Not getting optimal sound from laptop via HDMI

[DamienS]

Dear Forum.

I have a pair of Q Acoustic 3020i speakers connected to a Denon X3400H AVR.

I have tried connecting my laptop (PC) to the AVR via the 3.5mm out on the laptop with a 3.5mm to RCA cable. I have also tried using HDMI from the laptop to the AVR. In both cases I do get sound. The quality of the HDMI is better than the 3.5mm to RCA cable. However even the sound utilizing the HDMI is noticeably inferior than if I use HEOS app on my phone to stream to my AVR. (in both cases playing from Tidal Hifi).

I though that using HDMI (being a digital format) that it would be a digital format until the AVR and utilizing the DAC inbuilt in the AVR and that it therefore would have given me similar results to the HEOS (since it would seem the AVR would be doing the DAC with the HEOS also).

Any ideas/suggestions/insight as to what the issue would be and how to resolve?

Thank you in advance for any insight your can provide.

 

[Doge]

As a fellow Audiophyte I was going to start yet another thread on this, but I will glomb onto yours.

How "bad" is a laptop USB with a good DAC compared to other streaming devices?
I can hear a distinct difference between the laptop 3.5mm jack and the DAC output.

I'm guessing that 3.5 jack sound depend a whole bunch on the laptop / desktop.
The USB part, I'm not so sure the laptop matters.

I am also streaming Tidal. I have the BlueSound Node 2i and the laptop. I prefer the laptop as it is integrated. My amp is in for service. So hard to compare at the moment.

 

[DamienS]

I'm a newbie Doge, so of extremely limited knowledge to address your query.

However, it seems that what you are discussing is somewhat different arrangement to the situation I was describing. If I'm understanding you correctly, you are discussing utilizing a USB DAC from your PC and then going from that DAC to your HiFi system. As I understand it, in this situation you are converting from USB DAC would be converting from digital to analog signal, then it is continuing to the analog input of your receiver before going to the AVR outs (another digital to analogue conversion). From my understanding the fact that it is undergoing multiple conversions could have negative impact on the quality of sound.
At least this is my interpretation from reading this article. (See the section about 2/3 down heading “Digital Signal Integrity vs Over-Conversion)
https://www.themasterswitch.com/best-dacs

It was this element that I was looking to overcome by using a HDMI cable from the computer to the AVR (keeping it a digital signal until the conversion to analog by the AVR). It seemed to me that doing this (keeping it a digital signal until the AVR DAC) would bypass the need for a DAC (as they computer wouldn't have been doing any of the conversion), and would have given me results very similar to what I’m achieving when I stream to my Denon AVR via HEOS app from my phone. However that doesn’t seem to be the case for some reason.

Based on that section of the article linked above, I nearly get the impression that USB DACs are more suitable if you are looking to plug your speakers directly into the DAC, rather than going onto another receiver or such... (But I'm way out of my area of expertise here). It also seems that there are usually limitations to the number of channels handled by USB DACs. While I personally right now only have left and right speakers, in the future I would like to add on for surround speakers for watching movies, etc.

Given that your situation is quite different (discussing USB DAC & BlueSound Node 2i rather than the specific HDMI discussion), it might be as well to start a separate thread on your specific situation. I’d imagine trying to cover your queries as part of this thread is opening up the thread to too broad of a topic and might make it difficult/off putting of others to address either of our enquiries, given that it would be covering a much wider topic than my original post alone.

Wish I could provide more insight on your situation though

 

[Montucky]

Well, I'm sure this has a lot to do with the onboard sound hardware baked into your laptop. Over my many years of using laptops and assembling my own desktops, I've learned just how much of a difference that can make. While the gap between onboard sound and proper sound cards has indeed shrunk significantly over the years, I still maintain that (depending upon your sound chip) there can still be a pretty noticeable difference depending on what you're playing and what software you're utilizing. My best sound experiences on my computers have ALWAYS been with a high quality sound card. Their configuration software also helps you dial your settings in FAR beyond what the stock windows/mac sound settings allow you to do.

