Asus W2V - nearly perfect, but terrible sound!

I received my Asus W2V last Friday. I intended to test it thoroughly during the weekend to be able to give you a fairly comprehensive set of first impressions, including battery life tests and benchmark scores. However, all my time has been spent on trying to improve the (for me) unacceptable sound, so everything else will have to wait. Sorry.

Here in Europe there are two versions of the W2V available - one with 2.0 GHz / 100 GB HDD / 1 GB RAM (2x512MB) and another with 1.86 GHz / 80 GB HDD / 512 MB RAM. I ordered the version with the lower specs, because then I could afford to splurge on RAM upgrades to 2 GB.

Speaking of RAM, only one slot is easily accessable. I slipped in a 1 GB stick there (so 1.5 GB is now installed), but have decided to wait with the slot hidden under the keyboard until I find instructions on how to disassemble the notebook. I searched ASUS website but have not found such instructions for the W2V. The manual clearly says that RAM upgrades must be performed by an authorized ASUS dealer, or the warranty will be void.

The notebook looks great and is well packed. In the box is a high quality case, a small optical wheel mouse in matching aluminium, two (!) remote controls (full size and PCMCIA size), a restore CD, two CDs with all necessary drivers, Norton Security, Nero DVD burning and Asus theater software, some games, a fairly heavy transformer, around-the-neck headphones (pretty, but crappy sound), a tiny TV antenna and lots of cables.

My computer was delivered with a German version of XP pro which I didn't want (I'm Swedish). The disk had two partitions of 35-40 GB and a third 2 GB restore partition. The first thing I did was installed TrueImage to backup the original disk, reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP (English) and the drivers. The driver CD was invaluable for this. Everything worked as expected.

So far so good. The screen is gorgeous - clear, bright and no bad pixels. Viewing angles are fine. The fan is clearly audible - it runs nearly constantly, even when idle. It is a bit louder than I had hoped, but the sound is much less disturbing than I had feared. The sound is constant, so it doesn't call attention to itself. The noise is low frequency, with no dominant tones to drive you crazy. Not bad at all, and there is still hope for further improvement using e.g. Centrino Hardware Control and SpeedFan.

The TV tuner worked fine, although I was not impressed with the Asus Theater software. The slot loaded DVD player/writer is cool, but the sounds the mechanism makes are more Volkswagen than Mercedes.

So Saturday night I plugged in my Etymotic ER4p earphones and settled down to watch a movie, fully expecting a great experience. It wasn't. The sound pretty much sucked - almost total lack of bass, and very muddy highs as well. I first blamed the rip, but decided to test the sound the next day. What a disappointment! I found I could improve the sound slightly by enabling the equalizer in the Realtek sound drivers, but nowhere near to an acceptable level. Even my 5-year old Thinkpad T20 is much better than this. I also listened to the same MP3 with the W2V and my iRiver IHP-120 mp3-player. The iRiver totally blew away the W2V. I have never been very impressed with the sound quality of my iRiver - pretty good for a portable mp3 player, but nothing to write home about. But even the average performance of the iRiver was pure audio bliss in comparison with the W2V - great bass, lovely midrange and clear distinct highs.

Now I have to admit I'm a quasi-audiophile. If I weren't on vacation, I would be listening with my top-of-the-line Sennheiser HD650 headphones and a dedicated headphone amplifier. So perhaps I'm not a typical listener. If you listen with the built-in speakers (which are better than average laptop speakers) or with the included junk headphones, you probably won't have a problem with the sound.

On the other hand, I'm not a rabid full-scale audiophile either. I'm quite happy on the road with my mp3 player and the ER4p canal phones. It would have been acceptable for me if the W2V had equivalent sound quality. But no. The sound quality from the W2V is a significant step down from my mediocre old Thinkpad sound. "Intel high definition audio" - what a load of crap.

I seriously hope that I have a lemon, but I doubt it. Without good equipment the sound isn't obviously terrible. With good stuff and good ears, the sound is definitely horrible. I tried updating the Realtek drivers, but no improvement.

My last hope is that I can save the sound using an external soundcard, or perhaps just a DAC running from the SPDIF output. Can someone tell me if the SPDIF/DAC combo will channel all sound, including output from MP3s and games?

[Edit] I think I should try to describe the sound of the W2V. I find it tinny and thin, with a lack of bass and little detail in the upper register. This greatly affects my enjoyment of music and films. I would appreciate if other W2V owners, especially self-proclaimed audiophiles, could chime in and let us know if they hear the same thing. I very much want to know if it is my computer only or the W2V model in general.[/Edit]

 

Hi there nicke2323
Thanks for your short introduction of your W2V experience. I must say that I find it rather annoying that you claim it is crappy sound and that 20 times but really you ARE an audiophile if you have such a load of mp3 players and Sennheiser HD650 headphones (which isn't the crappy brand isn't it ). Do you think it really is bad or are you more demanding than other users? Then again, your test isn't really clear, did you test the dvd-rip on another machine or what did you test to find the sound crappy in relation to the dvd-rip? Hopefully you have a crappy one or just a software setting wrong? (maybe changing the box settings of windows or the driver might help?)

