Dell XPS 13 poor aux sound quality

Question

I recently bought a Dell XPS 13 9370, and have found the audio quality when listening with earphones/earbuds through the aux port (3.5 mm jack) to be washed out and not very clear. I have disabled all the enhancements in "Waves MaxxAudio Pro" but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Is there any way to fix the sound quality?

Answer 1

The trick I found was to change from the Realtek HD audio driver to Microsoft HD audio.

Afterwards, I noticed more noise (hissing) with my earphones plugged into the aux port, but the sound quality was much better, which made it worth it. It still automatically switches to the aux out audio when you plug in headphones. It seems the MaxxAudio was applying some noise reduction that was ruining the audio quality.

First of all, I opened the Task Manager, clicked on the "Startup" tab and disabled MaxxAudio Pro.

Then:

1. In the start menu, search for "device manager" and open it.

2. Scroll down and expand "Sound, video and game controllers"

3. Right-click on "Realtek Audio" and click "Update driver"

4. Click "Browse my computer for driver software"

5. Click "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer

6. Untick "Show compatible hardware"

7. On the left, scroll down and select "Microsoft"

8. On the right, scroll down and select the latest "High Definition Audio Device" option, then click "Next"

9. There will be a warning box - proceed if you are happy

You will have to restart for changes to take effect.