Review and measurements of MacBook Air (2024) headphone output

[gordinho]

Received a brand new M4 version from our IT few days ago. Today I was faced with the issue when the laptop can't recognize headphones on 3.5 out (HD6XX by the way). It was fixed with reboot. Anybody has the same?

Ran into this using a M4 MacBook Air 15" which freaked me out since I was about to start a DJ gig and it was the first time I used this laptop... reboot fixed it.

 

[schmalgausen]

I can't catch the issue since 26.2 update.

 

[alont]

Hi, great review! Was the output impedance of the MacBook Air's headphone jack measured? Wondering if it's low enough for impedance-sensitive multi-BA IEMs. Thanks!

 

[AudioSceptic]

Hi, great review! Was the output impedance of the MacBook Air's headphone jack measured? Wondering if it's low enough for impedance-sensitive multi-BA IEMs. Thanks!

This is just a guess, but I think that it would have to have low output impedance in order to measure the impedance of what's connected, which allows it to adjust max voltage vs max current accordingly.

 

[staticV3]

The 14" M1 MacBook Pro was measured at 0.1Ω output impedance, and the MacBook Air will be right in that ballpark as well.

If you're curious, you can pretty easily measure output impedance yourself for <$40 in parts and tools.