Windows HD Audio Driver Room Correction

I bought a new laptop last fall. The speakers and sound on it seemed horrible. It was not the typical "it's just a laptop what do you expect" kind of bad. It was worse that I can describe.
 
I tried looking for and eliminating all the bloatware layers of audio enhancement software that it came loaded with.
 
Finally, yesterday I decided it could not get any worse so I uninstalled the Conexant HD Audio Driver thinking maybe there was something hiding from me that was boosting the bass and hyping the highs. I was concerned that doing so would simply disable all my audio because I haven't been able to figure out what sort of sound chip this laptop has. I figured if it turned out to be a Conexant chip that maybe I would have to reload the driver.
 
Anyways, as soon as I uninstalled the Conexant HD Audio Driver Windows automatically installed a Microsoft HD Audio Driver. 
 
The sound seemed a little bit cleaner.
 
As a last ditch effort I thought I should finally try the so called Room Correction enhancement that both the Connexant and the Microsoft driver offer. I hooked up a Mackie mini mixer with tape outs to the laptop's "mic" input. I hooked up a DBX omni test mic to the Mackie and I used a measuring tape to place the mic exactly equidistant to the laptop's two speakers.
 
I ran the test. The test said it made no changes to either the delay or level, which I think is because I took care to place the mic in the center of the speaker spread.
 
When I tried playing back some music there was an obvious and improved frequency response. No more farting bass or high freq resonance.
 
It made all the difference in the world for me. It doesn't seem open an airy like a real speaker system, it sounds mildly processed, but now I can enjoy casual listening on my laptop again.
 
My last laptop had decent sound. I enjoyed it.
 
This one seems to be dependent on being rescued by the built in correction software. I guess the factory doesn't set up the correction. It seems like a new world of audio manufacturing has dawned; build it junky and rescue it with dsp.
 
I'm posting this so people can find out about the Microsoft HD Audio Room Correction and the fact that it does seem to tailor the frequency response even though the documentation doesn't mention so.
 
I am glad to have found out about it.
 
 
best regards,
mike
 

The Microsoft HD Audio Room Correction sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind having it on my Win 7 Pro x64 system to see if it could do something positive with my onboard HD audio.

I just checked. I don't have the Room Correction feature in Windows control panel Sound>Speakers Properties for my onboard sound, but my onboard sound has it's own Sound Control panel and it's selectable via a tab that's in there.
 
For my onboard sound, that feature can only be selected if a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker config is being used. I tried it anyway with my 2.1 speaker config (by selecting 5.1, even though a 5.1 config is not hooked up,) and it doesn't make any significant difference. I know you all know onboard sound quality is inferior to the sound quality of prosumer or professional audio interfaces, so it's no surprise to you to say my onboard sound is poor in comparison to using my M-Audio Delta 1010LT or MOTU UltraLite-MK3.
 
Furthermore, I know this Room Correction is meant to help out the sound quality of poor onboard sound devices ( and I'm pretty sure that's why you initially posted Mike, to inform users) such as those of laptops or Desktops when onboard sound is about all a user has to use to listen to audio.
 
Having nothing to do, I wanted to try the Room Correction feature for my onboard sound device to see what would happen, but I don't have a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker config hooked-up to make a fair evaluation of the feature.
 
I use the Delta 1010LT for the Windows default playback device, now-a-days, and, in comparison to my onboard sound, when I use my onboard sound as the default playback device, I have to turn my speaker volume up considerably high to hear my onboard sound at a good level, but then the HD Audio sounds pretty OK.
 
I'm not trying to sow any discord about any benefit possibly derived from the Room Correction feature for laptops or whatever, and I hope that can be seen by my explanation in this post. As you point out Mike, there is a benefit that may be achieved for laptop owners, and I think that's good stuff.
 
Cya all around.

Hi there, Mike:
 
I think you're making a good guess. My onboard sound does have a feature called Dolby Home Theater.