook that looked just like what we’re talking about as the source for the Susvara in the hotel room interview Resolve Reviews released a few days ago. So it can’t be too bad, lol.

To power the susvara? That’s a bit strange lol, I could see him doing that with a sundara but the susvara is a bit more hungry

Didn’t mean to imply a direct connection between headphone and laptop.

And, actually, I should have written Shangri-La, not Susvara. So of course the MacBook would have connected to the Shang’s companion amp in that case. But Fang also had a number of other headphones there, including the Deva. Here’s a screenshot from a brief glimpse shown during the interview of the portion of the set-up that included the MacBook:

Did they have the Shang Sr or Jr? I heard the Deva at the show and it was interesting lol