Sound fluctuation

hungrybeaver · 29 Jul 2010

Hi there,

I've searched the forums for my problem and I couldn't find anything that fits it. My problem is hard for me to describe, so please bear with me! I hope you guys can help me out.

My problem is when I play music and a lot of instruments are playing at the same time, the sound seems to 'dim' an instrument to make way for another instrument (ie drums, vocals and guitars are playing, as the solo starts, the drum volume and vocals dip for a second). This happens all throughout every song and its extremely annoying. Its as though there is too much sound going through the card at the same time so it makes way for the new sound when any instrument changes. Its like a poorly implemented volume normalization option is constantly turned on.

I have found that since installing the latest Realtek HD drivers (2.54 i think), the EQ settings seem to have changed slightly (from my previous Vista install), therefore giving a slightly different sound. If I turn the EQ off, the problem seems to go away (cant confirm that yet though). Before I installed the Realtek drivers, Windows had installed its own for me. I didn't listen to music at that time, but other experiences with sound (games) seemed to give a similar problem, and I also noticed an echo.

My system:
I recently installed Windows 7 Pro 32bit as of 5 days ago (previously it was Vista, same machine). I have the Realtek HD acl888 sound device with the latest available drivers. I never had a problem like this with Vista. I have played with every sound setting within Windows and Realtek Audio Manager (and my music player) but I cannot fix this.

I am busy downloading the Realtek HD driver 2.20 to test out when I get home.

Thanks in advance!

Aphelion · 29 Jul 2010

Right click the Microsoft speaker icon in the task bar, select playback devices, single left click your default device and select the "properties" button lower right. Select the "Enhancements" tab...scroll down enhancements until you get to "Loudness Equalization". Disable it, does that help?

Ap

electrotune1200 · 29 Jul 2010

I know exactly what you are experiencing, and unfortunately, I have been trying to get to the bottom of this myself. While I don't think it's driver related, but just the way Windows is handling the audio.

The strange thing is it seems to only be digital files that are plagued by this.(mp3,flac,wav) If you listen to the original audio CD, the sound is pretty much accurate with no compression going on.

If I ever stumble across a solution to this, I'll be sure to post it.

hungrybeaver · 29 Jul 2010

Thanks for the replies. My problem still persists, but I think I've nailed it to the Realtek Audio Manager.

I removed the drivers for my device completely, restarted, and allowed Windows to install its own driver. The sound worked perfectly (although too much bass). I then installed the Realtek HD driver 2.20 and tried it out with no equalizer settings. The song played fine, pretty much exactly the same as the Windows driver, again too much bass. I then tried out the Rock EQ and the sound problem reappeared. It looks like something is not right with my PC and the EQ settings in Audio Manager.

I like to set a system-wide EQ onto Rock, and I achieve this with Audio Manager. Does anyone know of a piece of software I can use that will implement an EQ setting across my whole system so that every sound has the EQ setting?

edit: I'm trying out DFX as an equalizer, but I'm still looking for a system-wide one.

Aphelion · 16 Aug 2010

hungrybeaver said:

Thanks for the replies. My problem still persists, but I think I've nailed it to the Realtek Audio Manager.

Just to check, you did disable "Loudness Equalization" (LE for short)

LE reacts to Input volume, so... if you say, increase bass using the Realtek EQ, LE will kick in to try and keep the sound level, unfortunately this comes across as fluctuation in the sound.

LE is in the enhancements section, you have to scroll down to see it.
(see my above post)

Also, under the Communications tab, make sure "Do Nothing" is selected.

Ap

phillyphanatic · 21 Aug 2014

I recently had this same problem. However, all of what was suggested above did not help. I have two desktop speakers interconnected to a subwoofer all going to one audio jack. In my fix, I had to configure my speaker setup to 5.1 Surround sound. Right click on audio level in task bar, choose Playback Devices, Select Speakers, Configure, and then choose your configuration.