XPS 15 9560, Doing away with Waves MaxxAudio, Fixed

I was having a similar issue, where even with all audio "enhancements" switched off, Maxx would still be doing some processing in the background. This was preventing me from being able to monitor Ableton Live's output accurately. However, I just got off an hour-long remote access session with Dell tech support and we managed to sort it out in the end. Thought I should probably post the process here, in case it helps anyone else. I'm on an XPS 15 9570.

I wasn't able to straight-up remove Maxx, much as I'd have liked to, as it seems to be responsible for monitoring the state of the headphone port and routing audio appropriately. If I removed Maxx, the system would no longer recognise that I'd plugged headphones in and would continue to output audio to the speakers. Obviously this wasn't an acceptable compromise.

I've now got to the state where switching off the enhancements will (it appears) completely bypass any processing, as should have been the case in the first place. To achieve this, me and the support agent did the following:

1. Uninstall any Realtek drivers via the control panel. Once uninstalled, decline to restart yet.
2. Install BIOS updates downloaded from the Dell support page for the laptop (eg.P ). Not sure this was strictly necessary, but we did it anyway.
3. Restart. BIOS firmware will be updated.
4. Install latest Realtek drivers from the Dell support page. Restart again once done.
5. Go to Windows update and install all pending updates. These included some audio ones for me. Restart again.
6. Go to Maxx and switch off all audio processing settings. Maxx's enhancements should now be bypassed.

Hopefully this will help!

Don't know if you still check this board or not, but just in case...

If you just want to get rid of the effects of Waves MaxxAudio, get AUTORUNS.EXE from Sysinternals 

link:  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

Then uncheck the three startup entries that pertain to Waves: WavesSvc, WavesSysSvc, and WavesFilter.

Restart your system, and you are 'De-Waves-ed'.

Interesting things about Maxx....

1) Their software appears to be FORCED onto computers.  It's definitely installed WITHOUT CONSENT.  I've removed it only to have it come back.

2) Their software is not easily uninstalled by, for example, by removing it through Control Panel.

3)  It's unclear why they're so aggressive in forcing their software onto other computers' without their consent but it's definitely a basis for serious suspicion. 

4) They list four business locations:  USA (San Francisco), Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. 

Their San Francisco location actually appears to be a "WeWork" location that "provides shared workspaces for technology startup subculture communities, and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, small businesses..."  starting $550/month for a "Hot Desk".

5) If you go to their website, you'll not find a single phone number to call anyone though can email them.  With so many sites like this, they're usually unresponsive to messages. 

6) I have internet security software installed on my computer and, literally the day before the Maxx software was installed AGAIN without my knowledge or consent,  the security software detected 2 threats (still being looked into).

Why is not now not possible to post messages concerning

Interesting things about the software company in question.

1) Their software appears to be FORCED onto computers.  It's definitely installed WITHOUT CONSENT.  I've removed it only to have it come back.

2) Their software is not easily uninstalled by, for example, by removing it through Control Panel.

3)  It's unclear why they're so aggressive in forcing their software onto other computers' without their consent but it's definitely a basis for serious suspicion. 

4) They list four business locations:  USA (San Francisco), Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. 

Their San Francisco location actually appears to be a "WeWork" location that "provides shared workspaces for technology startup subculture communities, and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, small businesses..."  starting $550/month for a "Hot Desk".

5) If you go to their website, you'll not find a single phone number to call anyone though can email them.  With so many sites like this, they're usually unresponsive to messages. 

6) I have internet security software installed on my computer and, literally the day before the Maxx software was installed AGAIN without my knowledge or consent,  the security software detected 2 threats (still being looked into).

When I tried to post a message citing the company by name, it failed.

maxx

Just go to the hidden icon menu and open MaxxAudio then disable pop up menu. Done and easy. Waves is actually good

Nothing good. Firstly, the sound is highly distorted and working without an external audio interface is impossible. And this is a huge problem! Because if you just write music on a computer and do not use a microphone or external instruments, the audio interface is absolutely not needed. But because of the waves of audio, you still have to buy it and carry it with you. Secondly, because of the waves of audio, there are huge problems with sound. Cod clicks noises and other artifacts that do not allow elementary to watch videos on the Internet. This is a very old and common problem on XPS models. Well, in the third, why do we need waves of audio? To enhance the speaker volume on the laptop. But who needs it. This is madness

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@Kercha wrote:

Nothing good. Firstly, the sound is highly distorted and working without an external audio interface is impossible. And this is a huge problem! Because if you just write music on a computer and do not use a microphone or external instruments, the audio interface is absolutely not needed. But because of the waves of audio, you still have to buy it and carry it with you. Secondly, because of the waves of audio, there are huge problems with sound. Cod clicks noises and other artifacts that do not allow elementary to watch videos on the Internet. This is a very old and common problem on XPS models. Well, in the third, why do we need waves of audio? To enhance the speaker volume on the laptop. But who needs it. This is madness

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The biggest problem is that Dell put in low end audio speakers (and relatively weak onboard audio chipsets) not only in XPS series of Dell laptops made in the 2010s but also in other series like Inspiron and Vostro.  they try to compensate by putting audio enhancement software like maxxaudio on there.

my mom's old Inspiron 640m/e1405 laptop has far better quality laptop speakers (which produce very good bass sounds) and its onboard audio does not need any audio enhancers like waves maxxaudio.

I work in audio as well and the Waves software is very aggressive in the way that it is linked to the audio driver. Leave it on and you have a massively exaggerated low end and stereo width on your output from your DAW when using the built in soundcard to the laptop. I'm also on an XPS 9560 by the way.

You can disable it (either in the Waves app or by going to Task Manager and stopping it from running at startup) but it leaves your audio driver putting out a pitifully low signal.

So the only real option if you want to use a DAW with the internal soundcard (Ableton is my choice) is to:

1) Go to Device Manager

2) Open the Sound Controllers section

3) Right click on Realtek High Definition Device

4) Select Update drive

5) Click Browse My Computer For a Driver

6) Click Let Me Pick From a List

7) Untick Show Compatible Hardware

Scroll to Microsoft on the Left and choose High Definition Audio Device on the right. I had two version (2015 and 2017) - 2017 worked for me.

9) Restart

10) Uninstall Realtek Drivers

11) Restart

Everything should be tickety-boo now. I know others had mentioned this earlier in the thread but I just wanted to do a full step-by-step of what worked for me.

Good Luck!... to bad.  Only during a 'couple of days' was I happy to see that old reliable GUI of Realtek HD.  …. done everything I can (or thought I could) including re-installation and system restore.. we'll just keep guessing.  I believe it's a stop-gap to prevent open-gap pirating of software and/or secured/proprietary software.  It's just not available unless you go back to XP or Win 7.

For what it's worth, I just uninstalled the Realtek device drivers altogether and disabled in in Device Manager. I never use onboard sound so it's unnecessary.

@jphughanWaves Maxxaudio affects all audio afaik. And, since the OP was talking about Pro Audio, he's probably not using the mic or headphone output of the XPS. In other words none of that pin out information was in any way relevant. You can turn "Spatial Sound" off in the mixer settings but that does not necessarily mean that MaxxAudio is not affecting your sound. It would be nice to just be able to turn this feature off. If it was a Windows feature you would most certainly be able to uninstall it. As you can with just about any other feature in Windows. The thing is that this is a Dell specific driver. They should provide an uninstaller. Bottom line. I've wanted to rip my CPU out of this motherboard for that very reason. I simply could do without the "extra features". I want drivers and that's all.