[AshamedCaptain]

It could also be for example that when the firmware fails to check out at boot, the speaker enters a "safe mode" where the volume is limited for some lawyer-related reason. And that the update tends to frequently fail to apply, or actually always fails to apply.

Still, "firmware update meant to mitigate speaker cone damage under specific power delivery circumstances" is pretty damning, and it's not the first time I see this. Nokia also did the same kind of update to a device I owned, a couple decades ago. The excuse was practically word-for-word, and also claimed speaker damage could occur if you didn't install it.

I didn't install it and the device actually had speaker damage... about 5 years afterwards, and because instead of a cable or a proper solder job, they had used a spring to connect the speaker to the PCB and it had wore out. Totally unrelated to the speaker cone or any type of high volume issue.