Anyway, I hope to hear how the rest is functioning I am not in anyway dissing you, just trying to see things in perspective (since I have allready ordered one ). If you want I will post my experience with the sound when I can .

Thanks and looking forward

 

I have some Ety ER4P/S and Shure E4Cs, I'll give them a shot on my Z70V. I did try some old senn 490s on it, which of course are cheapies, and was fairly surprised by the sound coming out. It's definitely a step beyong any other onboard sound I've heard, but I'm not expecting it to for instance come too close to my music PC with EMU 0404 and Portaphile V2 amp.

 

To Chiller:

No offense taken. I admit my post was confusing, so your remarks are relevant. I would say that I am significantly more demanding than the average computer user (you can tell from the headphones I use). However, I am not an extreme audiophile, and I don't think my demands (sound quality equal to an average mp3 player) are unreasonable.

Judging the sound as "bad" or not is highly subjective. I think if you are the type who can enjoy music from the speakers of a small portable CD player, then you will find the sound quality of the W2V perfectly fine. I can't enjoy music like that, I need better reproduction to "get into it". Using good headphones, I can listen to music from my old Thinkpad or my mp3 player, but I find the W2V significantly worse than both of these.

This is especially disappointing since the W2V is marketed as a multimedia machine with high resolution audio. I was expecting better.

The only test I made was to listen to the same song on my MP3 player and on the W2V, using the same headphones. The film thing was not a test, just the first time I noticed the sound quality.

I'll get back to you when I have more to report.

 

Hi,
A 5.1 downmix to stereo removes the .1 channel. This is according the Dolby specification. This is done in dvd players with analoge L/R out, and maybe also in the W2? Most external DD decoders allows you to mix the .1 in L/R, but is not according the DD spec. Maybe check if there is an option in the audio config to include .1 in L/R?

 

Hello!

I posted a link to a review of Asus W2V in monday and until then I hadn't much time to really appreciate the sound of this notebook. After reading this thread I made some tests and I have to say that nicke2323 IS RIGHT! The w2v sound is indeed very, very poor, with total lack of bass, not only with the built in speakers, but also using headphones!! I think (and I hope) that it's a driver related issue, because the built in speakers seem to be working but it seems that the sound that reaches each one isn't correct. I already made lots of experiences trying to improve this (changed all the aspects I could remember within WinXP and realtek control panel) but nothing seems to work well.
Other interesting thing I tried was to listen to the sound of a DVD using the 5.1 analogue outputs to direct the sound to the input of an external amplifier (that has analogue 5.1 inputs). With this setup, the decoding is made by the realtek ALC880 chip of Asus and what you hear is a mix of sounds in all speakers, i.e., you don't hear clearly the center speaker with the dialogue, the rear speakers with surround effects and so on, all is mixed!
However, exacly with the same DVD, if you use the SPDIF output to connect to the external amplifier and leave the DVD sound decoding to be made by the ext. amp., you can hear perfectly the separation of the sounds by all the 5.1 speakers!

I also tried to listen to the same music file (an high quality flac file), with the same headphones, in other systems:
- a HP nc6000 laptop that has onboard sound provided by a soundmax AC97 chip;
- a desktop with onboard sound provided by a realtek ALC850 chip (motherboard Asus P4P800E-Deluxe). It's also an AC97 codec with specifications far inferior to the Realtek ALC880 built in Asus W2V.

The results were much better in these two systems than in Asus W2V with the same headphones (at least you could hear the bass!!).

So, for sure, Asus W2V has a problem with sound output. I even tried to install the realtek updated drivers for the ALC880 chip (download from realtek site), but the results were exactly the same. I think Asus needs to do something about this problem (I already asked them yesterday, I'm waiting for the answer), because this is a very expensive notebook and, even worse, it's being sold as a MULTIMEDIA CENTER! And I hope it's a software related problem...

Other thing I remembered: in realtek control panel, if you try the different available speaker configurations (headphones, 2 ch, 4 ch and 6 ch) and you press the auto test button (to hear a sound from each speaker), you only hear the sound corresponding to the front channels, no matter what configuration you choose. But as I told before, listening to music or something, it seems that all speakers work, but with all the sound mixed up and a big lack of bass.

If any other users have this notebook, please report their experiences with sound, please!

--
Apollo

 

Hello Apollo,

thanks for your opinion on the music. So it seems to be a genuine and general problem then. That stinks! One question to nicke2323 and Apollo about their settings and a remark after that .

First the question, at the "Sounds and Audio Devices" section of the Windows control panel you can select the type of speaker lay-out as well as the driver settings from the manufacturer. Did you check/adjust this setting as well?

Then the remark, although a lot of sites state 5.1 sound on the W2V this is impossible due to the speaker lay-out. It has four, not five, "normal" speakers and one "subwoofer". This can at max correspond to 4.1 in the surround sound terms. That might be where the blurring of the sound comes from on the laptop itself.

Maybe this helps a bit, I know my father had serious problems with its sound settings to get it working right. So changing the Windows AND the driver settings was required to get the thing pumping out 5.1 sound and some real bass. Before that it was scrap so I still hope it is a setting issue allthough both of you seem experienced computer users so my chances are small .

