HP Envy unwanted audio compression?

[AJHester]

I HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION

In the Windows sound properties dialogie you must disable the IDT Speakers and set the 'communication headphones' as the default audio device. (It will disable the laptop speakers and show a cross on the speaker icon on the system tray but this is fine). THEN you muist go into the properties for the communication headphones and deselect 'Use audio enhancements'. Now the sound will only work through the headphones jack, and you can only edit the volume level using the device properties dialogue, but it does get rid of the compression :). 

If you use the laptop for audio processing and mixing you never really need to use the laptop speakers anyway so it's not really an issue. You can always re-enable the IDT Speakers and set those back to default for it to function normally again.

Hope this helps a bit. 

[Muffinraptor]

Hello guys. I bought my envy 17-j150la a weeks ago because of its specs (it'a great machine, I'm even loving win 8.1). I knew Beats Audio was nothing special so I didnt't really expect anything of it but I got tremendously disappointed when I realized Beats Audio is not another mediocre laptop soundcard but THE WORST audio driver ever. It just makes music sound horrible.

I've been reading all possible solutions to get rid of Beats Audio, and I thought of another possibility: has anyone tried installing an external sound card/DAC via USB in order to have the option to select the external DAC over IDT/Beats (so there is no need to uninstall the original drivers). I was thinking of the FiiO E10 amp/DAC.

What do you think? Has anyone tried? I don't really want to hate my laptop because of Beats.

[AJHester]

My method I previously posted allows you to use certain applications like Spotify and audio processing programs via the 'communication headphones' output, whilst allowing other programs such as web browsers to use the laptop speakers or 'IDT speakers' driver seperately. Therefore when you go to the volume icon in the tray you are presented with 2 volume controls, one for each driver. I've found it very handy as you do not need to uninstall or change any drivers, the communication headphones does not have the annoying compression so I can listen to music as normal whilst also using the laptop speakers to play movies and programs online etc. hope that makes sense.

[Muffinraptor]

Hi AJHester. It doest perfect sense, and I will try your method and see how it works. I'm guessing that even if it is "communication headphones" it will work with and external device, like a stereo, right?

[JurrassicFish]

same issue on the pavilion 15-p199sa

[Yona]

Please watch this video on how to disable the Beats Audio. You will need to restart your PC for it to take effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MExhl8Gefpc 

I was plagued with this same problem. I am into Audio production also.  The surround speakers never worked anyway!

[edthered90]

I have this issue on my Pavilion. But mine is even weirder... I am a music producer who took about 10 years off. Just got back into producing and created a track on my old Mac G5 power PC. made a wav file on it, brought it into Pavilion and it sounded aweful - bottom end terribly squeezed/compressed, the vocals are wavering in and out, the breakdown part where drums and bass drop out and only a quiet pad is featured gets boosted up terribly loud by the compressor... crazy!

I couldn't figure out what was going on because the track sounded fine when I connected an audio interface (Scarlett 18i8) to it and also sounded fine on my Dell laptop as well as my Mac.

Now I see that it's the HP issue but even if I get it fixed on my HP people who will buy this track will have an issue with it if they own an HP comp which is unacceptable.

What's really strange is that my older wav files created the same way on the same Mac sound fine on this HP laptop, only the new one that I just made sounds compressed/weird (while it sounds fine on Dell, Mac and through audio interface connected to HP. How would you explain this? Is there something in the file that triggers this behavior by HP sound system?

[C121]

Thanks so much.  I thought there was something seriously wrong with my set up and my mixing capabilities as I was experiencing horrible limiting/compression after uploading my tracks to Soundcloud and listening to them on my J140.  I then tried loading the same tracks into itunes and experienced the same problem.  

After some thought and googling, I was led to this forum and found your post about how you solved this issue.  Once I realized it was a beats audio/idt soundcard issue I knew we could somehow find a solution to the problem.  

I disabled the speaker/idt as you said, then I reinstalled the idt driver, restarted the computer and so far I have not experienced any added limiter/compression and the tracks sound a lot clearer and not distorted as before. 

Once again thank you for posting this solution.   It seems non-sensical that HP would add a compressor or limiter to the audio output chain in the computer in order to "enhance" the audio coming out of the computer.  We as consumers want clean, clear, and true sound from our computers. 

[oliversouthgate]

Thanks Padowan. I tried your soltion and it worked for me.

steps:

1. Disable the IDT device as described.

2. Reboot Windows.

3. click the red cross on the speaker system tray icon and let windows fix it self.

4. This was the key part for me - go to Beats Audio Control Panel and uncheck the  beats audio check box

5. boost the treble slightly on the graphic equaliser.

Sounds much better to me now.