Low quality tinny sound from my headphones when using them with my laptop

Question

When I plug my headphones into my HP laptop, the sound is very quiet, tinny and low quality. The fault is not with the headphones as I got them new today and it works well in my phone. I tried to fix the problem by installing the latest driver but there was an error installing it and now Beats Audio is gone and it never fixed it, so I reinstalled the original driver. What can be done to fix this?

Solution

Share more details. It might be that you run an operating system with which the driver isn't compatible(eg. the driver is made for Windows 7 and you're using Windows 10) or maybe you have some bad settings within the driver that you currently have installed.

It might also be that you have headphones with too much impedance for your laptop to handle well(laptops and phones should reliably handle 16-32 ohms of impedance, but they could be exceptions), so you get bad quality sound as a result. Or it might simply be some sort of sound card failure.

My take on it is that the latest driver is probably incompatible with the OS you're running. If you share more details, I might be able to help you fix this, but until then, I can't say or do anything with certainty.

Comments

[Admin]

How many segments (poles) does the headphone plug have? (photo)

[Admin]

@gronostaj Four

[Admin]

Look in the Control Panel for any audio settings that look like they are from your sound card (RealTek, etc.) - the audio output may be set to "Line Out" and not "Headphone."

[Admin]

The audio output is set correctly.

[desbest]

I have Windows 8.1, Realtek sound driver and sound enhancements off. What do you want to know?

[Kevin]

I would recommend testing with a TRS audio device before buying anything if one is available.

[desbest]

I have a audio splitter that is 4 poles and it worked well with my old headphones that I don't have any more, so I don't think it's that.

[BassGuitarPanda]

For example you could tell me the details about the error that you occured while installing the latest driver. Also, knowing which OS your laptop was made for would be a good thing to know as well...also the model of your laptop.

[desbest]

I don't remember what the error said. My laptop was made for Windows 8.1 which I have. HP Pavilion 15 Notebook PC L2W58EA#ABU

[desbest]

When I open Audacity it starts working for a split second, so it's a software issue.

[BassGuitarPanda]

There were some folks that seemed to have the same problem as you did, right here: h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/… They seemed to have solved the problem. Read through the discussion and you'll probably find your solution.

[desbest]

I don't have IDT I have Realtek. I have already uninstalled and reinstalled my drivers, original and latest.

[desbest]

When I open Audacity it starts working for a split second, so it's a software issue.