Maxx Audio Pro Dell Download

[Giordano Thibault]

Iwas wondering if there is a way to uninstall the stock Waves MaxxAudio Pro "audio enhancer" this laptop comes with since it warps the audio and makes everything sound woofy. Even when I turn off audio enhancements I've noticed by doing some A/B testing with another computer that has stock Realtek drivers but whilst still using the same amp/dac between them that not all "enhancements" are turned off.

I am able to manually install generic drivers or to uninstall waves but the problem with that is that you lose headphone jack detection. Worst of all it's a fabricated problem. If I just reboot my laptop with the headphone jack plugged in it will detect on startup but if I then take the plug out and put it back in it doesn't detect it anymore. So some kind of driver that automatically installs even after I wipe the entire boot disk in disk part and clean install windows just wants waves to tell it something has been plugged in.

On the off chance someone at dell reads this: how is it possible that you include such poorly written garbage on what is supposed to be a professional device. People have been complaining about this very thing since 2017. Windows already has such a bad audio pipeline compared to macOS and this is like throwing gas on the fire. It's like you want to lose people in the music industry as potential customers. I understand some people might like the changes to the audio waves brings, but there are more elegant ways to implement that and you should at least give people the option to use regular drivers.

I get that Dell wants to "enhance" the little speakers' sound . I get that they want to give you an immersive game or movie experience , but it should be possible to completely bypass it , or even to uninstall it. And you can't . Certainly not in the maxxaudio pro software window. In fact if you turn maxxaudio off , the volume goes up and down , and when you pause and start again , the vol is lower and then goes " normal" , of course other effects are not gone either.

Another thing that I notice and seen by others is a small delay to hear system sounds . Could be a w11 thing or again these : "enhancements" .

This is a bad workaround: -15-9520-Windows-notification-sounds-are-delayed/m-p/8338237#M106446

Processing audio at that level is going to create distortions and arctifacs . And it does.

I want my audio straight like a lot of other people . No enhancements , at least not at the HP output or USB audio output !

My old XPS with sigmatel chips and drivers were great and clean , straight sound, these Realtek (more like UNrealtek) are bad. It starts with : they can only go 24 bit/48khz ??

What ? A premium , expensive creators' laptop in 2023 and it can't make use of 96/192k audio ? So I have these big 24b-96k files for nothing ?

Realtek website is what ? Sh_t. Nothing to look for there.

Some trouble with SD card reader too , what do you know : Realtek too !

I wish I could return this laptop , but I have it now for 6 weeks...

Last Dell for me. This and awful w11 , so Apple next ?

I've tried everything on YT video's , Dell forum , reddit and others.

Mostly the same : run trouble shooter , reinstall/disable/update drivers . Stop some services, get some to not start. Tried it all ...

The time between a knock on the (bild in) microfoons and hearing it through the speakers is also an unacceptable 0,5 sec or more. (yeah , yeah , update your driver as if i didn't already do that). Of what I tested of the microphones , it's not a great sound without some help from .... maxxaudio ?

In : Sound , video and game controllers , I have 4 times the Realtek Soundwire HW audio codec device driver. 1 seems to be for the speakers , 1 for the HP out , 1 for microfoon , and another , I don't know. When disabling them or uninstall , there is no output and input device detected. You restart and the bad Realtek drivers are back again. Looking for the other drivers (at show compatible hardware) and select the one of 2 microsoft HD drivers , it won't install those drivers or still says output device not detected. Trying some other HD drivers on that list , you get a blue screen ... great !

Now I know in windows : settings> sound> speakers (or HP) , there are buttons for spacial (off of course) , but still the : Audio enhancements CANNOT be switched off , If you do : device default effects off , on the speakers tab and/or on the HP tab , YT stops playing , WMP , or " media player " stop, can't find codec or something.

This was also in the days when the computer was spanking new and nothing was altered or disabled. It was the first thing I did when hearing the awful "enhanced" sound.

Then:

Control panel > hardware and sound>manage audio devices , you get the Sound window . Never did I have the enhancement tab like it should be in w11 at properties: right click for speakers properties > advanced tab : again switching off : Enable audio enhancements , same as doing it in settings : no audio ! ( same here in HP properties.)

So what now ? Dell's Proprietary software , wave/maxxaudio , the Realtek drivers are blocking straight audio even if some don't start and/or are disabled ? That is just ... well some words I can't use here.

