Just received my sager p170em and the audio is atrocious

I have to say that I cannot believe that clevo would produce a laptop with absolutely abysmal sound. the speakers sound like they are in cans. The stereo output to the headphone jack has a hollow bassless sound. I've tried what some posters say worked with them but still not enough to even make it sound okay.

Motherboards have been made for years with the same output format and no problems; stereo works. How can a company mess that up? I've even tried the SRS essentials but no love in that area too. I use my laptop to do RTA in car audio tuning and this will not give a flat enough frequency. Down to my phone sounds better than this

Has anybody gotten the audio to work without buying an external soundcard?

 

Realtek + THX pro produce like ... 10% better sound not more. My speakers even give a whizzing sound on certain frequencies like old broken speakers do. I'm in your boat.

 

if you mean to ask if anybody's modified the onboard audio, then no. have a look at pages b-34 & b-35 of the service manual to check out the schematic and then read this thread for some brief discussion of the matter.

 

I find the speakers are fairly crap, but the audio from the jacks is quite nice for an amp to process etc.

 

I'm really surprised that the consensus seems to be that the P170EM's sound is significantly worse than the P170HM. I wonder what possessed Clevo to remove the Fn+5 Enhanced Sound feature. The HM has really good audio.

 

yep, p170hm audio was decent, p150em is seriously bad. Worst part is I cant believe they messed with the headphone jack frequencies, bass especially sounds completely wrong.

 

Creative X-Fi Go! Pro is all I have to say

 

The audio is by far the worst I've ever heard in a laptop, which is odd because things like noise level and heat are far better than what I dreaded with a laptop this beefy. It's a very odd omission in a premium product aimed at power users.

Buy an external USB DAC and forget about the subpar default sound. I opted for a Fiio E10, which I really like, but your choice will probably depend on your headphones and your budget.

 

Don't expect a better audio quality on onboard laptop speaker. Better connect to external soundcard and external speaker/headphone

 

Asus Xonar U3 - that's my answer) it's very cheap and produces great sound on my Sager NP6110 laptop. When i pluged my SH HD380 pro into my laptop i turned it off immediately and ordered the usb sound card, it just detroyed my ears, couldn't hold it. Get the card, you'll never regret it)

I hope that X-Fi MB2 on high-end Sager laptop prove it's best and would be implemented in all next year Sager models. Creative Recon audio in current AW simply smacks Clevo in the face with it's punch, clarity and loudness... CLEVO - please do smth about it)

 

can anyone recommend a 7.1 external sound card??

 

Yeah the reviews isn`t really too fond of the latest Sager`s when it comes to audio.
One of the reasons I went for a MSI GT70 which have the best sound system on the market. Dynaudio really makes great speakers plus GT70 have "Audio boost" which will give you great sound through the headsets. According to MSI it have built in amplifier which is super great

 

the EM's do too however ineffective.

 

Has anyone personally experienced both EM and HM series sound and agree with this statement?

I have a P170HM, and IMHO someone would have to try really really, but really hard to come-up with an implementation that can output worst audio (at least on the analog outputs). Everything about this audio chipset hardware is abominable... I never got the impression that the HM or EM series pulled ahead to take the crown as producing the worst possible audio. Personally, the P170HM sound is unbearable. Even if the sound was worse with the EM series, I don't think I have the audiophile aptness to distinguish between worse and worser.

 

Ok small update
I don't know if it was posted before but i the did something that got better improvement than THX. I uninstalled THX so only the realtek was working. When I openned the realtek audio manager, there was the tab for sound effects (most people said that it does not show with THX). I clicked that and got the usual environment and equalizer. To the right of the equalizer settings there is a blue button that brings up a ten band equalizer. I adjusted the frequencies to minimise the speaker problem and saved it as "laptop speakers". Then i plugged in headphones and adjusted till it sounded ok and saved that as "headphones". So now I have an equalizer preset for the builtin speakers as well as the stereo jacks. It is not the best but it is workable.
BTW I got this on youtube.

 

That's the typical impression, until one plugs-in a 20$ USB sound card. Your ears won't allow you to go back to the integrated audio...

 

Are you referring to the sound directly out of the HM's speakers? Do you have the Fn+5 enabled in Stereo, as well as the THX TruStudio activated/configured? My experience couldn't be further from what you're describing. Many others in the HM Owner's Lounge would agree.

My TMA-1s even sound halfway decent out of the audio jack, though bass is really lacking.

 

Hook up an external system if u want quality sound, even MSI's premium audio (best in the genre) still sound like crap when compared to actual 2.1 and up setups

 

You don't say?

 

Well what other advice can one give? Complaining about the Sager's sound system makes little sense when it is pretty much on par with every other laptop out on the market with a few exceptions.

I don't understand why people still have the expectation that their laptop will be able to successfully deliver a perfect audio experience without the aid of larger speakers/amplifiers...........it's sort of akin to complaining that your built-in TV speakers sound like crap........uh duh?

