Audio balance changes randomly in MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch' mid-2012

I'm having some strange issues on my MBP Retina running OS X 10.8.2.

The audio balance changes, and the right speaker is almost muted.

Anyone know what could be wrong here?

Solution 1:

I've had this problem on multiple MacBooks (from my old Powerbook 15 from 2003 to prior to finding this question on my late 2011 MBP 13").

Apple has acknowledged it as a bug when pressing the volume buttons during heavy CPU usage way back in OS 10.2! The solution was to go back to preferences and set it back where you wanted.

Solution 2:

There is an open source MacOS app that attempts to work around this acknowledged bug. The app watches for balance changes and centres immediately.

Disclaimer: I made the application.