Mind you, I haven't used Macs since last intel ones, but my current workhorse of Zephyrus 14 2023 has at least comparable mics to last intel 15" and 16", and better speakers. T14g5 AMD I have from one contract has slightly worse speakers than that but comparable to the Macbooks I used (if not slightly better, the Zephyrus just has a whole grade higher amplifier setup with 4 speakers). And doesn't vary sound based on where it's placed :V

I haven't bought for built-in sound quality in the past (or ever, it's backup's backup after all), but I do remember lots of laptops offered with Harman-Kardon sound system, including hardware implementation of the dynamic compensation system in M-series Macbooks. Except also usually with way beefier speakers. Microphone arrays came in later arguably, but that is more correlated with availability of audio coprocessors - T470 had not great twin mic (mac was better there), but new ones easily handle it beyond my needs.

Way above "last choice backup solution" that "built in speakers and mic" are used for by me.