Bad quality sound

[ilusha2]

Hi, I'm looking for advice...

I bought a Dell Inspiron 17R (Inspiron N7010), and the sound quality is really poor (subjectively speaking). It has Realtek High definition/SRS premium sound, but to me it still sounds bad. Its mostly music, like saxophone, singing, certain sounds, it "whistles, "hisses", sound comes out "distorted", not clean, bass is ok, but it just doesn't sound "good". The electronics rep at the NEX said its "supposed to sound that way because its a laptop", but to me that sounds like bullshit, even a laptop should sound good. I would rather not use headphones or external speakers, I want to keep it a "one piece PC", otherwise I would just get a desktop. I already tried messing around with the software settings (i.e. the equalizer, environment settings, etc.) and that helped a bit, but its still "not on par with my desires". So I'm wondering, should I
1. get another laptop with much better sound
2. upgrade the sound card myself
3. Do something else?
Please give me your advice, I appreciate it.

 

[Kage]

Laptop speakers are never the best. I advise using headphones.
Speakers for devices like that are built to do the job and that's pretty much it. They certainly will not offer ground breaking sound.

There are a few laptops that use Antec Lansing speakers but personally, I would not bother.

If you are that bothered about sound, get external speakers or headphones. The inbuilt speakers are bound to distort at high volumes.

At least test the sound using headphones to test there isn't another problem.

 

[ilusha2]

Thank you Kage. So, the Altec Lansing laptop is not worth the money? It sounds worse with the headphones, they're cheap. I can get high quality headphones, but should I upgrade the sound card?

I called Dell tech support, the rep said there's something wrong with the hardware, it also sometimes "whistles", "hums", etc. So I will return it and get a different laptop. Thanks! Maybe I'll just get a desktop.