For a laptop, take a look into external "sound cards." My guess is that would make a very noticeable improvement to you. Too many variables on your end for me to say for sure, but I think it would be worth exploring. You can get a top dog external Sound Blaster for around $100 these days although there may be lots more options that are better or cheaper. Perhaps start here: https://us.creative.com/p/sound-cards

 

[DamienS]

Hi Montucky.

Thank you very much for your response!

While I can understand that a decent sound card would improve sound quality over most onboard (motherboard) sound cards, in my situation (when utilizing HDMI port and cable), I wouldn't have thought that it was using the computer's sound cards at all (rather it would be just sending a digital signal to be converted downstream by the AVR).

I would have thought that adding a sound card would make sense if you were plugging your speakers directly into the outputs of the soundcard since you'd be getting the digital signal from your computer, your sound card would be doing the digital to analog conversion and it would then be going directly to your speakers. However, in my situation where I am going to a AVR it would seem that using a sound card it would be sending a digital signal from the computer to the sound card, the sound card would then be converting from digital to analog, that would then be passed onto the receiver's inputs where they'd be converted back to digital and the the AVR's DAC would be again converting from digital to analog. In that article I linked in my post above, it recommends not doing more digital to analog conversions than absolutely necessary and instead recommends using a digital ports/cables until the point of reaching digital to analog conversion (which in my case is the AVR). I was therefore figuring that using the HDMI cable was bypassing the computer motherboard's sound card and that it instead was sending a digital signal (zeros and ones) to the AVR for the AVR to do the digital to analog conversion. The AVR's DAC seems to be plenty good to me as it would seem that is what it is doing when I'm streaming from HEOS. However, not so when I have it connected to the computer via HDMI.

In the setups you mention having done where you have noticed improvement with add on sound cards, are you just talking about having experienced an improvement over that observed from the onboard sound cards (which I'd completely understand being the case)? Were you ultimately continuing to an AVR or did you have speakers directly into the sound card? Have you done comparisons utilizing HDMI cable directly from the computer to an AVR versus going from computer to sound card to AVR?

Thank you again for any further insight!

 

[Doge]

I'm a newbie Doge, so of extremely limited knowledge to address your query.
...

What I see in common is in both our cases there is a digital signal being sent out. The DAC is happening at the receiving plug of the HDMI or the USB connector. For TV, unless there is a splitter, or some pre processing device, the audio and video are handled by the TV. I am only doing one conversion. Frankly I'm not going to worry too much about the digital stream. Its coming in over the Internet over wires far less quality than in my pre-DAC setup.
FWIW I have an integrated amp, so PC USB->DAC->RCA inputs>speakers.

 

[lovinthehd]

Its coming in over the Internet over wires far less quality than in my pre-DAC setup.
FWIW I have an integrated amp, so PC USB->DAC->RCA inputs>speakers.

What on earth does the quality of the wire have to do with it?

 

[Doge]

What on earth does the quality of the wire have to do with it?

Nothing. It is a digital signal, which is why I'm not worried about it.

An analog signal is affected by wire and I would care about it. That is not my audio experience speaking, but my job experience.

 

[lovinthehd]

Nothing. It is a digital signal, which is why I'm not worried about it.

An analog signal is affected by wire and I would care about it. That is not my audio experience speaking, but my job experience.

Since you seemed to be comparing the "wires" had to ask. Adequate wire wouldn't matter if it were analog either.

 

[DamienS]

Well, just to report where I'm at with this - I tried using a different computer hooked up to the AVR both via the HDMI method and also via the 3.5mm to RCA. The different computer is a much less expensive computer than the one I was originally on, however I'm finding it much better sound, pretty much the same as HEOS (to my untrained ears). Even using the 3.5mm to RCA on the different computer is better than the sound I was getting via HDMI on the original computer. So this is telling me that the HDMI cable is fine, the AVR is fine with the HDMI, etc.
Problem lies somewhere with the original computer so I'll troubleshoot that end of it and therefore this is probably not so much suitable for this forum as it's more of a computer issue than an audio type issue.
Apologies, wish I had thought to try that prior to posting .
Thank you for your replies.

