Official of the official - MacBook Does Have Sound Noise / Pop issue - 100%

[cheez]

Ok guys I hereby make an official statement about the MacBook Pro onboard audio port quality. It sucks, officially and professionally speaking. It's been proven 100% offical. ^_^


I had a thread about experiencing *noise* and *pop* sound off the earphones when opening a Finder or before and after music / video is played on a MacBook Pro. Thought it was the voltage output not matching with the device like what runawayprisoner said in the past but it turned out to be not true. Like the other member mentioned it is bad quality onboard audio port or device. The reason why I say this is because I recently got a pair of Audioengine A2 speakers, although the noise is suppressed, it gives POP sound like there's no tomorrow... After a while it gets so annoying you are ready to throw the laptop out da window... :$

It doesn't matter what system volume you set at.. it just pops and pops and pops every time right before any sound scheme is started or audio/video is played, and several seconds after they are completed. Oh yep I also tried it on my Acoustimass Bose speakers and got the same problem.

I am hugely disappointed with Apple's product quality. If I was the president of Apple I would have spent extra time and money on making high quality products, laptop in this case. If you have trouble getting rid of noise and pop, spend several hundred more dollars on the thing and make it POP-PROOF. Apple should have spent time and money on making "properly working products". My 6 year old Sony laptop has none of these issues. There is no noise / pops zippppppp..............

I hearby say I am disappointed.


LOLs.

 

[cheez]

I see that Apple has been trying to cut down on cost on their devices and sell them to the public cheap.. This is not what Apple should be. It's supposed to be *exclusive* and *special*.

13.3" $1199 MBP should have been priced at least bare minimum $2000. With SSD and more RAM and other options make it go up 3 grand...
15.4" MBP should have been at least bare minimum $3000.
$500 iPad 2 should have been $2000, yes, that's $1500 price increase. To incorporate cutting-edge or state-of-the-art components and have extremely well built screen quality the price will have to up to the premium. And I'm talking on just a 16GB storage version. With wireless and 64GB it should go up $2600... The build process and pricing structure is all messed up.


I still like the brushed silver annodized finish on the body of the Macbook. Screen quality is just "OKAY" or barely acceptable to Cheez's expectation, but it is definitely better than iPad 2 as far as light bleeding issue goes.

Also this way, not everyone can buy Apple.... as it's meant to be special and expensive. For everyone to be able to afford a device, we have Dell for that.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

If you want good clean sound, use the Digital Optical output built into the headphone jack. Simple as that. Analog audio connections are always going to have noise added. Apple attempts to mitigate this by turning off the audio circuit after a little while if no sound is playing. That is what gives the pop.

 

[Anteaus]

If you want good clean sound, use the Digital Optical output built into the headphone jack. Simple as that. Analog audio connections are always going to have noise added. Apple attempts to mitigate this by turning off the audio circuit after a little while if no sound is playing. That is what gives the pop.

Your intentions are good, but workarounds like this annoy me. If you're saying that Apple mitigates line level noise by turning the audio circuit on and off which causes the popping sounds, how was such an obvious issue not caught in testing? Also, wouldn't the better fix be to use a better sound chip with a better SNR or simple keep the circuit alive and just deal with the noise? How can you use earphones without the popping if you need to use the Optical output?

This is just like the Iphone signal issues with the bad antennae design and Jobs looking at people straight in the eye and accusing them of holding it wrong. Of course Apple initially denied any problems with the phone, yet released the Verizon Iphone4 with a second antenna which, and this is a shocker, fixed the problem.

To the OP, your obviously using your Macbook improperly. <---- Sarcasm.

I'm not picking on you Slash...I appreciate the response to the OP. I'm just annoyed that Apple still get's the award for best quality product, yet over the past 5 years there have been numerous examples of QC issues.

 

[cheez]

If you want good clean sound, use the Digital Optical output built into the headphone jack. Simple as that. Analog audio connections are always going to have noise added. Apple attempts to mitigate this by turning off the audio circuit after a little while if no sound is playing. That is what gives the pop.

My 6+ year old Sony laptop has zero noise and pops. I said this already.
Also my SoundBlaster PCI card (for PC) was purchased back in 1990's and it's still going strong. It provides no noise and pops. How old is this thang? nearly 20 years old!!!