 

Get yourself decent headphones and an external soundcard. At least you can take them with you unlike a 2.1 system. Getting great sound with Sennheiser HD 595 and Asus Xonar U3.

 

The sager provides sub par audio over headphones and speakers while the msi providea sound like a cheap but decent 2.1 speaker set and excellent audio over headphones, that'a the issue.

 

The issue is only related to 2.0 output and the laptop speakers, working great with my Tritton pc510 HDa 5.1 headset + Foobar2000 Matrix for 5.1 setup.. However don't use Crystalizer with Surround, will sound artfacted. I personally have surround disabled and have Crystalizer enabled to 80%, Speaker On/Crossover frequency to 115Hz for 40mm headset subwoofers/Subwoofer gain Off, room correction disabled (solves the cracking sound when Crystalizer is over 70%), sounds just great, punchy, clear and covers all frequency ranging from 20Hz-30000Hz. I believe my ears can't hear higher frequency than 20000Hz, but frequency beyond that does add more fluid to the overall experience.

 

No, I either listen via earphones, or patch to an external sound system. I couldn't care less for the internal speakers, but the times I tried them (after taking to time to tunes every possible setting) the outcome was mostly distortion, crackling plastic sounds from the sub and breaking glass-like sound all muddled toghether.

The analog output jacks are the problem. They are crippled at the hardware level. A modern laptop with analog stereo earphone and line out jacks that can't work with standard listening devices is ridiculous.

 

Yeah, I've had both. The audio is identical in both models. And yes, I consider myself a hardcore audiophile / I study audio engineering.

 

An issue that is easily fixed by a $20 USB card if you are that OCD about sound. Sager and MSI both make concessions in various areas of quality in order to bring a high performance computer in at a budget price.

Clevo's integrated sound card is agreeably a bit weak, but they make up for it with top-notch build quality/performance. In comparison, MSI's overall chassis/build quality is much lower than Clevo's, but makes up for it with a great sound system for a laptop.

Personally I'd rather fork over $20 for an external sound card than a couple hundred for new LCD hinges buuuuut that's just me. That being said I'm rockin a pair of Thermaltake 5.1 gaming earbuds and they sound absolutely flawless, imo if you aren't an OCD audiophile you won't notice any difference once you calibrate the THX and Realtek settings.

 

i dont think it is, headphones never sounded this bad on HM series. Also, p170hm at least had a little bit of bass via FN+F5 switch. My p150em has zero.

 

I'll admit, it has been a while since I used my p150hm so I could be a bit off. Either way the audio in both is similar and pretty lacking. Just another thing wrong with this computer on top of the 7970m + enduro problem. Lol.

 

Isn't that just a software problem?

They seem to just output bass on the subwoofer output, the problem is the lack of a true 2.1 software version for the card (Maybe can be fixed later with drivers, unless it is a real hardware problem).

About the speakers, isn't there better speakers that we can buy and change them?

Those ones don't look so bad from alienware:

Keep Cool

 

You can probably confirm this with a feedthrough test:
1) Listen to a source that sounds "good" with your earphones.

2.1) patch this source into the line-in jack of the laptop
2.2) mix the line-in directly out to the earphone jack
2.3) Listen to the result? Is there any audio degradation happening between the "good" source and "good" earphones?

I did this test a long time ago, and I "think" remember there was a way to bypass all chipset DSPs with this test, as if the analog signals were switched to be wired directly inside the chipset. But with anything I tried, the degradation was striking and it seemed clear that either the chipset is bad, or the wiring from the chipset to the analog jacks are bad, or both.

One could also try a "good" source that has both analog and digital ouputs on a "good" receiver to confirm that both inputs can yield acceptable results. Then try the clevo as the source so see if the analog and digital stream sound the same and whether there is any audio stream crippling happening in the DSPs before the DAC...

 

That surely suck. I still haven't got my laptop. Still waiting for it to arrive. But I bought the W110ER, and in reviews people say the sound is good and comparable with 15.6 laptops (the most expensive ones).

I bet since w110ER is a 2.1 output it will not have headphone output problem such as those 5.1 clevos soundcards.

But I'm concerned more with the speakers it self, because for external sound I have Creative X-FI Go Pro...

Anyone know where we can buy a speaker like the following, but for clevos:

Those kind of speakers, sadly are rare, and they are the ones that sound good, in the like 100 laptops I heard, only seen one with those kind of speakers, a special edition of a Toshiba which is black and red and have them right near keyboard, they are open and u can just look at them giving excursion .
Keep Cool

 

those look very similar to the speakers i have in the laptop I replaced ie toshiba a355 s6935. The sound lacked bass, but was pleasng to the ear without trying to equalize it. If they could be swapped into the p170 em I would buy them off of ebay and put them in.