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I came across this suggestion on a French Web site.
The quality of the sound from the NC10 can improved considerably if you fiddle with the equalizer in the Realtek HD Audio Manager app . Basically, you need to boost the bass and top-end and cut the mid-range frequencies.
They suggested the following settings
100Hz +6dB
200Hz +7dB
400Hz +4dB
600Hz 0dB
1kHz -6dB
3kHz -7dB
6kHz -7dB
12kHz -5dB
14kHz +5dB
16kHz +10dBYou can tinker with these settings to suit your taste. Once you are happy you can save them as the default using the control wheel on the right hand side. It doesn’t turn the NC10 into a hi-fi system, but it’s a definite improvement.
If you find a better set of settings, post them here.
PS Don’t bother with the Environment settings in the Realtek app, or Auto Volume Control in Samsung EDS – both make the sound worse.
ok.
i’m a sound engineer so i can tell you right now, those settings will make the sound less painful at max volume, but hey will not improve the clarity in any way.
the problem with the sound clarity of the device is the sheer scale of the diaphragm of the speakers supplied in it.
these could be improved but i have yet to source spekers of the right spec for such a device.
i promise to post details when i do find such information.I know stupid question, but where do i find that equalizer in the Realtek Manager? I can only choose the preconfigured sound effects (running Vista). Btw on my desktop i can choose the equalizer just fine (XP).
Thanks 🙂I’m afraid I’m still running XP (where the graphic equaliser appears under the Sound Effect tab on the Realtek control panel). Perhaps someone else who has installled Vista will be able to answer your question.
First of all, hello everyone. This is a fantastic site. The amount of information I’ve been able to find on here is amazing. Thanks a lot to everyone for your contributions and to Jez in particular for setting this place up.
As for my question, I understand that the sound might not be too great in general, but would it be a lot better through a pair of good headphones? Because that is what I tend to use when listening to stuff on my PC, anyway.
Yeah it definetly is much better through a pair of decent headphones, i’ve given up on the internal speakers. Headphones FTW!
As an audiophile and amateur sound engineer/music producer, these settings are very familiar–human hearing initially perceives boosted bass and treble (with notched midrange) as better sounding. Therefore, many times cheap systems will hike these qualities in their hardware and include preset EQs that more or less achieve this effect (e.g. Samsung EDS). However, it is poorly balanced and usually results in ear fatigue during an extended listening session. It is also not faithful to the original audio source.
The goal of audio production (or what is used to be before the loudness wars started) is to create the purest, most natural reproduction of the original source possible. However, even the best-produced recording will be colored by a low-grade amp or audio circuit. Equalizers are intended to compensate for the shortfalls of either the circuitry or the speakers used to reproduce the signal, but in order to use EQ effectively, one needs to know where the frequency response of the hardware deviates from a flat line. Therefore, until somebody empirically measures the frequency response of the NC10’s audio circuitry, I would take any “correcting” EQ with a grain of salt–particularly those that hike bass and treble and notch midrange.
And, though I hope it’s implied, the above doesn’t even apply with built-in notebook speakers because they’re simply far too small to ever produce good sound quality, no matter what you do with them. My comments are directed at the audio chip itself.
[quote1228430526=Squonk]
As an audiophile and amateur sound engineer/music producer, these settings are very familiar–human hearing initially perceives boosted bass and treble (with notched midrange) as better sounding. Therefore, many times cheap systems will hike these qualities in their hardware and include preset EQs that more or less achieve this effect (e.g. Samsung EDS). However, it is poorly balanced and usually results in ear fatigue during an extended listening session. It is also not faithful to the original audio source.The goal of audio production (or what is used to be before the loudness wars started) is to create the purest, most natural reproduction of the original source possible. However, even the best-produced recording will be colored by a low-grade amp or audio circuit. Equalizers are intended to compensate for the shortfalls of either the circuitry or the speakers used to reproduce the signal, but in order to use EQ effectively, one needs to know where the frequency response of the hardware deviates from a flat line. Therefore, until somebody empirically measures the frequency response of the NC10’s audio circuitry, I would take any “correcting” EQ with a grain of salt–particularly those that hike bass and treble and notch midrange.
