Sound not good enough

[Trynna3]

I have tried several distros, namely LMDE, Fedora and now Zorin, all newest releases. All three give poor audio without tweaking with additional software, which comes with issues of its own.
When can we expect mainstream distribution to improve audio quality in computers?

I have been using Windows on this device for years, since new, I know what the internal speakers should sound like. And they are good for watching videos or playing music. On Linux it sounds like not all components of the audio are utilised, like a tunnel sound.

 

[The Duck]

When can we expect mainstream distribution to improve audio quality in computers?

Blame the manufacturers who don't bother to provide Linux drivers.

No money or profit to be made from Linux.

 

[Trynna3]

Blame the manufacturers who don't bother to provide Linux drivers.

No money or profit to be made from Linux.

I get it, but on other instances, devs reverse engineered some stuff, so I had hopes.

 

[dos2unix]

Dozens and dozens of drivers for different sound cards and chips are in Linux. I have installed at least dozen different distros on literally hundreds (I don't think it's an exaggeration to say over 500) computers of all different makes, models, motherboards, sound cards, sound chips... and I rarely, if ever have any problems.

Currently in my house, right now as I'm typing this.. I have two home built towers, 2 Intel NUCs, a dell Laptop, an HP laptop, and a Lenovo Laptop... all play sound no problems... yes the built in laptop speakers aren't great.. but that's not Linux's fault. Some professional recording studio's have recently move away from Mac to Linux.

 

[Trynna3]

Ok, I am not very Linux savvy, but had a session with the chatbot. I installed a simple equaliser and now route all sound through it by default every time I turn the computer on. I can hear a little difference in sound quality. Previously I tried different softwares but they then restricted me in controlling the sound via hardware. This one is fine, pulseaudio.

 

[MikeWalsh]

In Puppy, we have pEqualizer. It's nowt "special".....it was coded, compiled & built from scratch by Puppy's recent head "steward", Mick Amadio, several years back in his own early days with Puppy, some 15 or 16 years ago.

(Mick's the one responsible for the entire line of 5- and 6-series 'Slacko' Puppies - based around first 13.37, then 14.0 & finally 14.1 Slackware - until a few years ago. He's a huge Slackware fan.)

It's designed to work directly with ALSA, as have been most Puppies until fairly recently. It's a basic, lightweight "system-wide" equalizer; ten bands, and a few assorted default presets.....with the ability to save as many of your own custom presets as you want.

You start it before you start the application you want to use.....then everything going to ALSA is processed through pEqualizer before it gets there.

For us, it works pretty darned well. I also use DeaDBeeF and Audacious, both of which have their own dedicated, built-in EQs.

I can usually get the sound how I want it; I'm a big reggae, jazz and blues fan, and like plenty of deep bass, not too much midrange & crisp, sharp treble. I'm not an audiophile, but I DO know how I like my music to sound.

I'm happy with sound reproduction in Puppy. It's one thing the community has concentrated on since the very early days of Puppy....to generally good effect.

"Custom" is my own, preferred setting for my jazz & reggae.


Mike.

 

[The Duck]

Buy some quality computer speakers and play your laptop through them.

The Wife does that and her laptop rocks using quality computer speakers..

 

[f33dm3bits]

Not sure what you mean with audio quality not being good enough? My audio sounds just good doesn't sound bad so not washed out or dull either, etc. On both Fedora and Arch Linux, comparing it to my soundbar of my TV and it doesn't sound worse. So you are going to have to describe what you mean with not good enough?

 

[The Duck]

@Trynna3

These threads may be of interest.

https://www.linux.org/threads/computer-speakers.50872/

https://www.linux.org/threads/whats-your-sound-set-up.54365/

 

[Trynna3]

@Trynna3

These threads may be of interest.

https://www.linux.org/threads/computer-speakers.50872/

https://www.linux.org/threads/whats-your-sound-set-up.54365/

Thanks for the suggestions. I have external speakers, with a subwoofer, I use them when I need a full blast. But for normal use, and especially for speech, like watching videos on youtube, people talking about various topics, I prefer the internal speakers, as the external make it less understandable. I have a minor hearing loss in high frequencies, so the internal speakers proved to be a godsend in this regard. There definitely is a difference in sound quality between playing youtube on Linux and Windows.

The tweaks via Pulseaudio are quite limited and as I mentioned, making changes with different software mentioned elsewhere, I lost a simple control of volume via the rotating volume control (part of the external speakers system) or on my keyboard. I need to click on audio control in the software. Not with Pulseaudio, but as I said, the effect of sound adjustment via equaliser is weak. on Pulseaudio.
Like on Linux the whole potential of the internal speakers isn't utilised.

I also experienced, in the past when using the other software, that each song played differently with adjusting equaliser. I made one song sound perfectly and then when another started, sound was distorted. So I am not going this route again.