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Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner!
by Bruce Ure at 03:04 27/02/11 (Blogs::Bruce)
I'm fairly sure this is a "bonus feature", since I've not seen it advertised anywhere.
While listening to music late at night, I noticed some sort of voice radio crosstalk coming out of the speakers very quietly. I put it down most likely to the length of the shielded cable between the Macbook and the power amp -- about 5m, of fairly shitty cable. So I changed the cable for a shorter, heavier-shielded one... no change, still crosstalk. So I plugged the cable in to another source -- an iPhone, as it goes. No crosstalk! Which means, definitively, that the radio interference/crosstalk is coming from within the Macbook.

You shouldn't use a headphone line/output from a laptop as an audiophile source, but even so, radio crosstalk is BAD.

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Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner! Bruce Ure - 03:04 27/02/11
- Deleted User Account - 10:53 28/02/11
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Re: Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner! Bruce Ure - 12:21 28/02/11
It's very low, and only at night.. so actually its more likely to be AM, but yes, it is very bad, and I can't see it being anything other than a design fault. I'll google it when I'm not so feckin busy though, to see if anyone else has it.

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- Deleted User Account - 12:37 28/02/11
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Re: Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner! Bruce Ure - 12:46 28/02/11
No it's a British radio station, though I've not bothered listening long enough to work out which.

I know the onboard DAC is shite -- as it 'appens I have been using an external USB dac on the Mac Mini downstairs (the analogue output got fried during a power surge :-) for some time and last week I ordered an insanely good value DAC from China for the MBP. They are all USB, lunatic build quality, mega sampling rates... it's insane... our battery prototype was leading edge... but now it's old hat! That and the fact ours didn't re-clock so it relied on the timing of the USB system (AIUI), now they re-clock with PICOsecond accuracy... it's just boggling.

Thanks :)

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- Deleted User Account - 12:55 28/02/11
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Re: Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner! Bruce Ure - 14:42 28/02/11
The Dac in your Mac, I like it :-)

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- Deleted User Account - 15:10 28/02/11
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Re: Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner! Bruce Ure - 15:16 28/02/11
> Wolfson WM8740 High-End DAC

Thass what we used... *sniff*.

These look "well nice" (as I believe the youth of today is wont to say). I've got one on the way.

Check out the quality of that circuitry. I just had an argument with someone about whether it was rendered or genuine (I persuaded him it was genuine, for a bunch of imperfections that you just wouldn't bother to render in).

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- Deleted User Account - 15:31 28/02/11
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Re: Macbook Pro - now with FM tuner! Bruce Ure - 16:13 28/02/11
Nice knob!

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