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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook Laptop Macs
I was quite annoyed with the sound quality of my Santa Rosa MacBook, i.e. a MacBook3,1. I had upgraded to this machine via a hard drive swap from the first generation Macbook, and now there was much noise on the headphones.

Today I found out that I can get perfectly fine audio by starting Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications » Utilities) and selecting 2Ch-20bit (or 24bit) for the headphones, instead of the previous 16bit setting.
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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook | 7 comments | Create New Account
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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook
Authored by: asmeurer on Fri, Jul 31 2009 at 9:29AM PDT
Also take a look at this hint if you are having headphone noises.

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Same issue with a USB audio out: No 24bit option!?
Authored by: fellowweb on Fri, Jul 31 2009 at 10:13AM PDT
Hey, it is not 10 minutes ago that I disappointedly switched from my external USB sound card to my Mac mini's internal audio out due to the USB sound card's mediocre output.
Opening Google Reader, this is the first post which shows up. Not bad. :)
However, looking through the settings in Audio MIDI Setup I cannot switch the USB audio's 16bit to the 24bit setting. 16bit is the only option offered.
Is my USB sound so low-profile? Is there a trick to convince it to switch to 24bit?
Your help would be highly appreciated!

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Same issue with a USB audio out: No 24bit option!?
Authored by: Sebhelyesfarku on Tue, Aug 4 2009 at 1:15PM PDT
Well, if your USB DAC is 16bit (most are) then it reports 16bit to the system. It will still be better than the built-in crap at any setting.

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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook
Authored by: LimitlessX72 on Fri, Jul 31 2009 at 10:23AM PDT
this is rather interesting, perhaps it's the hard drive that's causing a noisy headphone jack? I have a 1st gen macbook and the port isn't exactly quiet with strange interference noises at certain times

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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook
Authored by: TGV on Fri, Jul 31 2009 at 10:24AM PDT
Doesn't work for me, but then I have a MacBookPro3,1.

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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook
Authored by: Abeam on Tue, Jan 19 2010 at 11:45PM PST
Man you made my day. Thank you so much. I was so angry about the Mplayer which caused the problem in the first place. Now it seems to work again. Thanks dude. I spread the good news on the apple discussions.
Edited on Wed, Jan 20 2010 at 12:18AM PST by Abeam


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A simple fix for a noisy headphone jack on a MacBook
Authored by: digidan on Wed, Jan 20 2010 at 12:03AM PST
Interesting.

However, I recall this problem being rather bad in my old 15" PowerBook G4. (The 1.67 Ghz "non-hi-res" version from 2005). Does it work for that machine too?

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