Windows on New Macbook Pro Permanently Damages Speaker Due to Poor Drivers

For the record, if the speaker is truly blown (ruined) this is a problem with the hardware - not the software. If you can't design a speaker and amplifier combination with a limiter that won't let itself self-destruct, you are an audio design failure.

I mostly agree on this, but I can also see how they got to a design that has this flaw. You can do better (more transparent, more adaptive, etc.) limiting in DSP than with a simple hardware circuit. Doing the limiting in the driver also saves you hardware components and PCB layout space.

It's a slippery slope of optimization that only works when you control the OS (or drivers at least) and the hardware together, but one slip-up can be catastrophic.