 

[lovinthehd]

Well, just to report where I'm at with this - I tried using a different computer hooked up to the AVR both via the HDMI method and also via the 3.5mm to RCA. The different computer is a much less expensive computer than the one I was originally on, however I'm finding it much better sound, pretty much the same as HEOS (to my untrained ears). Even using the 3.5mm to RCA on the different computer is better than the sound I was getting via HDMI on the original computer. So this is telling me that the HDMI cable is fine, the AVR is fine with the HDMI, etc.
Problem lies somewhere with the original computer so I'll troubleshoot that end of it and therefore this is probably not so much suitable for this forum as it's more of a computer issue than an audio type issue.
Apologies, wish I had thought to try that prior to posting .
Thank you for your replies.

Might want to check audio output settings in the computer?

 

[DamienS]

I had done some initial investigation with the sound settings of the onboard/windows sound settings but didn't get great results. I didn't go too far with that as I wasn't expecting optimal results from the onboard sound card DAC, going to 3.5mm to RCA cables as an analog signal and to the AVR where it would undergo a futher analog to digital and digital to analog conversion. (although I was surprised that doing this on the cheaper computer provided better results than I was anticipating going this same route).
I think (hope) I'd have better results troubleshooting what's going on with the GPU (which is providing the HDMI outlet for sending the digital signal to the AVR). However, I have to get some work done for now so will be the weekend before I get to spend some time on it proper.
In the meantime I have found a app on Microsoft Store that allows me to stream from my PC to the AVR called HEOS Remote. It's not an offical HEOS/Denon application but it works very well (quality wise) for streaming Tidal from my desktop, which suits me much better than doing so from my phone. It doesn't help my situation for audio outside of Tidal (such as Netflix/YouTube, etc.) but at least I now have good quality tunes . I'll let you know if I figure out the overall issue over the weekend.
Thanks again for your input lovinthehd. Hope you are keeping well.

 

[Montucky]

Hi Montucky.

Thank you very much for your response!

While I can understand that a decent sound card would improve sound quality over most onboard (motherboard) sound cards, in my situation (when utilizing HDMI port and cable), I wouldn't have thought that it was using the computer's sound cards at all (rather it would be just sending a digital signal to be converted downstream by the AVR).

I would have thought that adding a sound card would make sense if you were plugging your speakers directly into the outputs of the soundcard since you'd be getting the digital signal from your computer, your sound card would be doing the digital to analog conversion and it would then be going directly to your speakers. However, in my situation where I am going to a AVR it would seem that using a sound card it would be sending a digital signal from the computer to the sound card, the sound card would then be converting from digital to analog, that would then be passed onto the receiver's inputs where they'd be converted back to digital and the the AVR's DAC would be again converting from digital to analog. In that article I linked in my post above, it recommends not doing more digital to analog conversions than absolutely necessary and instead recommends using a digital ports/cables until the point of reaching digital to analog conversion (which in my case is the AVR). I was therefore figuring that using the HDMI cable was bypassing the computer motherboard's sound card and that it instead was sending a digital signal (zeros and ones) to the AVR for the AVR to do the digital to analog conversion. The AVR's DAC seems to be plenty good to me as it would seem that is what it is doing when I'm streaming from HEOS. However, not so when I have it connected to the computer via HDMI.

In the setups you mention having done where you have noticed improvement with add on sound cards, are you just talking about having experienced an improvement over that observed from the onboard sound cards (which I'd completely understand being the case)? Were you ultimately continuing to an AVR or did you have speakers directly into the sound card? Have you done comparisons utilizing HDMI cable directly from the computer to an AVR versus going from computer to sound card to AVR?

