In the Sound Control panel, under speaker setup:

There is a start test button that plays sound alternating the left and right channels. This sound is a very loud pure static. It's heavily annoying. Is this like that on everyone's computer, or does anyone have something more pleasing?

Mike

[wlonh]

that annoying sound is yet again evidence of Apple's engineers thinking different... that sound is called 'white noise' because it is EVERY audible frequency all at once... this is a STANDARD in the audio industry and is commonly used in RT60 frequency spectrum analysis, like what a sound engineer does in a rock'n roll venue to equalize his audio output according to the room's acoustics which are measured by amplified white noise to the PA loudspeakers in a theater (for example) while 'listening' to this sound thru a microphone that is hooked up to a spectrum analyzer.

That said, it MAY be 'pink noise' that Apple is using to accomplish this.

NO JOKE: these noises are SCIENTIFIC even if they have funny names like 'white' and 'pink'

[zac4mac]

interesting sidenote to this(i get the same as you describe on my 8500 and wallstreet233) is that when i checked setup on a 333iMac, the sound came from both speakers simultaneously

[Misha]

Try testing the sound on an iBook, which only has one speaker (or I guess a PM G3/G4)... I would have thought Apple would have been smart enough to have the softwar recognize that there is only one speaker.