Poor quality audio from PC. What gives?
Posted: 14 Aug 2024, 11:58
So here's my personal enemy (I found two major improvements for it below, but they don't fix it all the way) I've been actively fighting against for two years: seriously muddy and "unfocused" audio, and a frustrating lack of audiovisual agreement with what I see on my screen and what I hear through my headphones. This is absolutely crucial in proper enjoyment of audio in general:
being able to pinpoint locational sound cues and being able to be fully immersed in the world of music, movies and games.
Picture this: you're playing a game where an enemy is clearly standing still in front of you firing a weapon at you, but you're not able to pinpoint where _exactly_, without a doubt in your mind, it is coming from. You can clearly see the enemy on your screen, but the audio itself is so unfocused that it has a very disconnected quality to it, like it's coming from nowhere instead of your headphones, instead it's just barely good enough for you to go "yeah I think the sound is coming from in front", but by then you're already dead.
Or this: audio so convincingly real that you flinch out of human instinct because it just sounded like somebody broke down your door.. and you nonchalantly going "oh, yeah that sounded pretty real".
Or when it comes to music, it feels like you're constantly, 100% the time waiting for the big drop/sweet chorus, but it never ever comes.
Everything sounds muddy, almost mono-like, as if you were outside in a windy storm and somebody is trying to tell you something, but without the wind noise.
This isn't about sound files being low quality, or the sound design of the sound itself, but how my headphones play back sound from my PC. I have two DT 770 80/250Ohm headphones and a DAC/Amp, and I know they're not the issue.
I took my DAC/Amp and headphone setup to another place for a quick listen and while the sound quality itself didn't change much at all, the crystal clarity and "focus" improved massively and that alone made the headphones come to alive, like the audio was outside my head and there was clearly a sense of space and depth.
When I got back, the quality wasn't the same, and gradually and quickly went back to what I thought was just how they sound.
I spent nearly 1000€ on a list of things in hopes of finding a fix, including: a DC blocker, extension cords with EMI/RFI filtering, new PSU, new motherboard, mouse, keyboard, full metal PC case, 4 different DACs and amps, 10 different shielded USB/RCA/SPDIF audio cables, USB isolator/RCA isolator, switched out all PC components, took a big bite of an apple, changed every PC peripheral, 3 TV/Data coax splitters, (are you still reading this?), proper shielded coax cables for TV/internet router, reinstalled Windows 10/11 a thousand times, million different driver version installs, moved the location of my desk/my computer in my apartment (this was the first real improvement)..and so on.
When I thought I fixed it, the audio improved for a short period of time but then soon gradually lost its focus and clarity.. and back to square one. It's like something in the electricity shifts but quickly returns back into place.
Changing the location of my PC improved the audio and the improvement lasts.. but didn't completely fix it.
The second improvement that has helped (not completely fixed) immensely: an extension cord that does not have the metal grounding tabs on the sides. An ungrounded extension cord that cost 4€, and then plugged both my PC and monitor in it to an ungrounded outlet.
Whatever it was/is, the ground tabs must have allowed something to constantly flow between my PC and monitor grounds but nowhere for it to go. Now the PC and monitor grounds are floating (not connected to any other ground/appliance ground) and only share the live and neutral.
(Not an electrician, feel free to laugh)
But as it says at the top of this post, it's not fixed all the way. The audio still sounds quite muddy and I feel like it can still be improved, but it's definitely clearer and more in focus than before after the second improvement.
After having gone through all that, this is my conclusion:
It is my old European 70s-built apartment itself (and a type of interference radiating inside it, causing this all).
It took me ages to figure it out, but there is some type of interference that is at its strongest near my apartment's windows and TV coax outlet corner area in my living room. I have moved my desk and PC as far away from it as I could, but it's still not enough.
To confirm my suspicion, I tried plugging my headphones into my phone to completely disconnect from my apartment's electricity, then continuously and carefully listened to music while walking back and forth between my living room and bathroom: the audio quality changed between worst (near the windows), and best (in the bathroom). How ridiculous is that sentence?
being able to pinpoint locational sound cues and being able to be fully immersed in the world of music, movies and games.
Picture this: you're playing a game where an enemy is clearly standing still in front of you firing a weapon at you, but you're not able to pinpoint where _exactly_, without a doubt in your mind, it is coming from. You can clearly see the enemy on your screen, but the audio itself is so unfocused that it has a very disconnected quality to it, like it's coming from nowhere instead of your headphones, instead it's just barely good enough for you to go "yeah I think the sound is coming from in front", but by then you're already dead.
Or this: audio so convincingly real that you flinch out of human instinct because it just sounded like somebody broke down your door.. and you nonchalantly going "oh, yeah that sounded pretty real".
Or when it comes to music, it feels like you're constantly, 100% the time waiting for the big drop/sweet chorus, but it never ever comes.
Everything sounds muddy, almost mono-like, as if you were outside in a windy storm and somebody is trying to tell you something, but without the wind noise.
This isn't about sound files being low quality, or the sound design of the sound itself, but how my headphones play back sound from my PC. I have two DT 770 80/250Ohm headphones and a DAC/Amp, and I know they're not the issue.
I took my DAC/Amp and headphone setup to another place for a quick listen and while the sound quality itself didn't change much at all, the crystal clarity and "focus" improved massively and that alone made the headphones come to alive, like the audio was outside my head and there was clearly a sense of space and depth.
When I got back, the quality wasn't the same, and gradually and quickly went back to what I thought was just how they sound.
I spent nearly 1000€ on a list of things in hopes of finding a fix, including: a DC blocker, extension cords with EMI/RFI filtering, new PSU, new motherboard, mouse, keyboard, full metal PC case, 4 different DACs and amps, 10 different shielded USB/RCA/SPDIF audio cables, USB isolator/RCA isolator, switched out all PC components, took a big bite of an apple, changed every PC peripheral, 3 TV/Data coax splitters, (are you still reading this?), proper shielded coax cables for TV/internet router, reinstalled Windows 10/11 a thousand times, million different driver version installs, moved the location of my desk/my computer in my apartment (this was the first real improvement)..and so on.
When I thought I fixed it, the audio improved for a short period of time but then soon gradually lost its focus and clarity.. and back to square one. It's like something in the electricity shifts but quickly returns back into place.
Changing the location of my PC improved the audio and the improvement lasts.. but didn't completely fix it.
The second improvement that has helped (not completely fixed) immensely: an extension cord that does not have the metal grounding tabs on the sides. An ungrounded extension cord that cost 4€, and then plugged both my PC and monitor in it to an ungrounded outlet.
Whatever it was/is, the ground tabs must have allowed something to constantly flow between my PC and monitor grounds but nowhere for it to go. Now the PC and monitor grounds are floating (not connected to any other ground/appliance ground) and only share the live and neutral.
(Not an electrician, feel free to laugh)
But as it says at the top of this post, it's not fixed all the way. The audio still sounds quite muddy and I feel like it can still be improved, but it's definitely clearer and more in focus than before after the second improvement.
After having gone through all that, this is my conclusion:
It is my old European 70s-built apartment itself (and a type of interference radiating inside it, causing this all).
It took me ages to figure it out, but there is some type of interference that is at its strongest near my apartment's windows and TV coax outlet corner area in my living room. I have moved my desk and PC as far away from it as I could, but it's still not enough.
To confirm my suspicion, I tried plugging my headphones into my phone to completely disconnect from my apartment's electricity, then continuously and carefully listened to music while walking back and forth between my living room and bathroom: the audio quality changed between worst (near the windows), and best (in the bathroom). How ridiculous is that sentence?