Thank you again for any further insight!

You are correct. When bitsreaming audio through HDMI to your receiver, that can often be the best way to go since like you said, it's pure digital til it gets converted by your AVR. My experiences were, like you correctly presumed, with a traditional computer setup, ie PC to active speakers (or headphones) via analog connection. That's where a good quality sound card has indeed made a great difference.

I'm also curious what's at play with your setup that's making such a big difference. What model laptop do you have? Perhaps we can help you dive into this mystery a bit further if we knew that.

 

[Doge]

...
I'm also curious what's at play with your setup that's making such a big difference. What model laptop do you have? Perhaps we can help you dive into this mystery a bit further if we knew that.

Does anyone think the digital stream (HDMI, USB - or Wireless) matters much? I can see if using an analog 3.5mm jack port on the laptop, or phone it matters a whole bunch as the DAC chip is in the device, and then the quality of the conversion matters. But if the digital stream is clean and the machine can keep up, should it matter?

 

[highfigh]

Well, just to report where I'm at with this - I tried using a different computer hooked up to the AVR both via the HDMI method and also via the 3.5mm to RCA. The different computer is a much less expensive computer than the one I was originally on, however I'm finding it much better sound, pretty much the same as HEOS (to my untrained ears). Even using the 3.5mm to RCA on the different computer is better than the sound I was getting via HDMI on the original computer. So this is telling me that the HDMI cable is fine, the AVR is fine with the HDMI, etc.
Problem lies somewhere with the original computer so I'll troubleshoot that end of it and therefore this is probably not so much suitable for this forum as it's more of a computer issue than an audio type issue.
Apologies, wish I had thought to try that prior to posting .
Thank you for your replies.

Why aren't you streaming from the computer to the AVR? The AVR has HEOS, it works with DLNA and AirPlay- use them, rather than cables- it's a lot more convenient and it works.

 

[DamienS]

You are correct. When bitsreaming audio through HDMI to your receiver, that can often be the best way to go since like you said, it's pure digital til it gets converted by your AVR. My experiences were, like you correctly presumed, with a traditional computer setup, ie PC to active speakers (or headphones) via analog connection. That's where a good quality sound card has indeed made a great difference.

I'm also curious what's at play with your setup that's making such a big difference. What model laptop do you have? Perhaps we can help you dive into this mystery a bit further if we knew that.

Thank you for the further reply Montucky.
Good to confirm my interpretation regarding the sound card was on the right path.
The computer (laptop) I'm usually using (and having the audio issue on) is a ASUS 550N JK. It has been upgraded with 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD.

I very much appreciate your offer with assistance to troubleshooting the computer side of it however, there are a couple of aspects that might make it a bit more difficult to do so from afar. It might be something that I'll have to do a bit of trial and error on my side first

Reason (a) that computer came with Windows 8 Home. Due to some of the software I use having compatibility issues with Windows Home, I ended up having to have Windows Professional installed. ASUS's BIOS was such that it didn't allow for the Professional version of windows be installed. I had an IT guy work his side of things and he somehow found a BIOS (non ASUS) that did allow for Windows 10 Professional to be installed. This however means that drivers from ASUS website, etc. are not applicable/usable, etc.

Reason (b). I currently have 4 monitors coming off this laptop. 2 of 24" 1920x1200 in portrait on my left, a 43" 4K in landscape in front of me and another 24" 1920x1200 in landscape on my right. I'm feeding the 43" from the laptop mini Displayport, feeding one of the 24" from the laptop HDMI port and the other two 24" monitors I'm feeding from a USB to HDMI adaptor LINK

Due to reason (a) I'll have to go about the drivers in a more manual method (using Update Driver in Windows Device Manager seems to just be okay as long as it has a working driver rather than the best/most current driver from the manufacturer).

