Arch Linux

ViktorShahter

Member

Registered: 2023-07-06

Posts: 4

Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

Recently I installed Arch on my HP 255 G7 laptop and noticed that speakers' sound quality is awful in comparison to Windows. I'm not much into audio but I can say that quality is like in old cell phone when sound is not surrounding you but just blasting off from single speaker and you can tell where it is. It's hard to explain. Also I should point out that I can't hear any glitches. No strange noise or something like that. It just feels significantly worse, especially noticeable with voices. I have no clue where the problem can be. I heard that Windows has some default configurations applied to sound, maybe the reason, I'm not sure.

aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic_1 [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC236 Analog [ALC236 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

fuser -v /dev/snd/*

                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0:  viktorvoloshko   1112 F.... pipewire-media-
/dev/snd/controlC1:  viktorvoloshko   1112 F.... pipewire-media-
/dev/snd/seq:        viktorvoloshko   1111 F.... pipewire

lspci | grep Audio

04:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio Controller
04:00.5 Multimedia controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x Audio Coprocessor
04:00.6 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h/19h HD Audio Controller

dmesg | grep Audio

[    7.581579] input: HD-Audio Generic HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.1/sound/card0/input13
[    7.729332] input: HD-Audio Generic Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.6/sound/card1/input15
[    7.729412] input: HD-Audio Generic Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.6/sound/card1/input16

cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec

Codec: ATI R6xx HDMI
Codec: Realtek ALC236

jonno2002

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 835

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

i think its just terrible speakers and windows must do some DSP but i havent touched windows since 2016 so i have no idea what goes on now.
i have a hp probook 650 g5 and the speakers are beyond terrible compared to my other toshiba laptops, so bad that i have to use a BT speaker on the rare occasion that i actually use my laptop for sound. they have zero depth, zero bass, just 100% awful !

ViktorShahter

Member

Registered: 2023-07-06

Posts: 4

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

i think its just terrible speakers and windows must do some DSP but i havent touched windows since 2016 so i have no idea what goes on now.
i have a hp probook 650 g5 and the speakers are beyond terrible compared to my other toshiba laptops, so bad that i have to use a BT speaker on the rare occasion that i actually use my laptop for sound. they have zero depth, zero bass, just 100% awful !

Is there any simple way to customize output so I can try to get same results as on Windows? I know that my speakers aren't the best but on Windows they're fine while on Arch it's terrible and makes me want to go back on Windows again.

jonno2002

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 835

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

havent done it myself but the wiki has plenty of info for both pipewire and pulseaudio:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWi … processing
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseA … processing

growler

Member

Registered: 2022-09-26

Posts: 25

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

i think its just terrible speakers and windows must do some DSP but i havent touched windows since 2016 so i have no idea what goes on now.
i have a hp probook 650 g5 and the speakers are beyond terrible compared to my other toshiba laptops, so bad that i have to use a BT speaker on the rare occasion that i actually use my laptop for sound. they have zero depth, zero bass, just 100% awful !

Is there any simple way to customize output so I can try to get same results as on Windows? I know that my speakers aren't the best but on Windows they're fine while on Arch it's terrible and makes me want to go back on Windows again.

jamesdsp ?

ViktorShahter

Member

Registered: 2023-07-06

Posts: 4

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

havent done it myself but the wiki has plenty of info for both pipewire and pulseaudio:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWi … processing
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseA … processing

I'm not much into audio so I want to reproduce Windows as much as possible in a simplest way.

jamesdsp ?

Thx, I'll try it out.

ViktorShahter

Member

Registered: 2023-07-06

Posts: 4

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

This preset (called "Clear") in JamesDSP did the work! Not perfect but it's pretty close to what Windows has and my ears no longer bleed.

growler

Member

Registered: 2022-09-26

Posts: 25

Re: Awful audio quality on laptop (pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber)

https://i.ibb.co/DzFg84f/image.png
This preset (called "Clear") in JamesDSP did the work! Not perfect but it's pretty close to what Windows has and my ears no longer bleed.

My JamesDSP settings: (Garuda Linux Cinnamon DE)

https://ibb.co/MVP6wKc
https://ibb.co/ZNpY9L1
https://ibb.co/rvq3F5G
https://ibb.co/jHn6wm1
https://ibb.co/J5yqjwL