*HP ENVY 14 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Up and linked to 1st page.

Let's just say I'm sending HP the bill...

 

I have Klipsch S4's and think they are an awesome pair of sub $100 buds.

 

Yeah! I had the Triple Fi's but the size was just annoying. I sold them and now I'm in the market again. I'll definitely be eye-balling those Klipsch S4's :] How's bass response from the sound card in the 14? Any impression or comparison to a Creative sound card would be great.

 

While i would love to wait for Intel 1080p WiDi, this is my concern. While yes sandy bridge will be out before the end of the year, that doesn't mean MOBILE sandy bridge parts will be out this year. Chances are Christmas is going to come and mobile sandy bridge parts will be another 6-9 months.

Then even when mobile sandy bridge does come, there is no guarantee your going to get everything that is in the E14 together again except with the extra's your waiting for. Not to mention just because Intel releases a part doesn't mean PC makers instantly start using said part. Look at the CULV Core i7's, they've been available for a while now and are still not being produced by every manufacturer yet.

 

I have a feeling mobile sandy bridge won't be out for a decent bit still. The mobile i5 and i3 processors just came out at the beginning of this year.

 

One of the biggest flaws of that forum is an inherent flaw of determining audio quality online, you rely on others perceptions of quality instead of hearing it first hand. The most useful threads are almost always the ones that compare a given set of buds or headphones to others in its class. But even if you research things exhaustively before you buy like I tend to do, you can never be completely sure until you try it. Spent over 100 dollars on a pair of grado sr 125s back in the day, and much prefer the same money spend on my current denons.

 

Excellent points.

 

This would be useful to know, I know my netbook audio out is terrible quality compared to my standard notebook, be interesting to see if people could tell any difference with a pair of nice headphones/earbuds that are easy to drive.

 

I'm curious how good this "Beats" audio is. Their headphones are garbage so I don't know how well their soundcards will sound. Their commercial with the australian buisnessman beatboxing is hilarious though. I watch it every morning to put a smile on my face.

 

Well we're under the impression that they gave enough power to the headphones jack to be above the laptop standard.



the speakers themselves *shrugs*

 

If it's any help, my cousin who owns a macbook pro and an ENVY 15 said the speakers sound very similar. My sister has an MBP and I think the speakers are great. I can only hope the 14's are just as good.

 

yeah. probably sounds better than mr. Asus G1.

I mean at least the speakers actually face you on the envy 14.

The G1 speakers..well they are a bit beneath the laptop and point out to the left and the right.

edit: 'course not that it'll be an issue when I plug the computer in. The G1's speakers being so crappy made me dig out my old old desktop computer speakers.

or well the ones I replaced the desktop speakers with before I got rid of the desktop. Old pair of logitech z340s.

really nice. (least I think they're nice)

 

Ive actually never heard anyone say anything bad about beats headphones...but i dont have a pair myself, so im not one to judge

 

It is not a 'beats' sound card. It is IDT and the control panel is also IDT with a beats graphic overlay. The difference in the envy is the preamp circuitry which has it's own dedidcated power circuit and uses higher quality components than a typical computer. The Beats stuff is really a marketing gimmick, oh yeah, you also get a preset EQ curve in the control panel from Dr. Dre.... which sucks. The audio out signal is very good and clean and has the lowest noise level compared to any notebook I've ever 'heard'....

Beats headphoenes suck, there I said it for you, Truely they do... I hope the 14 gets better internal speakers than the 15 has, they sound clean and accurate but not much volume level....

 

Honestly, if I had wow i would test it just to appease people, but to be honest....i've heard it referred to as electronic heroin too many times for me to want to touch it. I'd get addicted pretty quick.

 

I played it through part of TBC but ended up somehow on a low pop server and didn't wanna level a new guy and quit (this is before paid transfers, etc).



I kinda wanna play it again just to check out all the old world stuff one last time before it's gone forever when cataclysm comes out.

This includes those places you aren't supposed to get to like old ahn'qiraj, outside zul'gurub's instance portal, (and zul'farrak), etc.