Due to reason (b) I'll have to do some unplugging of the monitors, etc. One aspect that I will want to investigate is if the reason I'm having issues with the audio via HDMI (I had unplugged the monitor from the HDMI port when I was trying the audio through HDMI) is to see if I unplug all monitors from the laptop (i.e. just use the monitor's laptop) would there be an improvement. My GPU driver is current.

At the moment the current configuration is working for work and everything else I need other than the issues with the audio. That being the case and being under a bit of pressure with work I won't get a chance to do the various plugging/unplugging and various driver updates, etc. until the weekend. Plus with now having the application that allows for streaming via HEOS from my desktop, I'm in such as bad way.

I'll let you know what I find out over the weekend when I have tried a few things and might be better able to pinpoint what is/is not the issue from having done some initial elimination of possibilities.

Thanks again!!

 

[lovinthehd]

Does anyone think the digital stream (HDMI, USB - or Wireless) matters much? I can see if using an analog 3.5mm jack port on the laptop, or phone it matters a whole bunch as the DAC chip is in the device, and then the quality of the conversion matters. But if the digital stream is clean and the machine can keep up, should it matter?

You got my name on the quote but I didn't ask that. If the computer or HEOS is doing some odd processing of the data perhaps it could make a difference, don't know....

 

[DamienS]

Why aren't you streaming from the computer to the AVR? The AVR has HEOS, it works with DLNA and AirPlay- use them, rather than cables- it's a lot more convenient and it works.

Just today I came across an app that does allow me to stream my Tidal from my desktop to the AVR via HEOS, and it is indeed very nice for that specific use. LINK

I was originally (and still will ultimately) be looking for a solution for me to be able to send good quality audio from my PC to the AVR for all audio, not just via HEOS. i.e. I would like all sounds to go from my computer to the AVR. This would be for Tidal, Netflix, YouTube or any other audio that I'd be dealing with on my computer. As far as I know (not an expert so please advise if I am incorrect in this), HEOS would not work for Netflix/YouTube/Windows Audio/Audio from various websites, etc.

Again, I'm not sure but I think DLNA would be more if one had a library of music (which I don't).

I'm not familar with Airplay. I thought it was just for Apple, but in my quick look since your post I see that it is not limited to just Apple anymore. I'll have to see if it would be applicable.

I do like the idea of not needing to deal with cables at all, and do find the quality very good by not dealing with cables. For now, being able to use the app linked above to stream my Tidal music via HEOS from my PC is a big advantage and will do me while I figure out how best to get the rest of audio (Netflix, YouTube, sound from general websites, etc.) to also come through to the computer in a good quality.

Thank you for your suggestions. I'll look into Airplay and see if that would do what I need. Please do advise if I working with incorrect understanding of the possibilities above.

Best Regards.

 

[PENG]

Well, just to report where I'm at with this - I tried using a different computer hooked up to the AVR both via the HDMI method and also via the 3.5mm to RCA. The different computer is a much less expensive computer than the one I was originally on, however I'm finding it much better sound, pretty much the same as HEOS (to my untrained ears). Even using the 3.5mm to RCA on the different computer is better than the sound I was getting via HDMI on the original computer. So this is telling me that the HDMI cable is fine, the AVR is fine with the HDMI, etc.
Problem lies somewhere with the original computer so I'll troubleshoot that end of it and therefore this is probably not so much suitable for this forum as it's more of a computer issue than an audio type issue.
Apologies, wish I had thought to try that prior to posting .
Thank you for your replies.

The X3400H has excellent DA conversion. What software did you use on your other computer? If sound quality is bad via HDMI, it has to do with some settings on your PC side and/or the software media player you were using.

 

[DamienS]

Hello PENG.

I agree that it must be something wrong with the (one) computer side of things. On both computers I tried I was using the Tidal desktop application. I just switched the cables from one computer to the other and indeed the cheaper computer sounded good while the other one didn't (all variables the same - same cables, inputs, application for source, etc.) so it must indeed be something specific wrong with the first computer.

I'll be trying to troubleshoot that computer more over the weekend and will report back whatever I find.

Thank you for your input!!