But in MacBook Pro, it's LOUD AS F#@K, the pop that is. My blood pressure goes up and I start getting angry, cause it won't stop.. It keeps popping and popping and popping and popping POP! POP! POP! POP!!!! What Apple should have done was at least leave the audio device turned on so we get "steady smooth noise!" That's better than giving you POP every few seconds or so during use of the computer.


How do I use digital optical connection? Any ideas? And I use external speakers.

 

[cheez]

Your intentions are good, but workarounds like this annoy me. If you're saying that Apple mitigates line level noise by turning the audio circuit on and off which causes the popping sounds, how was such an obvious issue not caught in testing? Also, wouldn't the better fix be to use a better sound chip with a better SNR or simple keep the circuit alive and just deal with the noise? How can you use earphones without the popping if you need to use the Optical output?

This is just like the Iphone signal issues with the bad antennae design and Jobs looking at people straight in the eye and accusing them of holding it wrong. Of course Apple initially denied any problems with the phone, yet released the Verizon Iphone4 with a second antenna which, and this is a shocker, fixed the problem.

To the OP, your obviously using your Macbook improperly. <---- Sarcasm.

Awesome post! I love it!

I'm not picking on you Slash...I appreciate the response to the OP. I'm just annoyed that Apple still get's the award for best quality product, yet over the past 5 years there have been numerous examples of QC issues.

Amen....

Apple decided to go cheap parts and lower the selling cost so everyone can buy their products. Looks like they lost focus on "Quality" and making product "PROPERLY WORKING" and instead concentrated on "Quantity".

 

[cheez]

As someone mentioned in the past, I may need to pick up one of these... it's fairly cheap, but is an exotic product compare to Apple's onboard audio hardware.

Turtle Beach Amigo II

Will try this out later and let you know how it works out.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

I don't know. I use headphones on my MBP all the time, and while I hear the pops, they don't really bug me. I actually appreciate the silence that follows vs. the slight noise prior to the pop. In previous laptops the sounds/noise would get pretty annoying.

I'm not necessarily saying that you're using it wrong. I'm saying that your expectations are mismatched. People complain about how these are supposed to be "professional" and that the built-in solution should be better; but when it comes to sound, no professional would ever, ever use the built-in analog audio input/output except as a last-resort option. I have never had a laptop without noise issues out the audio jack.

Long ago I researched the issue and realized that computers simply cause noise in analog circuits, and the best way to get better sound is to move the DAC to the outside of the computer. I have been using optical audio output since 2003, first with a PC with an SB Audigy card, and then on all of my Macs. I plug it in to a home theater receiver with large speakers. I use a cable similar to this one.

There are apparently a few free software options that people have used to keep this from happening if the pop annoys them.

http://www.tomsick.net/projects/antipop.html
http://mrfeinberg.com/KeepSoundAwake/

 

[cheez]

I don't know. I use headphones on my MBP all the time, and while I hear the pops, they don't really bug me. I actually appreciate the silence that follows vs. the slight noise prior to the pop. In previous laptops the sounds/noise would get pretty annoying.

The level of noise and / or pop varies depending on the external hardware used, in this case, earphones or external speakers. My Etymotic Research HF5 is very accurate, and detect sounds very well. So any "tick", "sss", "zzz" or "shhh"... or in this case "shhh" and "POP", I can hear them clearly loud and clear. Some lower grade or bass-biased headsets may not get this effect as bad.

And my external speakers, Audioengine A2 speakers, are even MORE accurate. Surprisingly it reduced the "shhh" noise to almost non-exsistent, but the POP is amplified. POP POP POP!!!!


iPad 2 did much better job in this category. Although it had some kind of minor crickle sound but did not give out much noise and pop.

iPod Touch did even better...

My Sony laptop, the best ever....

And my PC's sound card, no problemo.

There are apparently a few free software options that people have used to keep this from happening if the pop annoys them.

http://www.tomsick.net/projects/antipop.html
http://mrfeinberg.com/KeepSoundAwake/

I'll read up on it. Thanks.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I think it's worth noting that the "pop" doesn't really have anything to do with Apple's DAC quality. It has more to do with Apple's way of handling the audio circuitry, as mentioned.

