Member Avatar for Yatin_2

If I try listening to music on Linux Mint, it just never sounds as good as it did on Windows 10. I had a lot of enhancements enabled in WMP so I tried downloading the PulseAudio Equaliser. It helped, but it sounds crackly at times, especially when listening to metal, Iron Maiden especially I've noticed.

My Walkman MP3 player doesn't do this. In fact the equaliser settings are the same now on both the PC and the Walkman, so it's not that it's set too strong.

(I like the music to sound heavy. My equaliser on the Walkman is set so that AC/DC sounds like ZZ Top, ZZ Top like Iron Maiden, and Iron Maiden, well just awesome!)

How can I get the best out of my music on Linux?

For once, the need for a long specs list:
MSI Audio Boost integrated sound card
AeroCool Strike-X Advance HD audio panel (this was changed at the same time I switched to Linux. Maybe the panel is dodgy?)
Sennheiser HD 219 headphones
Linux Mint 17.2
Sound plays through "LADSPA Plugin Multiband EQ" (~ the equaliser's plugin)
Banshee 2.6.2

Walkman NWZ-Z1050
Android 2.3.4
Same headphones and music library, tested with the same song

When I had Win10, I believe the Walkman may have had a little edge on the PC. But not like this.

Yatin

Edited by pritaeas because: Removed fake signature.
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Dani AI

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A practical, step-by-step way to narrow this down: crackling or “thin” sound on Linux most often comes from one of three places — software resampling/processing, buffer underruns (latency), or a hardware/connection issue. The thread already shows attempts at equalisation and trying different players, so a methodical isolation will find which layer is responsible and avoid chasing the wrong fix.

Begin by testing ALSA-only playback and listing sinks to see whether PulseAudio (or any system EQ) is introducing the artefacts. Run these checks in a terminal:

aplay -l
pactl list short sinks
pulseaudio -k
aplay -D plughw:0,0 /path/to/test.wav
speaker-test -c2 -t wav

If crackle remains when playing straight to the hardware, the fault is likely the audio jack/panel, cabling or the codec/driver. If the crackle disappears when bypassing the system mixer, the equaliser or PulseAudio settings are suspect.

Common, effective PulseAudio tweaks (backup the config before editing) are to match sample rates and use a higher-quality resampler, and to increase fragment/latency settings to avoid underruns. Example additions to /etc/pulse/daemon.conf:

default-sample-rate = 44100
alternate-sample-rate = 48000
resample-method = src-sinc-best-quality
default-fragments = 4
default-fragment-size-msec = 25

Restart the audio service after changes. Also check digital volume levels with alsamixer to avoid software clipping; temporarily set the CPU governor to “performance” during tests to rule out throttling-caused glitches; and try the rear panel or a known-good external DAC/headphones to exclude a front-panel fault.

Putting earlier posts together: ’s suggestion to try a simpler player is useful for isolation (if a minimal player plays cleanly, the system EQ is likely the problem), and ’s observation that different back-ends behave differently is consistent with resampling/latency being the usual culprit.

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Member Avatar for rubberman

I listen to audio on my Linux system all the time. High def stuff without problems. I use VLC as my media player, and my system runs pulse audio and alsa sound libraries. I do have a good pair of Bose speakers... Windows never sounded so good.

Member Avatar for Itsdigger

Maybe your'e trying to over power the head phones using Amarok
Maybe go back to stock settings on this.

I got rid of it myself and went smaller using Audacious . Simpler yet Right On

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