My dad recently gave me his HP ENVY Notebook (with Core i7 and Beats Audio) which he had bought used. At first, it seemed fine and felt like an upgrade to my Lenovo ThinkPad. However, the audio quality coming from the speakers really bothered me. I was sure that it was just a problem with the speakers, as laptop speakers are usually not that good, so I plugged in my headphones, expecting some difference. The problem is, that it sounded the same on my headphones. My phone and Lenovo ThinkPad sound better than this.
The audio feels muddy and crackles. It's as if you're listening to music with your headphones not all the way up into the jack (which is something I will look into, although I don't think that it's a problem with the jack). The instruments are not clear, and frequently overcome each other. The only difference that enabling Beats Audio makes is emphasis on the lower end, the audio still sounds like something you'd hear on a file with very low bit rate. I even tried playing some music on a DAW, and it still sounded that way.
I really don't understand what is going on, as I have tried everything I could, like reinstalling the audio drivers and tweaking with the settings. It still sounds the same, and not just music, but videos too, basically anything that has audio. I just want to know if this is in fact how the laptop sounds, or if there is a problem on my end.