T420 headphone sound

has anyone else noticed that the sound from the headphone socket on a T420is pretty bad.... distorted etc.? It's not horrible, but is clearly inferior compared to playing music through USB/DAC or on a stereo.

I know it's to be expected that headphone output is not highest quality due to interference etc., but the quality (or lack of) in the T420 has surprised me.

 

I think it's less to do with interference as it is to do with the audio chip in laptops. Integrated laptop sound cards usually aren't top notch, so that's not surprising.

There's variance between Thinkpads too; the sound my T500 outputs to identical speakers/headphones is noticeably better than that of my X120e. Drivers may also make some difference. Personally, I do not install the Lenovo sound drivers (Conexant), and just stick with the Windows 7 included Microsoft HD Audio Device drivers.

 

I heard the Conexant chip was really good this time around. My headphones sound fine through my T400, but they're cheap earbuds.

Have you tried disabling Enhancements? Or using foobar2k + WASAPI?

 

The question here how does it compare to the T400 that you had?

 

worse than the T400.... not horrible enough for me to think something is wrong with the headphone socket, but I will try playing around with the software to see if I can improve it at all. The player I use is MediaMonkey, which generally has pretty good output

What settings are people using for the Conexant output? I currently have it set at 24bit 44.1K (all enhancements disabled)

 

I too have to admit the headphone sound on the T420 is quite lacking. I think this is down to either the Conexant sound chip or Lenovo's implementation of the dual mic and headphone jack. My T61 which has a SoundMAX audio chip and a single audio jack sounds a lot more punchier than the T420 in comparison.

 

The punchiness might be down to having enhancements off. I wondered if it was the dual jack, too, but it sounds the same (poor) from the headphone-only jack on the mini dock. I'm beginning to fear it's just a crummy audio chip, which would suck

 

I recall seeing someone on this forum demonstrate that it was of good quality with an X220, and I'm assuming the T420 uses the same chip.

 

the chip maybe the same, but how they design the final circuit board may have an small influence on the final sound quality.

If i am fussed by the quality of the sound quality on the laptop, i usually just use a small DAC.

 

One thing that has burned me a number of times is the dual volume controls.

The physical ones on the laptop don't control the one in windows.

Iv'e had the physical ones down and windows ones maxed out and not had it sound right.

 

Yep same here.

 

I don't know. I have a T410, and use JVC headphones with a headphone amplifier and the sound is fantastic!

 

I think the T420 has the worst audio card output I have ever heard.
I am using it with Altec Lansing ATP3 which I have been using for years, and when I plug the speakers to my Galaxy S I9000, the sound improves endlessly.

When I say worst, I mean : Distortion at any volume, digital clipping for no reason, short 5ms gaps and ticks.

Tried with windows 7 and ubuntu. Same result.

 

There is either something wrong with your laptop, your speaker setup, or both.

I have a T420, and while it doesn't compare with a rack of high-end gear, it's certainly as good as any of the previous laptops that I've owned.

Now it is worth noting that I use Linux and don't use PulseAudio/ALSA, so we're comparing different drivers here... but even when I did use ALSA, the "distortion at any volume, clipping for no reason" bit was just simply not true.

The HDA chipset in the T420 is actually pretty capable with support for up to 24/192. I'm not sure if the Windows drivers take advantage of this (I'd be amazed if they didn't), but OSSv4 does, and it certainly is a nice feature to have.

 

Ive worked it out - and because it used to annoy me so much I've actually just got an account to help you out.

Go into sound, then volume, then advanced, then select laptop mono speakers from the dropdown and in performance scroll the bars down, let go of the mouse, then scroll them up.

it worked for me