I initially thought that you meant "noise" as in "hiss", which was legitimately caused by using headphones and speakers with low impedance (or high sensitivity) in the MacBook, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

This should only happen whenever you play music or do something for the very first time, and then the audio circuitry should stay on for at least 30 seconds. If you are hearing it so regularly, I'd take it that means that you don't play music through the speakers continuously at all?

Also it's best to put the MacBook's volume to max and then adjust volume through the speakers later instead of the reverse. The reason being that if you were to put the speakers' volume to max, they are using the internal amp to gain on low signal, which would cause "hiss".

Also, I think it's worth noting that if the "pop" is really that loud, you could go in and exchange your MacBook. Mine has the pop, but it's barely noticeable, and I'd have to really look for it to find it with my headphones. I can't even hear it with my Audioengine A2 even after a cold boot.

Edit: I think it's also worth noting that the Audioengine A2 is not a highly sensitive pair of speakers at all. If you can't hear the "ssshhh" noise (it's called "hiss"), then that's because they are low sensitive (high impedance), and that means they are good quality. If you want sound quality, you want speakers and headphones that are low sensitive (high impedance) so that you can amp the hell out of them and get audio that doesn't have low "sshhh" noise interfering with the quality, or in other words, crystal clear quality.

It's actually kind of weird. The "pop" noise shouldn't be noticeable in the Audioengine A2 at all, since it has high input impedance. Did you put the speakers' volume to max and MacBook volume down?

 

[cheez]

This should only happen whenever you play music or do something for the very first time, and then the audio circuitry should stay on for at least 30 seconds. If you are hearing it so regularly, I'd take it that means that you don't play music through the speakers continuously at all?

Sir, the A2 speakers are connected through audio jack on the Macbook full time. I don't take it out ever. All music is played through those speakers, movies, etc everything.

Also it's best to put the MacBook's volume to max and then adjust volume through the speakers later instead of the reverse. The reason being that if you were to put the speakers' volume to max, they are using the internal amp to gain on low signal, which would cause "hiss".

I keep at 60% volume on Mac OS X. Volume is set around 25% on the A2 speakers physically. I am not a loud listener yo.

Also, I think it's worth noting that if the "pop" is really that loud, you could go in and exchange your MacBook.

Well I was using a *little bit* of sarcasm on saying how loud the pop is. It may not be super loud for others, but it's certainly enough to annoy you.

Mine has the pop, but it's barely noticeable, and I'd have to really look for it to find it with my headphones. I can't even hear it with my Audioengine A2 even after a cold boot.

Well since you could hardly hear the pop with yours I say you got a lucky one. I see variations build quality. I may have the crappy version then. But still you can't make conclusion based on using your own... many have reported issues with noise and pops. Like I said I get noise and moderate POPs on my HF5 but I hear louder and clearer POP on my A2. I know my A2 isn't defective cause I tried it on my Sony laptop and I hear none.

Edit: I think it's also worth noting that the Audioengine A2 is not a highly sensitive pair of speakers at all. If you can't hear the "ssshhh" noise (it's called "hiss"), then that's because they are low sensitive (high impedance), and that means they are good quality. If you want sound quality, you want speakers and headphones that are low sensitive (high impedance) so that you can amp the hell out of them and get audio that doesn't have low "sshhh" noise interfering with the quality, or in other words, crystal clear quality.

I meant sensitive to sound outputs such as instruments of sound. It is highly accurate. I guess I didn't word it right for what I wanted to say.

It's actually kind of weird. The "pop" noise shouldn't be noticeable in the Audioengine A2 at all, since it has high input impedance. Did you put the speakers' volume to max and MacBook volume down?

No, almost exactly the opposite. As I don't want to use up my amp on A2 much and I am quiet listener. I have common sense too, u know.

Again, Mac OS X system volum at 60% iTunes at 50%~ 60%. A2 Speakers volume knob at... actually less than 25%.

I use Mac OS's volume control to adjust volume as I listen. I hardly touch the volume on the A2's itself.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Try A2 speakers volume at 5-10%, Mac at 100% and iTunes at 100% and see if that makes a difference.

I have mine barely set at 15%, and they're serving as living room speakers.

 

[cheez]

Try A2 speakers volume at 5-10%, Mac at 100% and iTunes at 100% and see if that makes a difference.

I have mine barely set at 15%, and they're serving as living room speakers.

I will try that when I get home tonite and let ya know with results.


