Has Amir or anyone measured the audio output of a Macbook Pro?

[jcebedo11]

Im curious. Im pleasantly satisfied with the audio output of my 2015 13" macbook pro. compared my Samsung S10e phone, the sound quality improvement is significant. Significant enough that I have no need to get an external DAC. Im using a Topping NX1s portable headphone amp driving a Denon AH-D2000 with it.

 

[amirm]

I have some kind of Macbook but no, I have not measured it. In general Apple pays a lot more attention to such things than other companies so would not be surprised if it performed well.

 

[jcebedo11]

I have some kind of Macbook but no, I have not measured it. In general Apple pays a lot more attention to such things than other companies so would not be surprised if it performed well.

I think its worthy of measuring as a lot of people own a macbook =)

 

[amirm]

I will see. It is a pain to measure because I have to find a way to generate signals on it to measure.

 

[fun]

Im curious. Im pleasantly satisfied with the audio output of my 2015 13" macbook pro. compared my Samsung S10e phone, the sound quality improvement is significant. Significant enough that I have no need to get an external DAC. Im using a Topping NX1s portable headphone amp driving a Denon AH-D2000 with it.

I am using a 13inch 2016 MacBook Pro. Subjectively, the sound quality from the laptop headphone out to my Sennheiser HD598 was enjoyable. Volume and power wise, it's typically around 70 to 90%, depending on sources. However, improvements are audible when I added Topping E30 and L30 to the chain. Instrument separation becomes clearer and bass definitions becomes tighter, even on the supposedly easy-to-drive 598. I suspect the improvements mainly come from the amp, not the DAC. I would also be interested to see how the Mac measured, and I would be surprised if it is anything close to the Topping's.

 

[Custard]

Until such time as a grown up can measure it properly, this may give some (amateur) insight. I'm using a Motu Ultralite Mk3, which seems to perform pretty decently. All the ins and outs I've looked at creep up in distortion above about -10dBFS so I've used that as a reference level. The Macbook out put is lower than than the Motu so I've trimmed the input gain to compensate. And I've used 900Hz because there is a spike at 8k from the Macbook which appears even with no output and skews the THD measurement. I've seen that appear in one or two other measurements - perhaps someone with greater expertise could speculate on the source.

Anyway, here are single frequency distortion plots of Motu unbalanced loopback (which I think demonstrates that the Motu output is not a limiting factor) and Macbook Pro (2015 15" model) out to Motu in. Plainly the Macbook output is noisy, but not a total disgrace, and the distortion is probably inaudible according to thresholds regularly touted here. I measure (crudely, using a DMM and a 56R resistor) Zout to be close enough to zero as makes no difference and the FR is flat to with 0.1dB 20-20kHz.

 

[Music1969]

because there is a spike at 8k from the Macbook which appears even with no output and skews the THD measurement. I've seen that appear in one or two other measurements - perhaps someone with greater expertise could speculate on the source.

8kHz PHY Microframe Packet Noise?

As described here:

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/05/measurements-usb-hubs-and-8khz-phy.html

 

[Custard]

8kHz PHY Microframe Packet Noise?

As described here:

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/05/measurements-usb-hubs-and-8khz-phy.html

I was using thunderbolt to firewire, not USB. But then the 3.5mm jack is right next to one of the USB ports so perhaps that's the issue. It's outside my field of expertise, I'm afraid.

 

[Tom Schofield]

iPad pro measurements would be interesting as well.