XPS 15 9550 - Do not use Dell's MaxxAudioPro Preset!

A lot of people have talked about how bad the 9550's speakers are and that they are staticky or distort. I never encountered those issues till after a week or so of owning my 9550. I noticed static and it became more frequent. I also noticed the palm rest on top of the speakers got rather warm when I would play music at higher volume settings. Couple days go by and the right side speaker gets too staticky during any sort of sound coming through the speaker. That side of the speaker later died and the left side followed a day later. I simply thought I received a faulty unit with a faulty screen and speaker so dell sent me a replacement. Note that my first unit no longer has working speakers, both are dead.

I receive my replacement and the first thing I did was check for speaker rattle or static. (still clueless at the time, still thinking my first unit was faulty) NONE. Even at 100% they still sounded like how they should. I decide to test my theory and leave the speakers at 100% during gaming or any music playing. Soon enough the right and left side palm rest area above the speaker gets warm again. I have only had my replacement for a few days (but have rigorously left the laptop play music at 100% for testing purposes) and tonight at work the static comes again.. Now if I go above 80% the static is there, as if my speaker is on it's way out. From here on out it goes down hill. BUT, if I shut off the preset the speakers do not distort however they sound god awful.

First off, when you turn off Dell's MaxxAudio preset you realize right away at how bad the speakers sound. Turn back on the preset and the speakers come alive, literally. For them to "come alive" the program really just over powers the speakers and push them beyond there comfort zone causing heat and then death to the speakers. Anyone who is familiar with car electronics or speakers in general know that when you push a speaker past it's limit the speakers distort and causes rattle, heat and then later fail. Also if you turn off the sound, let the speakers cool down again and turn back on they seem louder and more clear.

If your laptop is still under warranty and don't mind the repair process or the risk of their speakers dying, simply give it a try and report back. I know we could probably get away with turning off the preset and living with the lousy speakers but the speakers sound output quality is drastically changed with dell's maxx audio. I don't know if making a custom preset with lowered bass and treble would help and if it did, for how long?

My original 9550 is packed, ready to be shipped back. I am using my replacement to write this with it's dying speakers. I've turned off the dell maxx audio preset and am running my own preset with the bass turned down. My third replacement is on it's way and I will also be testing that unit too.

My advice.

Turn off Dell MaxxAudioPro's "MaxxSense" Preset.
Create your own Preset.
Leave MaxxTreble on and set to 0.
Un-check everything else. MaxxVolume seems to be an option that allows higher % of sound, like a sound booster. Running speakers at a volume they aren't supposed to.

Go to Equalizer and put on Classic preset or adjust to your liking. Once you've turned off MaxxBass and MaxxVolume you've already shaved a bit of loudness off the speakers. Which IMO is kind of what we want, to be able to be at 100% volume but not destroy them and hopefully make the speakers last longer. For those who are thinking "well why dont you just keep the speakers at a lower volume?" Well i'll tell you now that with that maxxsense preset you're still overpowering the speakers at even low volume.

This cuts the speakers loudness by a good amount and as of right now still sound okay. The speakers on this unit is dying but with this preset here I get no static.

 

Wow I'm so happy I found this post.

So I received my Dell XPS 13 9350 with i5 256SSD yesterday and I've been going through the process of setting it up and updating drivers. Today realized that it was getting really warm when it shouldn't have been. I was listening to music on iTunes and had Firefox open with 1 tab and the temp was running around 52C - 55C which is really high IMO (see attached picture). I didn't really know what was causing it so I actually made a post about it on the Dell XPS 13 2015 Owner's Lounge thread in this forum.

Coincidentally I also noticed that every time I tried closing iTunes there would be a pop up stating" One or more applications are using the iTunes scripting interface. Are you sure you want to quit?". So I googled what that meant and according to some links there was some other music/sound application running at the same time, and actually turning on whenever I start my computer. So I looked into the processes that turned on when the computer booted and sure enough I found Dell MaxxAudioPro. So I turned it off and restarted iTunes and sure enough, my computer was quieter, went down in temp (though its still high IMO 49C-52C, but as I write this message its at 57C-65C for some reason).

The cracking/static appears to have stopped, but the sound quality as a whole has also decreased as OP mentioned. I don't really know if my laptop is just a lemon with multiple issues (overheating and crackly speakers) or if its a software bug. I've paid enough for this that I want to better sound but not at the cost of overheating.

Additionally, iTunes is still giving me the same scripting message so no idea what that's referring to anymore.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Dell CS told me to just return it to the Microsoft store since that's where I got it from but I since I bought it online I would have to ship it back and it just seems like a hassle.

 

Yes I noted running Dell wavepro software, there is problem in memory and cpu leaks. Getting 15% cpu utilisation with it in background

 

Yeah with further testing the left speaker is dead on my second replacement and the right one sounds awful at 100%.

