Improve Audio Quality

General Help
1

Hi everyone!

I'm not overly experienced with the terminal, and I'd like to know if there's an easy-to-use application to improve the audio quality of my computer. It's a Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro, and should have decent speakers, but the sound coming out of it is horrible.

It's also very feeble, so I can barely hear anything unless I turn it up to 70-80%. For comparison, my MacBook was already quite loud at 20-30%, and my partner's laptop (HP Essential, a significantly cheaper and less well-built laptop) also has decent speakers at 50-60%.

I tried the generic sound improvement in the Zorin OS docs, but they didn't help much. The sound is fine if I connect my headphones.

Thank you!

2
3

I Personally Prefer Pulse Effect as it works best with the inbuilt Pulse Audio Plugin of Zorin.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mikhailnov/pulseeffects

sudo apt update

sudo apt install pulseeffects
2 Likes
4

Please also post the terminal output of:

sudo lshw -C multimedia

This way we can also check your drivers.

5

Thank you, guys! I will try both. Here's the output of the command:

*-multimedia:0            
       description: Audio device
       product: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0.1
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.1
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
       resources: irq:82 memory:d05c8000-d05cbfff
  *-usb
       description: Video
       product: Integrated Camera
       vendor: Chicony Electronics Co.,Ltd.
       physical id: 3
       bus info: usb@1:3
       version: 85.18
       serial: 0001
       capabilities: usb-2.01
       configuration: driver=uvcvideo maxpower=500mA speed=480Mbit/s
  *-multimedia:1
       description: Multimedia controller
       product: Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]
       physical id: 0.5
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.5
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=snd_rn_pci_acp3x latency=0
       resources: irq:78 memory:d0580000-d05bffff
  *-multimedia:2
       description: Audio device
       product: Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) HD Audio Controller
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]
       physical id: 0.6
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.6
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
       resources: irq:61 memory:d05c0000-d05c7fff
6

wow... That's new.

Can you please try:

sudo modprobe -r snd_rn_pci_acp3x

systemctl --user restart pulseaudio

sudo modprobe snd_rn_pci_acp3x

If that does not show an appreciable difference, you may try blacklisting the snd-Intel driver if it is conflicting with that new driver module:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Add the line:
snd_hda_intel
Tap ctrl+x, then the y key to say Yes to save, then the enter key to save the current configuration and close.

Reboot and test...

Last resort, you may need to upgrade libasound:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hui.wang/pa-testing

The above repository is a Testing branch, but that driver you are using is also a bit new.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install --reinstall libasound2

7

Thank you! I tried everything other than blacklisting the driver, no noticeable difference. It might be a bit better in terms of quality, but the overall volume is still very low.

If I try blacklisting it, and it doesn't work, how can I remove it from the blacklist afterwards?

8

The reverse of the above:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Add the line:
snd_hda_intel

1 Like
9

Thanks! Although the audio is still low when compared to my other machines, it works significantly better with that driver blacklisted. I appreciate the help!

1 Like
10

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