How is the sound quality via headphone output in m17xr3

Is the sound quality coming from the headphone out of very high audiophile quality? The beats Audio of the envy 14 has superb sound quality coming from the headphone out is the m17x r3 a downgrade in this respect?

 

I watched a movie last night with it hooked up to a Bose wave radio. Now I kow that gives it an edge right there. But it sounded great. It was very clear and the bass was just unreal. May have been the movie, but I watched several on my R2 and it never sonuded this good. Just my opinion.

 

I agree as well. Even through my lowly JVC ear buds it sounds fantastic. Lots of bass, but it is not over powering.

 

Remember R3 has S/PDIF optical output... Thats kinda "pure" original sound. Its capable of transferring 5.1 output to your home speakers system. To me this is a huge plus. If you really need sound quality, get a DAC and this s/pdif output will let you transfer original sound to your DAC for maximizing sound quality.
And, I dont think your HP has s/pdif output. So no worry

 

I use a DAC. Beats out any headphone plug by a long shot. If audio quality is a must DAC is the way to go.

 

DR650 what DAC to you recommend 300 or less? I have Westone 3 IEM's.

 

What is a DAC?

 

Digital to analog Converter

Converts the digital audio signal to a useable analog signal that all speakers run off of. The DAC is the most essential piece to the quality of the sound. A dac with very low total harmonic distortion and very high signal to noise ratio will produce superior sound to cheap built in sound.

For ultimate quality you run an external DAC and a high quality headphone amplifier. The digital audio signal is created by the computer and outputted via USB to the DAC. The high quality dac converts the signal with the lowest amount of distortion possible to an analog signal, the analog signal is passed to a high quality headphone amp to increase the sound level without adding distortion. The amplified analog signal is sent to your speaker/headphone.

Westone 3 IEM's are prettty damn awesome too. They have 3 drivers in each earbud with passive crossovers to split the frequencies. It's basically 3 tiny speakers in each in ear monitor. The crossover splits the frequencies so each driver can reproduce the frequencies its supposed to, dramatically cutting down on distortion. 300 may seem steep for lil in ear ear buds but its actually a bargain for what you get. Lots of professional musicians use westone IEM's

 

I haven't noticed any issues with the headphone sound. No hiss, no nothing, and I have very sensitive ears. It sounds great to me.

On a slightly different note, if you have your cat lay across the front of the laptop and muffle those speaker ports, you get a surround sound effect.

 

Hahahahaha!!!! Funny!

 

Is the integrated audio on the R3 powered by Realtek?

I've always thought that Realtek audio on all of the past laptops I've owned had mediocre sound at best.

Can anyone comment on the R3's sound quality vs the XPS15/17 sound quality? Because I know for the new XPS line, they have the Waves MAXX Audio sound card with the Creative X-Fi MB software. Soon to be in the M18x too. And if there's a huge difference in sound quality, I might just have to cancel my order on my R3 that hasn't even been shipped yet.

 

According to most people, the sound in the xps 15/17 is better. But the Klipsch speakers on the r3 aren't bad at all from what I hear, definitely higher quality than what you would normally expect

 

Hm, I'm more concerned about the headphone output jack sound quality, as most of the time, I'll be plugged in, instead of using the laptop speakers.

After doing some digging, I found that the R3 uses IDT onboard sound? From what I've read, IDT is even worse than Realtek, and Realtek isn't even that great.

 

Get the nuforce udac-2. got one on my ago. Money well spent for superior soibd quality. You won't regret it and the price is good too.

 

I've actually gotten the NuForce uDAC-2 before, and returned it the same day. There was a severe channel imbalance at low volumes. The left channel, if I remember correctly still had sound when the knob was at or below 9 o'clock, when the right channel had no sound whatsoever. Then I found a page on their website that stated that the imbalance is not preventable from a manufacturing standpoint. So yeah, since all uDAC's are like that, it was a dealbreaker for me.

And as for the R3, I'd really like to have a laptop that can at least push out decent sounding audio if I'm spending $2000+ on it. The basic integrated IDT audio just isn't going to cut it.

Like I said before, even the M11xr3 and M14x that are coming out have better audio features than the M17xR3, which blows my mind.