My 3rd replacement gets here Tuesday and honest if the speakers go bad on it, I probably wouldn't recommend anyone using the speakers in this laptop anywhere near max volume. Do note that with both units, out of the box at 100% sounded pretty good. A lot of vibration on the palm rest but i didnt think it would be an issue. With my replacement dying the same way my first xps 15 did I am almost sure the program or preset is pushing the speakers beyond their limits.

 

What? I can't see the image.

 

Turning off MaxxAudioPro's "MaxxSense" Preset helped me out so much, thanks.


I couldn't understand why it sounded so bad with my headphones on, now its perfect.

 

ugh, i just started to notice this after seeing this thread. i already noticed it seemed funny with headphones and so i've resorted to manually toggling it off and on, as well as tweaking the presets when i'm using the laptop speakers. kind of makes me wish i had stuck with my lenovo y700 that i canceled to get this.

not sure how dell will fix this for existing units, but i think they'll have to do something about this as there will be a lot of failures as time goes on...

 

This is a good explanation to what happened to my speakers.

 

so it is this just a matter of time/inevitability that these speakers are gonna bite it?

never heard a crackle or anything, but mine are currently at 25% with MaxxSense on (default settings, untouched from installation) and the sound is plenty loud for music, podcasts, films, etc.

maybe this is a strange question, but why would you need to crank this thing up to 100?

 

I found the movie preset sounds much better than the default maxxsense setting.

 

you guys are freaking me out with your busted speakers. so i just turned off "MaxxVolume" even though i'm at 1/4 total volume all the time.

 

WOW, i am so glad that i found this thread, i too noticed the extremely loud sound from speakers, guess will turn off MAxxVolume.

 

Yeah, the standard "maxxsense" setting is like a comically bad demo mode setting which puts everything in overdrive mode. I even prefer the speech profile because it takes out all the artificial extra bass.

 

Why do I still have dell audio after a clean windows install? I'm not sure if its really off

 

Haha I know the feeling

I also rarely find myself using it at max volume but I didn't notice any unusual sound when I do.

I'm also not sure how other guys here tested their speakers at 100% volume? What player do you use? So far I only tested mine at max volume with youtube music videos.

 

Your question is easy to answer.

Why can't we crank it up to 100%? Some of us prefer higher volume than others and I personally don't see a fault in that. The fault is within the speaker themselves and Dell's presets. They are pushing the speakers beyond their comfort zone. What I tried to put out there with this thread is for people NOT to use Dell's preset in order to save the life of their speakers.

 

Hey guys, I heard the newest driver from dell fixes this issue? http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-laptop&languageCode=en&categoryId=AU

Is this true? And if it is, can I enable maxxaudio again?

 

I wil not enable any stuff unless these brainless #'+*0= finally add a function to disable any sound 'improvement' when using phones. Or switch to another setting automatically. How stupid can programmers be? No limits, it seems...

 

Not disagreeing that a problem exists but your response is a bit ridiculous. If you know anything about audio, you know when you crank your amplifier to maximum, not only do you send maximum power to the speakers, but if your amp can also distort and clip, causing damage to voice coils in the speakers. The fault of the amplifier maker or the listener? It's basically common sense...if, as you slowly turn up your volume, you find that you need to set it to maximum to get decent, undistorted volume (under-powered) then that is safe.. But to crank up the volume to maximum and then complain the speakers heat up and burn out seems a bit ludicrous. Maybe even get some high powered BT speakers if you want room-filling sound from your laptop.

 

I disagree. A laptop is not a HiFi system built from different components, but a pre-built, fixed system with clearly defined maximum power, headroom and matching components (read speakers). It should NOT be possible to overload the speakers. And no, there is no audible distortion when raising everything to MAXX (pun intended).

 

So we are talking amps and speaker coils now? Haha.. I do car audio installations on my own and am fully aware of that but that has nothing to do with what I made this thread for.

We didn't hook up or install the speakers in the XPS 15 ourselves. We didn't tinker with an amp or wiring or anything like that.. It came to us like that. We the buyer would think Dell would be smart enough to fine tune everything on the machine to work to it's maximum potential while being safe for the components. I didn't pay for a beta or a test machine, this was their final finish of the XPS 15.

I understand where you are coming from but we aren't talking home or car audio lol.. When did one ever buy a laptop and found a letter in the box saying "tune audio settings carefully" or "sound may distort at 100% with chance of speaker failing". Are the speakers faulty? No, but dell's profile that pushes them are poorly tuned which will cause them to fail.

 

Hi guys,

Some crackles here to, plus I feel the MaxxAudio process is modifying too much the sound and it doesn't feel natural.

So i disable the speaker enhancement, but every time I restart i found the MaxxAudio enabled again.

Is there a way to keep it disabled at all times ?

 

Try deleting Dell's Maxxsense app all together.