How to improve the sound output of notebook speakers - TUXEDO Computers

As most users are probably aware, notebooks in general have a sound quality that is far behind that of external speakers or headphones, not least due to the severely limited case volume. While high-quality speakers or headphones are recommended for the best possible sound experience, the sound of notebook speakers can also be considerably upgraded via software.

Upgrading via software

This is where the equalizer and effects application PulseEffects comes into play, which, as the name suggests, was developed for Linux systems with PulseAudio. The software is installable in all major distributions via the package manager. Development takes place on GitHub.

PulseAudio and PipeWire

Currently, two versions of PulseEffects are offered side by side and there is a reason for that. PulseAudio (PA) will be replaced by PipeWire (PW) in the near future. Users who want to stay with PA are bound to PulseEffects 4.8.x, while switchers to PW will have to install version 5.0.x. For Ubuntu, PA and thus PulseEffects 4.x will continue to be used at least until the next release with long-term support (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS).

Predefined profiles

PulseEffects with its huge selection of effects can quickly become overwhelming, if it is only a matter of emphasizing the mids in speech output or giving a piece of music a better bass foundation. That's why PE, in addition to the manual setting options, also works with ready-made profiles, which are called presets and, depending on the occasion, can be loaded either for output via speakers/headphones or for input via microphone.

The software already comes with various generic profiles for music, movies or games in the packages of some distributions. However, you can also load community presets from the net or create some yourself. A collection of presets can be found on GitHub. Please note that with PulseEffects 4 the format of the profiles has changed to json and profiles for older versions do not work anymore.

How to install PulseEffects

sudo apt install pulseeffects (Ubuntu)or sudo zypper in pulseeffects (openSUSE)

How to load and activate Presets

After the first start of the application, to the left you will see a large number of effects, which open their respective settings with a click. This way you can create your own presets. However, things get easier with the already mentioned predefined presets.

On the top right of the PulseEffects GUI you casn load and activate Presets.

To include them after they have been downloaded, you will find the presets button at the top right, where you can include presets from your hard drive to the left of the blue plus sign. You can then load them into PulseEffects using the load button. In the list on the left you can then see which settings have been changed for this preset, and you can adjust them if necessary.

Tuxedo Computers has started a project on GitHub that provides some presets for some of our notebook models. You can extend the list by submitting presets you have created for your device as a pull request and thus make them available to other users. Tuxedo Computers intends to ship notebooks with PulseEffects and customized presets preinstalled in the future. And now have fun improving your sound output.