W3V Sound Sucks - External Sound Card?

Hi all,

as many of you probably already know from experience, the sound on the w3v is quite bad. The maximum volume is often too quiet, especially with dialogue, and this becomes impossible if you are attempting to listen to anything on the airplane. I want to get good speakers, but I"m worried they wont be much better without a better sound card. Has anyone experimented with external soundcards? Which would you recommend? Thanks

 

You don't need an external sound card - you certainly should have good speakers though....... the sound card is capable of 7.1 channel surround and is quite nice.

I'd suggest Klipsch speakers any day of the week as there's nothing better for a computer.....

 

or home sound aswell =)

 

true...... and for that matter, you could hook these up to your home system too........ so you have many, many options..... but I don't think you need an external sound card..... take a look at the speakers in the front of your unit and try to understand they're pushing as much as they can....... there's a lot in that laptop and some however no one is ever satisfied........ 14" widescreens are a "personal display" .... sitting back from them and watching a dvd is not what the thing is made for.,.... even though you can physically do it - and I'm guilty of that too obviously.... but there's only so much you can expect in regards to size..... It's mainly how you use it, right? ... but for certain things it's just not going to be up to par and thats due to physical limitations.

 

thanks for your replies. Actually, one main issue I am having trouble with is listening to or watching things with headphones on. While the tiny speakers may be very limited, it also seems that the output through headphones is also quite limited unless using super high quality headphones or headphones with their own power etc.. I figured the only way to improve on this with the standard headphones that I am using would be to use an external sound card. Any thoughts?

 

well I agree the speakers are not that loudest (not that much less than the normal laptop speakers) I disagree about what you said with headphones. I have a nice pair of those silver-sony dj headphones, and not once have I had a problem with either clear sound or music volume.

 

If you'd like to increase the sound output... set the graphic equalizer to maximum. Should be a nice boost. Try that before you go off and spend money on another solution. This should work fine with headphones and not produce distortion, since the power level isn't high enough by default.

 

Mystic
I tried the same thing you jsut said. In a plane it still may be to low but with headphones its great. Just so people dont get confused this is typical to most if not all 915 chipsets with azalia and was typical to even the old 855 chipsets. Work around is as mentioned above. Use the included azalia equalizer in the sys tray and boost everything to max. This adds a huge boost to both speakers and headphones. There is also a setting for "noisy enviroments" in advanced settings specifically recomended for laptop speakers further boosts your "loudness." Also just to mention the low volume problem is only happening to dvd playback not regular songs or themes. The speakers besides dvd are very fair.

 

is this the Realtek "Sound Effect" icon in the tray? It helps a little bit with DVD playback, but it isnt a huge improvement...
where is the advanced settings?

 

I've had the same problem. However, I bought USB-powered speakers (Kensington), and it solved the problem immediately. I don't think the sound card is the issue.

 

If you are looking for external speakers, allow me to make a suggestion - Logitech Z-2300's. They get excellent reviews, and are under 100 dollars!!