One more thing, there are drivers to download from the Asus support site, these are the specifics about the audio driver, maybe this is a newer one than you guys have?

Date 2005/06/29 update
Version V5.10.0.5123
OS Win2K / WinXP
Description Audio Driver
Audio driver for Win2000/XP
File Size 43.72 (MBytes)

Thanks for the effort

 

Hello again!

Answering to Chiller, yes, I changed everything I could change in the windows control panel and got no improvements.
Regarding the speaker configuration, you're right, this is actually a 4.1 system, not a 5.1 system as Asus says. And I again agree with you that the big problem could be right there. Both Windows and the realtek control panel don't allow you to choose 4.1 config, but I tried every single selectable config without any luck.
So I think this is where it all starts: the drivers or the audio software don't allow you to choose the right speaker config, however, it seems that the audio chip is always trying to send the sound to a surround speaker setup: if it wasn't like that, when you connect the headphones and choose headphones in the control panel, you should hear all the sounds in your phones, but that doesn't happen, mainly with low freq. sounds.

I'm still trying to find anyone that I know that has a computer with the same audio chip, the realtek ALC880, to test it myself, but again, I don't believe it's a problem form the audio chip, since I tested other computers with realtek audio chips (not the ALC880, but lower specs models) and they all performed far better than W2.

Regarding the drivers, the ones that are available from Asus website are the ones that come with the laptop. I installed the realtek drivers v5.10.00.5136 and got no luck.

If someone remembers anything that could be done, please tell!

Regards
--
Apollo

 

@nicke2323 and @apollo,

maybe it is a good suggestion to put this issue on the official asus support forum?
this is a directlink to the right section of the forum.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/bbs.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=W2V

That way the officials at asus can see the issue too and maybe this helps in solving it more quickly.

With kind regards

Chiller

 

The W1 was held up last year for two issues (one being just like this) ....... the other being the tv tuner software not meshing well with our north american format.

The W2 for here may very well being help up for the same reason. The W2 *should* have the best sound of any laptop..... and I'll venture to say that every W1 review said the same thing. The reason being that the lows are all pumped to the seperate subwoofer. If the sub isn't on or isn't working or settings aren't right - you'll have no lows. But I can say after having a W1 as long as I have, and have about 2 weeks experience with the W2 demo, something isn't right on your end.... check the sub. By moving all the lows out of the little notebook speakers, for a notebook, the W1/W2 have the cleanest sound. To get no bass what so ever just sounds like it's going to the sub, but the sub isn't there or it's not turned on or something else.

 

I totally agree with you, what I think is exactly that: low freq sound is being directed to the subwoffer, but it doesn't work properly...But what's strange is that when you plug stereo headphones (and select that you have connected them in Windows and in Realtek control panel) ALL the sound (including low freq) should be directed to the headphones, but that doesn't happen: it seems that the system keeps trying to send the bass to somewhere, maybe the subwoofer, I don't know...

 

Right, I guess I hit submit too soon because I was going to say something about that.... it doesn't make sense and you can plug your headphones into a little W5 and get awesome sound........ it seems like a driver issue.

Where did you pick this up? I don't want play the we usually get better things than other countries card...... but the whole reason we don't have the W2 yet is because of bugs (mainly in the tv tuner software).. but bugs none the less...... There are a lot of computer companies who put things out and let the customer find the bugs and then release driver updates....... in Europe Asus seems to jump the gun a bit.

Right now, I'd call Asus up because even the demo didn't have that sort of issue. For your headphones, make sure you set the headphones up for 2.0 stereo........ if you don't have them set up for stereo, and have 5.1 or 7.1 or something, that could explain some of your issues as well.

I'd look at them as the same issue and different at the same time. Play around with the speaker settings - as with the W1, the W2 has a LOT to look at and change... so play around. Those speakers, without a doubt, should be the best built-in notebook speakers on earth.

 

Ok, I managed to solve part of the problem with W2 sound.
If you output the sound to an external amplifier using the 5.1 analogue output of W2, the sound now is GOOD!
There were two problems in the past that made the music file reproduction seem very weak:
1 - Even after selecting in realtek control panel the 5.1 configuration, you have to manually select the corresponding speakers for each channel, i.e., "stereo speakers" for front channel, "surround speakers" for back channel and "CEN/LFE speakers" for the central/subwoofer channel.
2 - I was playing the music using MediaMonkey. When I tried to use Windows Media Player, the sound was totally diferent. It seems that you have to install some plugin in MediaMonkey to allow for reproduction of sound in all 5.1 speakers, I will investigate this...

However, note that this only solves the sound problem when doing the output to external 5.1 speakers. Either using the W2 speakers or some headphones, the sound continues to be very poor, lacking bass, worse than in a normal desktop/laptop...

Apollo

 

.... since you did just figure that out, I suggest you look at the settings a bit more. I totally forgot to take a look at my W1 and find the setting those are on, but I'm fairly certainly they're not on "stereo" ... I want to say they're on 4.1 or something.

Try playing a good source file like a cd or dvd and a good player...... at least media player, but if you have something better, use that.