How to Fix Laptop Audio Quality Issues

Laptop audio quality is an integral part of using your laptop for media. Without high-quality audio, it becomes difficult to enjoy video games, videos, and music to their fullest. Low-quality laptop audio sounds tinny, hollow, and extremely flat. Problems with your sound card or laptop software can cause buzzing, crackling, or popping noises to interfere with audio quality. If your laptop speakers are physically damaged, you may experience muffled audio generated by a damaged speaker cone.

Fortunately, many modern laptops have audio settings you can control to bring out the full audio potential. You may adjust equalizer settings, experiment with different audio profiles, and change key sound settings. If your laptop produces poor audio, several factors can interfere with your audio drivers. Hardware problems, outdated drivers, software issues, and compatibility issues are just a few factors that can decrease the audio quality of your laptop. 

Here are some techniques to fix laptop audio quality.

Change the position of your laptop. 

Laptop positioning is one of the most common issues that interfere with audio quality on laptops. The position of your device becomes critical if your laptop is designed with downward-facing speakers. If you use your laptop in bed or on a table, you may inadvertently muffle the sound and reduce audio quality.

You can attempt to get over the muffling by altering audio enhancements under Speaker Properties, where you can optimize for Virtual Surround sound. If positioning is a problem, you can use a laptop like the ASUS ROG Flow X13. This laptop is recommended because of its convertible design. The 360-degree hinge relieves your speakers in tablet, tent or stand mode.

Play with your audio settings

Experimenting with the audio settings in Windows is a smart way to fix laptop audio quality. By right-clicking the Speaker icon in the taskbar, you can open sound settings via the Sound Control Panel. You should ensure the correct devices are connected and adjust your levels in the Volume Mixer. This technique is helpful if you’ve been experiencing buzzing, crackling or other audio glitches.

Try using VLC

If your audio quality regularly fails when playing audio or video files, using a 3rd party media player can provide extra audio enhancements. VLC is an easy-to-use program that lets you increase volume over the 100% mark on any audio or video file. The VLC player has a volume normalization filter, which changes the overall volume to meet the target volume level. In VLC, you can also eliminate background and white noise using the audio equalizer.

Use an audio enhancement program

An audio enhancement program can be a quick solution for improving the audio quality on your laptop. FXSound, Boom3D, and DeskFX Audio Enhancer are examples of third-party applications you can use. If you have a MacBook, you can experiment with programs like Hear and BitPerfect. 

These programs give you many equalizer settings you can manipulate to improve audio quality. Most programs also come with pre-set audio settings for specific surroundings and media types, making it easy to find the settings most appropriate for your viewing environment.

Adjust speaker settings

Another way to fix your laptop’s audio quality is by adjusting the built-in speaker settings. Under sound settings, click properties to adjust the speaker settings. Under the advanced tab, you can experiment with different Default Format settings. You may change the sample rate and bit depth of audio produced by your laptop. 

Start with the lower settings and work your way up to see if there’s any difference. Click apply to ensure the changes are accepted before testing the new audio setting. Laptops like the ASUS ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED come equipped with ESS Sabre Digital-to-Analog converters combined with Hi-Res Audio technology. It helps your laptop produce the highest quality audio possible.

Alter your laptop’s minimum processor state

Different settings on your laptop that interfere with your processor can also cause a reduction in audio quality. Certain settings in Windows are designed to save power. They put your Central Processing Unit (CPU) in a minimum processor state to reduce power consumption. While this can help you save battery power, it also produces distorted audio. That’s because creating high-quality audio requires processing power from your CPU. 

To change this setting, right-click the start menu and click Power Options. From this screen, click Additional power settings, then change power settings, and change advanced power settings. In the Power Options settings box, scroll down to Processor power management, minimum processor state, and change from 5% to 100%. Changing this setting will ensure your CPU always uses as much power as possible to produce high-quality audio.

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Dharmesh Donda

iStaunch is written by Dharmesh Donda, an avid Internet geek, IT professional since 2012. Have been in IT industry for more than a decade, and currently doing management and consulting work have taken a plunge into entrepreneurship.

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