XPS 15 9500, speakers, distorted/crackling audio

 @DELL-Cares comes back to me asking if I'm sure the audio grain/crackling is present on all sounds?! Are you kidding? Of course it is and I confirmed that when I contacted you first. I had my speakers also replaced last week which did not help (as expected). Even the Dell Technician who performed the works noticed the audio did not improve at all and sounds like total trash (especially noticed on windows sounds).

Same issue on an XPS 15 that I just received today.

@rvalenta1991 and @BRIXPSOWNER 

There is no fix for this bad audio on inbuilt speakers at the minute, and I don't think there will ever be one! The only thing that @DELL-Cares is able to do at the moment is to waste your time, money and nerves, by suggesting:

- Drivers,  BIOS update, Windows restore, Windows reinstall, 

- Speakers replacement, whole laptop replacement

None of the above can resolve the issue as it is Realtek Driver related. They would simply not admit that this is an out of the box fault/bug/issue. This attitude drives me absolutely nuts.

I have the same issue. Many hours on the line with Dell support, 3 times technician came to replace:

• 3 times speakers
• 2 times motherboard
• 2 times touch pad panel

It didn't help at all! Reinstalled windows 2 times and tried all possible solutions. After all of this the technical guy from the support told me, I tried with other laptops that we have here all of them have the same sound quality, you don't buy laptop for listening music on high volume, It's not a defect in the laptop! If we apply for replacing the laptop for you it will not make better, all the models have this issue.
(And that's official support...)

I just shocked, I will think million times before I will buy even a mouse from Dell. I think there is a place for some collective reaction for such poor quality and defects.

They don't even have a test XPS9500 to see this issue for themselves, what kind of support is this? All we need is as many people as possible to report under this post that they have the very same poor audio issue on their XPS9500. This will help to drag more attention to this issue. 

Out of curiosity...so I know what to listen for when and what sources are you hearing the distortion from.  Admittedly I have heard the same issue on my older XPS 13 9350 when Windows drivers were being used.  As soon as Realtek drivers were installed the issue went away.  There was a constant low volume crackle when sound was on...is this what you're referring to or something else?  Admittedly, I my few days old 9500 had to have the palm rest replaced because of another common problem...the touch pad was loose and made a clicking sound every time you tapped it.  I had option to exchange or have fixed...I opted for the fix because I'd read that lots of people were having similar issue and even the technic support rep said that it was doubtful the batches of "defective palm rests" were out of circulation and that a replacement might have the same issue (confirmed reports online of this as well).  With the exception of fear at seeing my days old 9500 stripped down to parts and put back together with new palm rest and keyboard, it is working.  Anxious to see if you have a test that I can see if speakers are an issue.

@mccainmw - Yes they claimed the touchpad issue is resolved but that is not the case. I bought my XPS 9500 in late October and I have a wobbly touchpad as well. I am awaiting mine to be replaced, which is expected for 27 December. Apparently too many users want the touchpad replaced and they can't cope with that. To reproduce the crackling sound issue play windows sounds as in my videos below, that is the easiest way to test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soY_h3pLWqw

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

Can confirm I have the same problem on the new Dell XPS 17 9700 latest model. They are going to send a technician but unfortunately looks like nobody has this sorted yet because it is a driver issue?

@Nat_K  - Thank you for confirming that the crackling audio issue is present on the XPS 17 9700 as well. Yes, there is no hope at the moment unfortunately. They are simply ignoring the fact of this issue existing in the first place, so how can you expect them to fix it if they ignore what hundreds of users are reporting? I don't see light at the end of the tunnel, and as another user stated above, do a proper research before buying even a mouse from Dell again.

I'll keep my ears open but right now I don't hear anything abnormal, for laptop speakers, and I've never driven my laptop speakers at high volume.  That being said, I just spent a lot of time trying to completely remove Dell audio drivers.  I found that somehow I had ended up with two different Waves MaxxAudioPro apps from MS Store in my start menu.  Uninstall was a pain...I had to manually uninstall each of the MS Store apps, and one of them simply took me to the Windows 10 Program page.  I manually uninstalled Realtek Audio from both Programs and Device Manager, and then used DDU and rebooting via Safe Mode to try and get more.  Even then, there was all kinds of MaxxAudio files left on my computer in multiple areas.  I went after them with Unlocker and seem to have got them all.  Right now, the only thing left are a bunch of orphaned registry entries that won't let me delete them.  The good news is that I was able to get UAD from Microsoft Update Catalog to install so I just get basic sound.  No additional services running in the background and no software processing.  And the drivers were only a 11MB download...not the 300+MB HDA version that Dell apparently still uses.  

@mccainmw 

Yes, however using the Universal Audio Drivers from Microsoft will make the sound very flat, with no bass and the volume will decrease by 5 times. Don't think the majority of us can accept such an option.

Update to ALL, thanks to user @rvalenta1991 who found out the audio crackling mainly occurs between the 350-900 Hz. He received his brand new laptop today with the very same problem,  as is the case of all the other users who are buying any of the new XPS laptops (9300, 9500, 9700).

I have made a quick comparison of the 400Hz test sound from YouTube played on my XPS 15 9500 compared to a medium budget Lenovo laptop which has no crackling on the same test sound, as a second example -  my S10 plus is also not having crackling when I play the same video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErYI2LXRxw

Actually the sound seemed just about even...however, I found that my microphone was severely degraded.  I ended up reinstalling the Dell drivers to get some microphone sensitivity back.  It still doesn't seem to be as good as my previous XPS 13 9350 though...but better than the generic drivers.  The 9350 records nice, clear, and loud.  There might be some other setting I need look into to improve microphone performance on the 9500.  Does anyone know where the microphone is even located?  

excellent investigation!  so do we have a fix?

@jvpix.com  - I have highlighted these findings to @DELL-Cares who stated they escalated this into their L3 Team (higher level Engineers). They suggested it will take 24 to 48 business hours to get an answer from that L3 team(I raised this on 23/12). I will keep on chasing and will post any reasonable updates here. I very much hope this will finally get acknowledged, troubleshot and fixed for us.