It's because "volume limit" is fuzzy. It's more like cpu turbo boost - if you put a lot of frequency energy into the speakers they will overheat, but not instantly. Most vendors just say "In worst case (square wave) you can shove 2W continuous energy into the speakers and they'll probably be ok", but this is saying "you can spike more energy into the tweeters/woofers for a short time, but they'll heat up. Make sure they don't go over 140C. Oh, and by the way, my woofers and tweeters have these gains, so you can balance them properly rather than just guessing"

If you look at Marcan's video stream you can see how the system watches the temperatures of the coils https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjuYJjkGhRo&t=22214s

Are you using Windows or Linux on your P14s? Lenovo relies a lot on software processing to make ThinkPad speakers sound reasonable; without the drivers + configuration UI installed, they sound tinny and horrible.

On Windows, the EQ settings can be tweaked if you have the Lenovo audio drivers installed along with the "Dolby Access" UWP app.

Not sure if something equivalent exists on Linux.

Actually, FreeBSD. This makes sense. :-D

MacBooks have margin so there is room for engineering time.

Also, companies like Lenovo care about their primary customer - enterprise. Apple designs for the end user first.

Is there anything that’s made better for the enterprise market?

Network switches and wifi access points come to mind, and that’s it?

Laptops for the enterprise markets are better for the enterprise market.

They are often relatively easy to repair (at least for the most common repairs). They offer 5 years and longer warranty contracts with on-site repairs. They offer driver and software package for automated deployments and more.

Most of these things are not important for the consumer market but very important for the enterprise market. There isn't a product that is the perfect fit for all markets.

Lwkl summed it up well. A great example is an HP z laptop - good build quality, sort of the equivalent to an old T series thinkpad.

With two Phillips screwdrivers, you can disassemble and replace most parts within 15m.

When I did this work, the other key thing was OEMs would guarantee image/driver compatibility for 4 years. I don’t think they do that anymore, but the hardware is very stable - consumer PC hardware will often have variance based on cost and supply chain.

Enterprise doesn’t want surprises and cares about total cost. So keeping it boring and predictable rules the day. Depending on scale, repairs are important because at some point it’s much cheaper pay for service by the drink vs warranty.

> A great example is an HP z laptop - good build quality, sort of the equivalent to an old T series thinkpad.

Last year I abandoned a low spec z laptop day one of getting given it at work. The trackpad alone was so poor that the laptop wasn’t usable without a mouse. I am a longtime Mac user but I don’t think I was being snobby or difficult.

I use a MacBook and have windows in a VM when needed.

That’s a great point. I’m always baffled by touchpads… does apple have some secret formula? Their touchpads are consistently excellent.

Other vendors vary dramatically, even between models.

It's the magic sauce of software and hardware integration. Also the hardware is just bonkers.

I thought for the longest time that the whole trackpad clicked when you pressed down on it. Nope, it's just a taptic engine hidden in there. If you turn off the haptic click, it's just a flat pane of glass.

Then there's the palm detection, I've used Macbooks for almost a decade for work and I can't remember when was the last time I had a misclick on the trackpad when I was typing. I did have a ton of issues with Dell and Lenovo laptops. On Lenovos I just used the red nub and disabled the touchpad from BIOS =)

Because they both build tuned and big enclosures into their speaker assemblies, and also use the whole body of the device as an acoustic chamber. That’s why.

> why, because they drive them past the nominal volume limit?

Yes. For almost everyone almost all of the time, louder=better (until you get clipping or you hit uncomfortable levels of dB at the ear). In this case, there's a safety system that prevents the speakers overheating and self-destructing, which allows them to be louder most of the time.

I don't think this is always the case. My old T460p had crappy speakers that were facing downwards (leveraging flat surfaces). My newer T14 G1 and X1C G9 have great speakers. I usually have them at ~55%, never more than 75%.

In the end, these are just laptop speakers. I wouldn't listen to music on them anyway.