W520 Sound Enhancement Thread

[whyteian]

Hey Peter, thank you for the sound enhancement tweaks. I like the 3d immersion. Very helpful!

[PeterTWJ]

@stackz07

You are most welcome, it's my pleasure to lend a helping hand.

@skippur

By default, SmartAudio enables the Headphone Limiter to prevent any side effects to your ears or your device. It is designed meticulously for users. To disable it for maximum audio performance, go to SmartAudio, Volumer Mixer Tab, click on the Headphone with sound bar picture, Accept.

*Note, adjust your volume to the minimum, mute it or stop playing any content before doing this, to prevent any side effects to your ears or device, as I am not sure how loud your surround speaker is.

Best Regards 

Peter

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Refunded Set: W510, 4876-A11

Current Set: W520, 4284-A99

I would welcome T520 or W520 users to try this sound optimization:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/W520-Sound-Enhancement-Thread/m-p/451401#M1551... 

[harrisb]

To increase the Windows 7 sound, do the following:

Control Panel->Sound->Playback->Speakers->Properties->Enhancements->Loudness Equalization (check on)

[kirayamato26]

I don't like loudness equalization as it causes some sounds to drop out from my experiences.

[JazJon]

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kirayamato26 wrote:
I don't like loudness equalization as it causes some sounds to drop out from my experiences.

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The sound was WAY too soft before I enabled it.   I did notice strange drop outs though where videos wouldnt play audio or strange feedback/echo's occured until I rebooted though.

[harrisb]

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JazJon wrote:

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kirayamato26 wrote:
I don't like loudness equalization as it causes some sounds to drop out from my experiences.

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The sound was WAY too soft before I enabled it.   I did notice strange drop outs though where videos wouldnt play audio or strange feedback/echo's occured until I rebooted though.

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There is another setting that reduces the sound volume when communications are enabled. I've set this to "no reduction". The default is 80%. I read in another forum that sometimes Windows reduces the volume erroneously.

[kirayamato26]

Am I the only one that keeps the volume at 10 for headphones without loudness equalization enabled and with the headphone limiter disabled (and the headphones are at 50% volume on the volume dial)?

[harrisb]

Where is the "headphone limiter"?

[rc87]

I want to add my 0.02 $

First enable loudness and adjust its release time inside settings window at your like.

follow this how to: http://www.techmynd.com/raise-windows-7-default-volume/

then go to Control Panel, Smart Audio and play with the EQ till you are satisfied.

try phantom speakers and 3d immersion if you like them too, I don't like them for music so I placed them at 0.

I enabled night mode, and used something like this for a start:

31Hz: +11dB

62Hz: +13dB

125Hz: +11dB

250Hz: +4dB

500Hz: +5dB

1KHz: +10dB

2KHz: +9dB
4KHz: 4dB 

8KHz: 0dB

16KHz: -2dB

EQ depends on you and your musical taste and is this is only a rough start.

With loudness and these settings my W520 is actually louder than the asus I had before.

But I'm not satisfied about quality. "loudness" helped a lot on sound pressure, but I find that at MAX volume there is a audible echo and some light distortion in low freq, maybe lower those bands in EQ but now finally I can hear the bass line on some rock tracks

as you can see it's a trial and error method.

[kirayamato26]

Here is the headphone limiter.