The news comes to us courtesy of MacRumors (opens in new tab), who claims to have obtained a memo from Apple to its authorized service providers explaining what to do if someone brings an Apple Studio Display in complaining of audio issues. Evidently, this problem causes the speakers to produce either garbled sound or no sound at all, according to numerous complaints on Twitter, Apple’s official support forum, and other online arenas. It’s too bad, too, because in our Apple Studio Display review we gushed over the audio quality of the monitor’s six-speaker sound system. Sadly, it sounds like some owners haven’t been able to enjoy those speakers very much. One complaint on Reddit (opens in new tab) is more than 3 months old at this point, and the poster claims to have heard from Apple exactly what MacRumors reports: Apple is working on a software fix for the problem, stay tuned. Of course, we’ve reached out to Apple directly to confirm whether a fix is in the works, and will update this story if we hear back.
Here’s Apple’s solution for Studio Display speaker issues
In the meantime, Apple’s memo includes some guidance for what technicians should tell folks whose Studio Displays develop audio issues. According to MacRumors, Apple advises Studio Display owners to unplug the Display’s power cable, disconnect any other devices connected to the Display, wait 10 seconds, then plug the Display back in and see if it works. That’s it! Just power-cycle the display and, according to Apple, all your audio trouble should be gone. However, it may not stay gone for long; MacRumors found some frustrated Twitter posts (opens in new tab) from folks who have had to power-cycle their Studio Display multiple times, as often as every five to six weeks.
Apple Studio Display outlook
The fact that Apple Studio Display owners are now having to intermittently power-cycle their $1,500-plus monitors in order to keep them operational, less than year after release, is a bad sign. Even if it is just a software issue that can be easily patched once Apple releases a fix, it adds to the public perception of the Studio Display as an over-priced product cobbled together from spare parts left over from iPhones and iMacs. It doesn’t help that shortly after the monitor’s launch, Apple had to apologize for the poor quality of the Studio Display’s webcam and issue a patch to fix it. At least the Apple Studio Display firmware update did improve camera quality in a meaningful way. Hopefully Apple will quickly release a similar update to fix these speaker issues and save some poor souls from the toil of endlessly unplugging their monitors and plugging them back in again.