So how can I still hear these " enhancements" . First it sounds too spacial and the distortions it brings to some tracks, then when a song has a fade out at the end , you hear the bass is stronger , trebbles are faded , like they want to filter out end noise.

When you put any audio player's volume on max and the computer's volume lower , it seems normal BUT , you put systems vol on max and any audio player ( WMPlegacy, media player, movies & tv, KMPlayer) you turn the volume down you get that same effect . So what does it do at different levels of both volume levels? Enhance ? HAHA ...

So again in a pemium laptop , with only 4 flimsy USB-C ports , where one is used for the power, ( which I don't like ) , one for the mouse ( because most mice are still USB-A , or have a USB-A dongle for wireless) , and a LAN dongle , the 4 th is taken by a USB audio device , that may have it's own issues ?

Yes I now about dockingstations and hubs, and what do you know , if anything is not right with devices (like ext drives or audio ) connected to USB , first thing that is adviced , is to not put it in hubs but straight into the USB port of the computer.

So what now ? What, the dreaded full reset ? It is not going to change anything , just all the maxx audio cr_p will be back and you have to ajust a couple of hundred settings in win11 and other software !

Linux ? Is there a distribution that can handle new hardware ? No , same as here , Realtek driver for audio in linux , you must be joking. Why oh why Dell , can't we install ubuntu that comes with an XPS 13 , on an other XPS ?

There are some other issues too with my XPS 17 , I should open a forum post for it too, but just for information :

Dell says in its xps-17-9720-set up pdf pg 8 , that there are 5 devices ontop of your screen , 1 rgb/IR camera , 2 IR LED's , a camera status light and ambient light sensor. So why if you shine with a flash light , do I find 2 more holes left of those 5 ? (not the 2 microphones really on top of the lid) NSA peek cams ?

Not a peep in Dell pdf's why and how to use the ambient light sensor.

Why are movement (of people or driving cars) in video's so less smooth on a 4 k screen ? More or less so in different mediaplayers ? Can't Intel Xe convert lower res to 4k ?

SSD prices are coming down and one of the reasons why I bought this XPS was a 2nd bay for an extra SSD. There was no choice to order this XPS with a 2nd SSD , but reading the posts here about it , you need to buy a copper heatspeader that costs maybe 1 $ to make , and buy it at amazon at 30 bucks ? I have not opened mine , so I can't see whether there is a heatspreader already inside.

After a restart , yes the Realtek drivers are again installed, BUT in device manager > Software components , the Realtek Audio Effects component and Realtek Audio Universal service and Waves Audio effects component are gone. In settings (and control panel >sound> speaker properties ) , the device default effects button is gone , but no Windows 11 enhancement tab in properties.

And after running the troubleshooter , the HP output gets clear, straight audio! All the artifacts are gone . You can still select HP or speakers BUT and here it comes: the speakers don't work anymore! You can hear a system sound like clicking on the volume once and then it stops. None of the media players work with the speakers , no matter what you select as renderer in the KMPlayer list.

With the 4 drivers , in events it says Device not started (RTKSdWHwCodec) , but the HP output works ! I don't get it.

The Intel Smart Sound Technology for Mipi soundwire audio , bluetooth and USB , device working properly but in events , it says not started, IntcSDW. In Device manager >Audio inputs and outputs the devices started and are working.

So I've got the output working without any "enhancements" . A lower volume, and it was already lower than my computer with bridged sigmatel audio. The Realtek ALC1319D seems to be a class D amp, not the best but it is efficient for more battery time. Nearly all power efficient devices use class D these days. I also noticed that the delay when you click play in Audacity is gone. Media players are faster too, like play / pause and clicking on timeline. System sounds don't have that delay anymore BUT still the first time you click it , it still has that little click/pop sound.

I think the ultimate is a clean Windows 11 install but NOT the Dell OEM version. So getting all the junk out and a cleaner register too. Dell edits their version of Windows 11 , like blocking the Windows 11 native sound enhancements to give exclusive priority to this maxxaudiowaves.

Not only am I hesitant to reinstall, especially with a version with which you have to install all the drivers in the right order, and to get a clean version from Microsoft ( I don't have a activation key) download the ISO and install it on a USB stick , also lose McAfee 10 month earlier than expected, get the office DL again with activation , and of course all the programs and their many, many settings.

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