Oh btw, I wanted to say thanks!!! for recommending Audioengine A2 speakers. I almost sh#t my pants listening to music. The sound quality is impeccable, mesmerizing. It's got deep 3D sound and mid range is also handled very well. It's also crystal clear and has plenty of treble, when tuned via equalizer.


Thanks a titanic ship.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Glad you liked them. Some people don't like them apparently for lack of bass and punch, but for what it's worth, they are still awesome for their size and price range.

I think that... if you are still bothered by the pop, then I'd concur that it's better to get an external DAC, which won't have the pop issue (and "noise" or "hiss", because now it's outside of the interference of the MacBook's internal, and output is low impedance so it won't jack up low impedance headphones).

If you ever get one, do consider decent ones like the Audioengine D1, or Fiio E17. Both of those accept optical audio in, which you can get out of your MacBook using an optical audio to 3.5mm adapter:

http://www.amazon.com/Recoton-Fiber-Optic-Toslink-Adapter/dp/B0002MQGRM

The upside to using optical audio out is that you can get bit-perfect digital signal directly to the external DAC, and you won't have to go into Settings > Sound to switch devices anymore.

Personally, I'd go E17, as it can be used with an iPad via line out, and it's smaller than the D1, but that's just me. E17 is insanely hard to get right now.

But if you are trying to save on spending another $100+ just to eliminate popping... (and I would personally agree, because it's just the popping that's annoying), then I think the Fiio E10 is worth a look.
http://www.amazon.com/FiiO-E10-USB-...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1328902661&sr=1-1

Beyond those devices (and the Fiio E7), I haven't found anything else under $50 that would decidedly improve the sound quality (when it's not popping) of a current MacBook Pro. But of course, I haven't tried everything yet, so if you do come across something, I'd love to know.

Edit: took out the Fiio D5. Seems like that one is not an appropriate suggestion for sound quality. I didn't know that it was more geared toward low-end consumer market rather than audiophiles.

 

[cheez]

Try A2 speakers volume at 5-10%, Mac at 100% and iTunes at 100% and see if that makes a difference.

I have mine barely set at 15%, and they're serving as living room speakers.

Dr. runawayprisoner, I tried as exactly you instructed.

WTH..... the pop is gone. It *seems* non-existent. At least I couldn't hear pop before and after playing music or sound is played.

What does this mean?? pls advice / comment! Is my system ill? [worried]

 

[cheez]

Hey ya I am unhappy. With this setting I *seem* to hear distortion in the music, even though the final volume output is low..

Looks like I may have to go DAC and optical audio route....

 

[runawayprisoner]

Well, it's not really ill. The problem was that if you were to increase the volume on the A2 while reducing the volume of the computer, it's like you are trying to amp whatever the computer is trying to output, which would make the pop kind of audible. By reducing A2's amp, you are eliminating that effect.

Also the MacBook volume output at 100% is native level... It's a digital level so regardless of what you set in software, it's still the same loudness for the pop. In that case, I'd guess that at levels above 20% on the A2, you can hear the pop quite easily.

If you hear distortion, depending on what kind of distortion it is, a DAC may not be necessary. If it's high frequency distortion, then... check to see if your music is not MP3 at low bitrate. That's mostly the cause. Most music on Youtube (if not all) would also cause that problem. What you want now is uncompressed FLAC or ALAC, or some of those jabbawabba the music folks like to tout.

A DAC more or less just cleans things up and makes music fuller/clearer. I haven't heard a case where DAC would help with that kind of distortion.

Now, if there is bass distortion (at that level), then I think there is a legitimate problem...

 

[cheez]

^ so if I understood correctly, the volume 100% on Macbook is native, so it should not cause distortion? It wouldn't deteriorate the original intended sound of the music? Can ya please confirm, just making sure...


Thanks for the solutions you try to provide. I appreciate it. I'll try lowering the iTunes volume then.

And to note, I find that iTunes seems to have very good sound quality. They just sound.... deeper, wider? With similar equalizer setting, it just sounds different between MPlayer X and iTunes. MPlayer X sounds.... a bit smaller? Maybe it's my hallucination i donno... I use MPlayer X for mostly movies / drama series... but also has very impressive audio sound.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Yep. Volume 100% is native on MacBook. Volume 100% in iTunes might or might not be native because some albums are made louder than others. It really depends on the tune, in other words.

