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This might be a bit of an unusual question, but I used to have windows 8.1 for the past three years on an HP Envy dv7 Laptop (it came preinstalled). Playing music in Windows Media Player used to work fine.

Recently, my System Drive got smoked, so I installed a new SSD and a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate on it. Now, when I play music, it sounds like someone is rattling garbage cans in front of my ears - ok, not that bad. But there was a considerable drop in sound quality. I have confirmed that it is NOT related to the equalizer/SRS WOW effect settings in WMP.

My best guess would be that my old installation came with some sort of audio driver or virtual audio device. However, that's confusing, because I have ever been (and still am) using the audio device from my Monitor via HDMI (a Samsung SyncMaster XL2370, which installs an audio device called "SyncMaster (Intel (R) Display Audio)", like this). So in terms of audio quality, there should be no difference, because the Monitor should receive a digital signal, and as such, I'm wondering where in the chain the audio gets messed up?

On my old installation, I used to have something called "Realtek High Definition Audio something", and in device manager, i can still find that. However, it seems to also be unrelated, as deactivating it via device manager doesn't change/make my audio go away. I can still listen to music, and it still sounds bad.

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  • just to clarify, the audio sounds bad when played out of the monitor? What about out of the laptop speakers or the 3.5mm audio jack_
    – Blaine
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 9:34
  • also, hp dv series usually have beats audio installed. Itś a horrible piece of software that makes your audio sound much worse (in my opinion) and should be avoided at all costs. The only advantage it has is that it activates the subwoofer in your laptop, so if you are talking about built in speaker quality, that would be why
    – Blaine
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 9:35
  • @Blaine, My Monitor has a 3.5mm connector on its back, which I plug my headphones into. I agree on Beats Audio, but it doesn't affect the SyncMaster Audio Device at all. I currently have it disabled.
    – Aprillomat
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 9:40
  • alright, thatś true then. This should be compleatly unrelated to beats. Does your Monitor have some sort of driver? Or more likely, does your graphics card have a driver
    – Blaine
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 9:42
  • I just reinstalled the drivers for the monitor and its audio device. My GPU (GT 630M) doesn't have an audio adapter, afaik. Still not better.
    – Aprillomat
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 13:10

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