 

No need. I don't know why people are doubting this machine's ability to run WOW. WOW is not graphic intensive at all...

 

yay your here :O i hope you dont mind me asking a question .

is your computer still "whining" abit? and can you do an Aion (mmorpg) check on Systemrequirementslab.com ? and Screenshot the results? (sorry if its much).

 

I thought the audio out signal was kind of noisy on the ENVY 15 - worse than other notebooks I've had, actually.

 

Yes, the discharge rate changes every second. It will not stay at 8W total consistently. If your CPU or video card requires more Watts for a specific program, your total Watts will be more than 8W. Trust me.

 

Also Joel.

does that buzz happen while plugged in too or not?


Dell actually has it in their knowledge base and suggest to turn on the bluetooth or something.

elsewhere on NBR on some older post I can't find people suggested to go into the power settings and set USB selective suspend setting to disabled.

both of these kill battery life a bit but supposedly stop the whine (for some people)

edit: It kills the whine because doing that stops the processor from going into the power state that uh causes the whine.

..so yeah it does lower the battery life some (unfortunately)

 

Will Intel WiDi work with the E14 if I purchase the Netgear Adapter separately?

 

I see. Thank you for that correction. My cousin said he used the EQ to boost volumes for the speakers to make them louder and then just use an EQ preset for headphones.

 

Strange. The output to my very high end stereo is by far the best audio signal from any non pro audio source I have ever heard, 0 noise and full 20hz to 20Khz frequency response through my system when I use my frequency analyzer and stereo seperation was like 75db which is also incredibly good for a crappy 3.5 mm head phone jack to RCA interface...

As I posted somewhere earlier, when I started listening to iTunes lossless music files it blew me away, I never new that the files contained that much detail and imaging. Playing through any Apple devices it always sounds flat and 'muddy', never new it was Apples poor quality circuitry I thought it was just the lack of data in the digital files....

Keep in mind that a lot of Pro DJ's actually use the Beats edition, with the DJ software, to actually play all the mixes directly from the envy in high end dance clubs and through the professional audio equipment. If noise was an issue that would not be possible..

 

Appreciate all the contributions you've made here.

 

hmmmm... I had mine exchanged a few times due to quality control issues, and every single time I found the line to be really noisy. There was an audible hiss in the background, but it was only there when a sound was being output and for about 2 to 3 seconds afterwards.

I could hear this in my AKG k701s, and my superfi 5s (these are only 13 Ohm impedance earbuds). Maybe in something with a really high impedance, like 600 ohms, it wouldn't be audible, but I definitely can hear it loudly and clearly with my headphones

 

the beats edition envy is identical to the normal envy, it just has a black colored finish and comes bundled with NI tracktor software. you can use a USB or firewire audio interface to get audio out thats what most professionals would do instead of using the line-out, the main selling point of beats is that it has a clean internal signal path, including the DSP. What you need to measure is the noise floor coming from the line-out, that will tell you how clean it really is.

 

ah man I thought more people were getting their envy's today. I was devouring every page hoping to confirm what the 256 ssd was : ( guess i'll have to wait till friday

 

That actually sounds like you were hearing noise from whatever your playback source was, especially common on .mpeg files. As e14 stated below the whole concept of 'beats audio' (for lack of a better term) was cleaner signal path from source to output....

Yeah I know all that, I don't recall the actual signal to noise ratio I measured but is was in the -95db range, and that was out of the RCA end of the headphone jack / RCA cable assembly. Again I was very inpressed.

The 'clean' signal is mainly the design and quality of the preamp components and that signal goes direct to the headphone jack as analog out, if you go through a USB your tapping into all sorts of potential additional digital noise sources.

 

naw, I was defeinitely not hearing noise from the playback source. It lasted 2-3 seconds past stopping the source. Or, for example, if you press the back button in a windows explorer window, you get a small click noise. Right when the click noise starts, I hear a loud hiss that lasts for the 2-3 seconds. This hiss then goes away. Or if I play music, I press stop and the hiss lasts for 2-3 seconds still. Definitely not source file noise.

actually, USB devices are supposed to be cleaner than internal (inside the computer) components, overall. Of course, the quality of the DAC matters too

 

I thought 5.1/7.1 Surround Sound output via the HDMI was superior to a headphone/line out?