Technically, both 100% in MacBook and 100% in iTunes should be fixed all the time if you are outputting to speakers, and only then should speakers' volume control be used.

Another way you may be able to fix the distortion without touching iTunes' volume is by going into iTunes' preferences (iTunes > Preferences) and tick "Sound Check" under the "Playback" tab.

"Sound Check" is Apple's fancy way of terming "volume normalizer". It shouldn't cause any quality degradation, and may actually help with low impedance (high sensitive) setups. But if you have a high impedance (low sensitive) setup (and by the way, the A2 is somewhere in between. It's not extremely low or high), then you'll hear some quality degradation.

The idea to keep volume at 100% is to make sure that the headphone output is pushing as much power to all frequencies as possible. Think of it on a scale from 0 to 100. If you have a song that has sounds that are 80 levels apart, then when you set the volume to 60, the loudest sound in the song would play at 60, but the tiniest sound would play at 60 - 80 = -20, or actually at 0, so you won't even hear it at all. If you set the volume at 100, the loudest sound plays at 100, and the tiniest plays at 100 - 80 = 20, or perfectly audible.

As for the pop, it's always at a constant value above 0 regardless of your volume control. So, say... I'd guess that it's at 20-40 on your MacBook. When you set your computer volume to 60, and then iTunes to 60, that means you are playing back iTunes at roughly level 36. That means that if you have any song that has a range of sounds larger than 36, it might lose details. On top of that, you need to adjust your A2's volume to hear 36 at a reasonably dB level, so by amplifying 36, you also amplify the pop at level 20 or 40, which would definitely make it very audible.

As far as iTunes having more soundstage, I don't find that to be the case at all. It's possible that you have the "Sound Enhancer" option ticked in iTunes' Preferences (again, under "Playback"). While it gives the perception of depth, it may distort certain sounds, and it's generally not advisable to have that turned on. Soundstage is more about acoustic of the room and the placement of the A2. Generally, I find that if I want soundstage to be larger, I position the A2 so that they blast outward, and push them further away from both myself and each other, then increase their volume. Also they have more bass impact if I push them closer to the wall on a wood surface. On a glass surface, well, they don't fare as well.

 

[cheez]

^ Wow, runawayprisoner, thanks for the valuable info.

I didn't know about the 100% native volume part. Very informative. I'll leave the Mac volume at 100% then. I'll adjust the itunes volume upto 80% as I listen to audio. This is awesome info. How much do I owe ya.:$


And as for iTunes sound, I don't have any of those sound enhancer checked. It's all default (none checked), but it just sounds a bit better than say MPlayer X I use. The equalizer setting isn't 100% identical between the two but look really close. Anyways, I want to use iTunes for music... i think it's best for playback.

Thanks a Jumble 747,

 

[cheez]

Looks like I'm gonna have to upgrade my sound gear. I'm gonna have to pickup one of these....

- Audioengine D1 DAC

Review: http://www.audiostream.com/content/audioengine-d1-24-bit-dac

It's all your fault runawayprisoner..you make me buy all these gears and now it's end up costing me $$$$$$D::wub:


I didn't think I was considered audiophile or audiohalic. But I know I am damn picky about sound qualities. I know I have a nice set of speakers now, but the rest of my hardware is a joke. It's just not quite cutting it for me.

 

[runawayprisoner]

It's a nice choice. Congrats. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

And you are an audiophile by definition if you try to find anything that sounds better than Apple's packed-in earbud. Etymotic HF5 is not something a non-audiophile would possess. I don't think there's any way to hide it.

Next you'll be re-encoding your library into lossless format and you'll be scouring the Earth for better/cleaner versions of your favorite recordings. I know since I've been down that road before. Pretty soon you'll start clicking the 720p/1080p options in Youtube, too.

But personally, I'm still mostly fine with my MacBook Pro's headphone port... that is... until my Fiio E17 arrives. I used to plug the E7 in when I had the chance, but it didn't give me enough of an edge over built-in DAC to consider the extra baggage, but the E17 looks to be a nice choice given that it can take optical audio directly. That's the single biggest differentiator to me.

Do let me know how the D1 works out for ya, eh? I was always interested, but not sure if it was worth the price of another pair of A2 if you know what I mean.

 

[cheez]

Thanks runawayprisoner. Sounds like that Fiio E17 is gonna be a nice setup.


