Inspiron 7700 All-In-One speaker distortion

I can't rule out a hardware issue, as was suggested, but Dell installs Waves MaxxAudio Pro software on this PC. So you need to make sure Waves has recognized the speakers correctly.

Open the Waves control panel  (Start>Waves) and click the Playback icon. What does it say? Sometimes Waves misidentifies the speakers and that can make audio sound terrible. On my PC, Waves insisted the  desktop speakers where "internal" and they sounded awful.

So if it's not recognizing your speakers correctly on that screen, scroll down and expand Advanced. Put a check in the "show popup" box. If it's already checked, uncheck it, close the Waves control panel, then reopen it and put a check in that box again.

Now reboot the PC. When you get to the desktop, wait a bit to see if the Waves popup appears and lets you choose the right config for your speakers. Then open the Waves control panel again and click Playback.

Make sure the equalizer slider is turned on and use the controls to change the default settings to your liking. Be sure to save your changes by clicking the "disk" icon to left of the trash icon on that screen. Give the profile a personalized name, don't overwrite the default settings file which can cause even more problems.

Also, search Win 10 for m(o)n(o) (without the parentheses!  ) and make sure that's turned off.

Let us know if any of this helps...

Sounded promising, but I'm unable to get the popup to appear for the speaker selection.   I tried disabling the Waves service entirely, but didn't seem to make any difference.  Guess I could uninstall and reinstall, but I'm slightly loathe to do that if it's pre-installed software.

We've seen a few bad disc images loaded on new machines.  A Factory restore usually fixes software problems.

But, and I don't know if I should say this, if it doesn't work out of the box and what you report I would send it back.

@annelid  - Since the Waves popup isn't appearing, did you check the Waves Playback screen in its control panel to see if Waves is recognizing your speakers correctly?

If not, see if you can "Select output device" and change that setting, as necessary, on that same screen. And you can adjust the output volume on that screen too.

Is the Equalizer enabled on the Waves Playback screen? Have you adjusted the settings for type of music, for bass, width, details? At least with my desktop speakers, enabling Revive on that screen helps too.

Did you turn off the (setting) I suggested above in Win 10?  Is Win 10 set for the correct output device on its own Sound Output screen? And did you run the Win 10 Audio troubleshooter listed on its Sound Output screen?

You can always download and reinstall Waves for the 7700 AIO here after you uninstall it.

It's recognising the speaker as 'Internal' but there are no other options to select. I've tried adjusting the various settings, but nothing seems to make much difference. The test audio is actually not too bad, until you turn it up quite a lot, but the default 'volume adjust' sound for some reason seems to be particluarly bad.  Windows is set for the correct device, and M(o)n(o) is not enabled.    I've got an engineer coming tomorrow, so hopefully he can sort it out

Hope the tech can figure it out. Please post back and let us know what happens....

Thanks for the update.  

@annelid  - Glad they got it sorted...

And you learned more about Waves MaxxAudio, in the process, than you wanted to know! 

I had the very same issue after about 4 months. I checked the Dell Wave app and tinkered with it and the sound is great again. I have a set of external bluetooth speakers and it defaulted to their settings even when I had the sound playing through the computer sound bar. 

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@Blues Fan wrote:

I had the very same issue after about 4 months. I checked the Dell Wave app and tinkered with it and the sound is great again. I have a set of external bluetooth speakers and it defaulted to their settings even when I had the sound playing through the computer sound bar. 

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Waves MaxxAudio can be a nuisance at times. So when the audio acts up, that's the first thing to check.

You can set up and save several personal pre-set configs for your internal vs BT speakers to make things easier. The last one you set as the current pre-set will be used every time you boot the PC. So just open the Waves control panel to select a different pre-set, whenever you want and that one becomes "current' until you change to a different one.

So I have the same issue. Interesting to hear about the loose screw. My issue only occurs with the right side speaker. 

My primary question is how do you / did you solve the issue with the Wave Advance tab not showing a pop up or opening that menu. I have that issue was well. 

Thanks,

Preston

@Preston G  - What PC model do you have?

Is Waves loading automatically at every boot?

Did you follow the instructions in my post on 04-18-2021 (page 1 of this thread) to use Waves?

I have followed it. Yes Task manager shows it does run on start up. It has never opened on the desktop or given a pop up. I also don't have any other speakers so maybe that is why. 

This is brand new to me (days old) Inspiron 7506 - I noticed the issue with the speaker on the right hand side right away and found my way here. 

Mono is turned off. 

I have uninstalled/reinstalled all drivers. 

Dell Support has connected and done it as well. We also did a factory restore. 

I have an open ticket. I am thinking it could also be the screw issue, but I am curious why I cannot get the advanced tab to work on the audio manager.