I hear amazing things in both Nine Inch Nails "With Teeth" (DVD-Audio in High Resolution Stereo & 5.1 Surround) and NIN's "The Slip" (24-bit/96-KHz WAVE), as both are amazing in 5.1 surround, to the point that its clearly evident to me that the line out is not sufficient for high quality music.

Envy's Beats magical wizardry is as good as how you get the sound out.

 

Not when you are outputing an analog signal from a preamp with direct output traces in the mobo to the headphone out jack. The USB traces are very small and interconnect to dozens of potential noise sources.

I have only had 2 of our envy's hooked up to my high end system but niether one produced any audible noise or hiss whatsoever. Don't know what is different but I get no noise.

EDIT: @ e14

HDMI 5.1/7.1 is digital so the quality depends on your DAC, decoder and AMP. I am simply playing back music directly into a $10,000 Bryston studio grade amp with Balanced line or RCA analog inputs and out to my B&W 804 Nautilus speakers. Call me old school but for music IMHO the less D to A conversion and processing the better....

 

HP's The Next Bench states Beats technology includes:

- Board is specifically laid out with attention to Digital to Analogue crossover. Careful attention to layout give us very clean output with almost no line noise.

- Added amplifier to assure strong and clean listening experience

- Added Digital Signal Processor to dynamically enhance the sound profile. The Beats Audio profile are tuned DSP settings that were designed with direct feedback from artists and music feedback.

We designed a very good hardware platform with a DSP that allowed our sound engineers to work with folks in the music industry to work on an audio profile that produces great sound for music playback. We had engineers down at Interscope records with Envy working with artists and producers working to tune the system....

 

Here you are...I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a clue what the hd5650 is...

 

hey alaskajoel, how much more battery life do you get with the slice attached? roughly how much time does windows estimate with and without the slice?

 

It's there when plugged in and when not. I've set the processor power management to 100% but it was no help. I also just tried the bluetooth suggestion and usb power configurations and neither helped either. The only time it works is when it's stressed on prime95/intel burn test or playing a game.

 

@alaskajoel,

Does your Intel Centrino Advanced 6200N Wireless support Bluetooth 2.1 A2DP (streaming stereo) + AVRCP (volume control) spec?

Possibly if you could provide all the info about your WiFI,Bluetooth including screenshots of Device Manager and Driver details please?

Its so nice to be able to have a laptop play all your MP3's wirelessly to your surround sound system, but volume control (AVRCP) is a must....

 

a USB DAC would be isolated from other electronics (they're made from metal shells so they get shielded from outside noise). In a computer, you have everything else running left and right, making little bits of noise everywhere. A USB connection is digital, so it's not really subject to picking up noise.

Either way, go to head-fi and you'll see that almost everyone uses a USB DAC.

 

Will we be able to play around with the sound system? IE up the bass, etc? And if so...

@JJB Since you're a proclaimed audiophile, can you tell me what settings you would set your E14 to?

 

Can you provide a photo of the uneven keys?

Yuck! Is the keyboard tray (island) plastic like the Envy 17, or all metal like my Envy 15?

So much for sitting Indian style, as the exhaust will be on my right calf.

Took me 4 Envy 15's to get a good one. I thought HP would have done better after going through this on both the Envy 15 and Envy 17.

Ok temps I suppose. What are temps like if you lay the laptop on your chest while laying in bed, as all 3 external intake vents on the bottom would be blocked. Can we lay this on a couch, bed, soft surface, or other non hard surface without killing this laptop?

Just like its predecessor, the very 1st bit of information provided about the Envy 14 from the User Manual is contradictory to its function and stated name (Laptop) (See page 3.)! Envy 14 User Manual states:

Safety warning notice
WARNING! To reduce the possibility of heat-related injuries or of overheating the computer, do not
place the computer directly on your lap or obstruct the computer air vents. Use the computer only on a
hard, flat surface. Do not allow another hard surface, such as an adjoining optional printer, or a soft
surface, such as pillows or rugs or clothing, to block airflow. Also, do not allow the AC adapter to contact
the skin or a soft surface, such as pillows or rugs or clothing, during operation. The computer and the
AC adapter comply with the user-accessible surface temperature limits defined by the International
Standard for Safety of Information Technology Equipment (IEC 60950).

