Hi there. I'm just setting up my new HP Pavilion 15 (p035nd) and I've encountered a strange sound issue. First of all, the sound quality without activating Beats Audio is tinny, hollow and just absolutely woeful - far worse than a Dell netbook I paid €300 less for four years ago... But at least the Beats EQ does improve matters somewhat.
My actual query is why there seems to be awful compression effect imposed on the audio I play regardless of whether Beats Audio is on or off. Quiet parts of songs are distorting from being pushed too loud and the louder parts sound flat and squashed. Through all the work the sound card is doing to compress the audio, it also sounds like the volume is fluctuting constantly.
I have already tried downloading and installing the latest audio driver for my laptop model from HP's website (Realtek 6.0.1.7195) and it hasn't made matters any better.
I'm a huge music fan, and I was really hoping this laptop could provide increased performance from my old netbook while still making use of my big speakers for home listening. As you can imagine, this audio issue has been a huge and unexpexcted disappointment.
Is there any known workaround for the unwanted compression issue?
Thanks for your help.