Oh man I'm happy as @#$!. Guess what I did this morning on the web...

I ordered:


- Audioengine D1 DAC
- Recoton Fiber Optic Toslink to 3.5 mm Mini Adapter
- Bettercable Premium Toslink Fiber Optic Cable
- Bettercable RCA Silver Serpent Anniversary Edition 1.56 ft RCA cables


Oh man I'm happy as hell. They will all arrive towards the end of next week!

I'll let ya guys know when they arrive and hook em up! Pics will be posted!

 

[dawks]

Just adding a few cents.. I own a 2006 (Core2Duo) MacBook Pro (Optical and 3.5mm on the same port), a 2008 Mac Pro (Optical & 3.5mm out the back and 3.5mm on the front), and 2010 Core i5 MacBook Pro (Optical and 3.5mm out), and I dont have any issues with popping. I've used Optical Toslink to a Logitec 5.1. I use Optical Toslink to my Onkyo receiver, have Klipsch 2.1 via 3.5mm and Klipsch over ear, and Bose in-ear headphones. I have no problem with popping. With the headphones on, and cranked loud, with no other sound in the room, I can occasionally hear SLIGHT electronic noises from the computer when a song stops, but this is common with most computers. I also have a Windows 7 HP with Beats.. Beats is mostly like an EQ.. maybe done in hardware, but it does work nicely. Adds extra bass without adding distortion.

I'd be curious to see how that external Turtle Beach USB sound card works (works fine on Mac?).. Turtle Beach made one of the best sound cards in history back in 98/99 with the Turtle Beach Aureal Vortex Montego II.. Aureal had one amazing sound processor. nVidia bought the technology and put it in nForceII chipsets so those motherboards had great sound as well.

And I'd be curious to see how well the Audioengine DAC works.. So that thing takes sound out over USB, cleans it and amps it up? Plug N Play on Mac and Windows? I've been interested in a DAC for a while.

I tried the Audioengine speakers you bought from the other thread at a local store and wasnt overly impressed.. decent but not fantastic. I much prefer a 2.1 system. I love lows with my music. Just personal opinion.

 

[cheez]

Just adding a few cents.. I own a 2006 (Core2Duo) MacBook Pro (Optical and 3.5mm on the same port), a 2008 Mac Pro (Optical & 3.5mm out the back and 3.5mm on the front), and 2010 Core i5 MacBook Pro (Optical and 3.5mm out), and I dont have any issues with popping. I've used Optical Toslink to a Logitec 5.1. I use Optical Toslink to my Onkyo receiver, have Klipsch 2.1 via 3.5mm and Klipsch over ear, and Bose in-ear headphones. I have no problem with popping. With the headphones on, and cranked loud, with no other sound in the room, I can occasionally hear SLIGHT electronic noises from the computer when a song stops, but this is common with most computers.

Well maybe you got lucky. I donno. But mine is awful. It's a freakin' POP-generator.... unless I crank up the Mac volume to 100% like runawayprisoner asked me to try, the pop which then becomes not audible... I still don't like the fact I gotta do that to keep from popping, which is why I'm getting myself an external DAC + Fiber Optic connection. But like I said the noise and electronic noise are not audible regardless of volume setting when connected with A2 speakers.

And I'd be curious to see how well the Audioengine DAC works.. So that thing takes sound out over USB, cleans it and amps it up? Plug N Play on Mac and Windows? I've been interested in a DAC for a while.

With Mac all you gotta do is select "Audioengine D1" in the sound properties in your OS. With Windows PC it will load the driver automatically, at least that's what the manufacturer site says.

I tried the Audioengine speakers you bought from the other thread at a local store and wasnt overly impressed.. decent but not fantastic. I much prefer a 2.1 system. I love lows with my music. Just personal opinion.

The A2's are known for flat frequency response. They are considered a mini version of reference grade "monitors" rather than speakers. You will need to use equalizer to get the desired sound you want out of these. They are very responsive. Treble is superb. If you feed it, you will get the treble. Mid is handled very well too. If you don't position these speakers right it can easily degrade sound. You want better soundstage and smoother and more powerful bass, position them close to the wall and pull farther apart from each other. Raise them up to your ear level and I feel I am in heaven. Positioning is the key to success. You probably didn't spend enough time to experiment with these speakers which is why you didn't get great results.