 

Internet forums generally go by the code: " If we cant see photos, it didnt happen"

Can we see those wildly odd brightness variations on your new Envy 14 please?

 

Interesting, this review of the ENVY 15 says that there is a "slight hiss that was audible when no music was playing", which seems like the opposite of your problem.

 

I can understand that sentiment, but since Envy Beats Audio already relies on a Digital Signal Processor and tuned DSP settings, all that processing you dont care for is already there. No?

 

ah that really sucks about the heat coming out of the right side. i mean why of all places do they make it come out the mouse side

 

Doubt my iPhone could capture that very well...which is the only camera I have. Although, after several hours it seems much better..but still much darker near the bottom right then the top left.

 

Look, no offense, but your info above just told me you have no clue about true and accurate music reproductuion. I'm talking accurate reproduction just like a true recording studio. By definition it is impossible to reproduce accurate soundstage imaging with anything more than 2 tweeters (L/R), That's why you never see recording studio engineers listen to anything other than 2 quality speakers in stereo. Multi speaker surround sound cannot reproduce accurate spacial imaging. It does a great job of giving a 3D soundstage and depth and position of sounds, of a live concert for example, but there is no accurate sonic imaging. And it has to be recorded very precisley with 5 or 7 directional mics to be accurate, not just stereo mixed into 5.1 like most of those stereo/5.1 DVD 'albums' are. Don't get me wrong, they may sound great blasting at you from 5.1 speakers but any audiophile will just cringe at the thought (and sound).

My playback system is basically the same one Eric Clapton uses in his personal home recording studio. So obviously we have a different definition of what 'high quality' music is. I will be sticking with my analog out and stereo speakers for my music when I am lazy and want the convience of using iTunes instead of warming up my Cal Audio tube pre amp CD Player ( w/ 4 burr brown 24 bit DAC's) ..... Now movies I'm with you all the way on 7.1 HDMI and all the rest

 

The output from HDMI is pure digital, and likely lossless (depending on the format). The headphone output is analog. Whenever you reproduce the music for listening, it eventually gets converted into analog, and since analog signals are not immune to noise (internal & external), that is where the quality of the sound degrades.

The point of the HDMI is to hook it up to a home theater system, which can reproduce the audio track much more cleanly when starting with a lossless digital format, and using its own internal electronics to reproduce the analog signal at levels to drive the attached home theater speaker system. The point of the headphone jack is to accommodate people who dont want or need all of that home theater processing going on.

Most laptop headphone outputs are loaded with noise introduced when the digital signal is converted into analog because of things like improper EMI shielding, inadequate D/A filtering, unfiltered power, and low quality components. The goal of "Beats" audio is to provide a high quality analog output for the common user, to improve the listening experience with headphones or the average speakers.

You could compare this to other laptops sporting "JBL" and "Bang & Olfsun" audio, however i believe that those laptops also have better speakers.

 

Because Apple discriminated against the lefties with the iPhone 4, HP felt the obligation to equalize the playing field by discriminating against the righties.

I kid, I kid.

But actually, my Sony Vaio NR 160E has the exhaust vent on the right side, similar to where the vent on the E14 is and I never had any problems with it. When it gets cold, sometimes I use it as a hand warmer hahha

 

Whelp. That's annoying.

 

And slightly off topic...

Tube amplifiers are better at producing sound, rather than reproducing sound. That is to say, they add "personality" to whatever input they get, which is in fact noise added due to thermal waste. This is why tube amplifiers are geared for use with live, instrumented music.

Solid state amplifiers, when properly designed, are *far* more accurate at reproducing a signal with minimal noise than any tube amplifier is capable of.

Everything else that they tell you is biased based upon the belief that recording equipment is the same as playback equipment.