Is Dolby-optimized surround sound system any good in Acer Laptops?

Hi,

I'm looking to purchase a new laptop and so far I seem to have narrowed it down to either the Acer Aspire 5738Z or the Acer Aspire 5732z.

One difference between the two is that the 5738Z has, according to the ACER website, "Dolby®-optimized surround sound system with two built-in stereo speakers, Optimized 3rd Generation Dolby Home Theater® audio enhancement, featuring Dolby® Digital Live, Dolby® Pro Logic® IIx, Dolby® Headphone, Dolby® Natural Bass, Dolby® Sound Space Expander, Dolby® Inverse Filtering, Dolby® High Frequency Enhancer technologies". The 5738Z has just two regular built-in stereo speakers.

I plan on listening to a lot of music and watching a lot of movies on the laptop, so I was wondering if these audio enhancements really make a big difference to the sound quality on a laptop (using it's in-built speakers)?

Regular laptop speaker sound is usually quite weak and tinny, and I wanted to know whether those sound enhancements really do boost the quality of the sound in a noticeable way.

Could anybody who has heard laptop speakers with these Dolby enhancements please let me know if they make a big difference?

Thanks

 

I'm not sure if the Dolby certification does anything - it might just be another sticker on the system.
The reason my Dolby-certified speakers sound so good is because I've also got the Tuba low-end booster in my 6920G. Without it, my laptop speakers sound tinny too. With it, it's the best damn laptop I've ever heard.

 

I own the Aspire 5740G which is based on the same chassis as 5738 so it's probably the same or very similar sound system in both.
As for the speakers themselves they sound "shallow"- no real depth to the sound but sound is not distorted and volume is quite high.
The whole Dolby thing is added by Realtek drivers- there's a Dolby tab with "Audio Enhancer" which makes the speakers sound much better- more vivid and less "shallow" and "Surround Sound" which is self explanatory. The latter may be of use or not- depending on what type of music do you listen to. Sometimes it makes the music sound better but sometimes the vocals get lost somewhere overwhelmed by bass or other instruments. Still you may switch it on or off anytime so it's not a problem.
All in all it's not as good as Aspire 6920G which simply has more speakers and TUBA system but it sounds better than just plain stereo speakers with nothing else but in the end it all depends on what you like and what type of sound system are you accustomed to. If your expectations are too high you may not be happy with it- it's basic system improved but still no state of the art sound system.

 

Yeah, that's also true. The Realtek drivers for the 5738 will add Dolby functionality like "Sound Space Expander" and "Natural Bass Boost."

 

Great answer, thanks for that!

I was just about to ask: Can't those dolby (or similar) drivers just be downloaded for the 5738 and produce the same improvements? Or is it something that isn't available to the public except if you purchase a laptop that has it pre-installed? Do those realtek ones do the same kind of thing then or does dolby do more?

 

That depends on certification which means money.
Acer paid for it so they could have this logo and drivers with Dolby Home Theatre tab but had they decided not to you would end up with the same audio codec and hardware but without those software additions.
So if it's not explicitly spelled out in specs assume it's not there.
It may be possible to mod drivers so this tab would appear but judging from all the fuss we had with 5740G hoping do disable power cord disconnection beep (no success) and the fact that you can't use regular driver updates for notebooks like 6920G (TUBA stops working) don't hope for too much success in this department.