Surface Laptop Clipping/Distortion while playing acoustic Tracks

[pand4]

Hello everyone,

I'm hearing obvious distortion noises coming from the right speaker, not always, but very often while listening to acoustic tracks with pianos playing. Also more often with lower audio quality with 360p video. As an example if you listen to any piano tracks by Yiruma. If I turn the right speaker off, i can still hear that static noise where the power connector is. I can reproduce the issue, it happens when I replay the audio. In many other music genre its not there. Turning off Dolby Audio had no effect on the issue.

I could most likely change it for another one if it's a defective device, but I am asking if you have a similiar experience with the speakers and it wouldn't change much to swap my device. I had this issue with a Surface Pro 4 as well.

Kind regards,
Andreas

 

[sharpuser]

@pand4

I have a Surface Book and find no distortion as you describe.
You did not name the device giving you trouble, and "My Device" in your profile is "Other".

But it sounds like there may be something loose or detached which is rattling at certain harmonic frequencies.

 

[theveterans]

I'd exchange it. They must have put a blown speaker in your unit.

 

[sharpuser]

One more thing to test before assuming the speaker is blown: Try your device upside down, sideways, etc. If there is something loose, it is likely that at some orientation, the problem would go away.

In any case, a return is recommended.

 

[pand4]

It's the basic configuration of the Surface Laptop. Holding it in diffrent positions didn't help, guess I am returning it and they will agree on the issue. I could get the this crackling/clipping/distortion with some other songs like Adele - Skyfall or Coldplay - Sky Full of stars. I didn't notice it at first, because there is no issue with rock music which I mainly listen too, but as soon as a solo piano hits the speakers, it makes some static crackling noise.

 

[pand4]

Got my new exchanged Surface Laptop, it has less light bleed and no crackling issues at all, unlike the previous one. All I can recommend is to test your new device with piano sounds, playing high pitched sound seems to be a good way for noticing if something is wrong, with speakers in general (had the same problem years ago with some Edifier desktop speakers).