And, though I hope it’s implied, the above doesn’t even apply with built-in notebook speakers because they’re simply far too small to ever produce good sound quality, no matter what you do with them. My comments are directed at the audio chip itself.
[/quote1228430526]awesome post bro. you said what i couldn’t be bother typing.
you shouldn’t be blaming the audio chip though. i’m almost certain the audio chip will be fine. the issue here is purely the frequency repsonse of the loudspeakers, in that they probably have a terrible range and thus anything over a certain volume pushed thorugh them will just result in pure noise rather than audible sound.
the curve proivided earlier int he thread will compensate for the higher and lower frequencies that the speaker diaphraghm is unable to produce to a degree, but at the end of the day, you are still sjut overloading a tiny speaker with frequencies it can’t even think about producing.a ten quid sound card will be equally as good at generating frequencies as an a thousand quid audio interface will at the same bitrate and frequency (i know, ive tested a LOT of them and even recorded professionally using the humble line in on integrated motherboard soundcards and my peers were unable to locate a difference). once you hit speaker cable, it’s all about crossover frequency and a diaphraghm’s response curve. if you plug the nc10 into a spectral analyser you would get very near the same curve you would from any sound card. it’s all about the aplification and speakers used.
i have always wished they didnt put speakers in portable computers so people aren’t tempeted to “make do” with them and ultimately come to think crap sound is acceptable.
[quote1228431940=hef]
awesome post bro. you said what i couldn’t be bother typing.
you shouldn’t be blaming the audio chip though. i’m almost certain the audio chip will be fine. the issue here is purely the frequency repsonse of the loudspeakers, in that they probably have a terrible range and thus anything over a certain volume pushed thorugh them will just result in pure noise rather than audible sound.
the curve proivided earlier int he thread will compensate for the higher and lower frequencies that the speaker diaphraghm is unable to produce to a degree, but at the end of the day, you are still sjut overloading a tiny speaker with frequencies it can’t even think about producing.a ten quid sound card will be equally as good at generating frequencies as an a thousand quid audio interface will at the same bitrate and frequency (i know, ive tested a LOT of them and even recorded professionally using the humble line in on integrated motherboard soundcards and my peers were unable to locate a difference). once you hit speaker cable, it’s all about crossover frequency and a diaphraghm’s response curve. if you plug the nc10 into a spectral analyser you would get very near the same curve you would from any sound card. it’s all about the aplification and speakers used.
i have always wished they didnt put speakers in portable computers so people aren’t tempeted to “make do” with them and ultimately come to think crap sound is acceptable.
[/quote1228431940]Honestly, I couldn’t tell you because, as yet, I haven’t played any reference material (or much of anything) through it. I agree, though–motherboard audio has been gotten very good in recent times. Just two years ago the quality still lagged somewhat behind in notebook audio (either that, or my Toshiba notebook used legacy hardware). However, desktop IA from that same period was quite impressive. I guess after a certain point there’s only so many ways to make a sound circuit, and after a while, a standardized, high quality layout gets used more or less everywhere.
Just as an unrelated side note, did you ever notice that words that get censored out with asterisks show up uncensored when you quote the person who posted them? I just saw that when I quoted your post.
[quote1228472681=Squonk]Just as an unrelated side note, did you ever notice that words that get censored out with asterisks show up uncensored when you quote the person who posted them? I just saw that when I quoted your post.
[/quote1228472681]Well I hope you werent offended ;)! It will be because the filter isn’t invoked on the text to form parser. Arguably a bug. It’s not something I’m too fussed about but various other 3rd parties don’t like naughty words. A load of **** if you ask me 😛
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