By Graham K. Rogers

There have several changes to certain panels in System Preferences following the 10.8 update to OS X. One panel which appears to have had no changes is Sound. Each of the three panes appears the same as in 10.7.

The Sound preferences panel has three panes: Sound Effects, Output and Input. These appear identical to what had been available in earlier versions of OS X.

Sound Effects

At the top of the panel is a list of some 14 sounds available in a column to the left. On my installation these are all shown (to the right) as "Built-in". Some of the sounds have been used on Macs for several years and were available pre-OS X. As a sound is highlighted, so the user will hear it played.

A button below the panel selects which speaker is used for the sound output. By default it is marked Selected sound output device and will list any options available, with Intermal Speakers always shown. This is the default.

Below the button is a slider to adjust the volume of the alert when played. This is independent of the Output volume (for example of music) which is controlled by a separate slider near the bottom of all panes in Sound preferences. Alongside this Output slider is a box that can be checked to Mute all sounds (including alerts). Pressing the F10 key will also mute the sounds and when that key is pressed, the Mute box is checked.

Between the two sliders are checkboxes for Play user interface sound effects; and Play feed back when volume is changed (a separate alert sound is used).

Below the Output volume slider is a checkbox for a menu bar icon. This shows as a small speaker which indicates speaker output volume by the number of bars. Pressing the icon reveals a (vertical) slider which is used to adjust the voume.

Output

Adjusting these also makes the same system alert sound as the volume adjuster (also displayed in this panel) to show that changes are being made. When additional output devices are added, the panel changes to show these.

Input

Below these items are an input volume slider and level indicators which light up as the volume increases. There is also a check box for ambient noise reduction which is not available for all devices. With the built-in microphone this is available. However, with my G-Track USB microphone, this check box is greyed out. As with the other panels, the volume slider and its menu-bar check box are also shown.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.