Volume swings happen only when watching video.
From ArsTechnica:
From ArsTechnica:
At first, I thought my mind was going. My wife and I, on vacation recently, had just settled in with an episode from the final season of 30 Rock. I had purchased it from Amazon Instant Video for a couple of bucks because Netflix didn't have the final season yet, and if there is one guaranteed benefit to not being a dirty pirate, it's studio-quality audio and video, right?Apple fixes bizarre volume bug on new Macbook Airs
Imagine my surprise, then, when the volume began subtly modulating. For 30 seconds, Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey were shouting at me; for 30 seconds, they were whispering. Well, crazy things happen; perhaps the version of the episode shipped over to Amazon had been mastered poorly by some summer intern.