I recently set up a dual-boot system on my laptop with Windows 11 Pro and Fedora 42. However, I’m experiencing an unusual issue with the audio. On Windows, everything sounds great—clear and with plenty of bass. But on Fedora, the audio quality is significantly poorer, reminiscent of a laptop from 2002. I’ve already tried updating the system with sudo dnf update and looked into a few other things, but nothing has improved the audio situation.
What sound “card” do you have? Onboard Realtek? Try Easy Effects, it has an EQ, bass enhancer ad some other effects that may help you customize and tweak the sound. But yeah, I found the same: my PCs sound better under Windows 11, plus I have other issues with onboard Realtek audio under Linux.
Even with Easy Effects, the sound is not as good as under Windows. It’s not as dynamic and not as clear as under Windows and bass feels flat or becomes easily overdriven and distorted with Easy Effects. It’s still a problem that I haven’t solved entirely. I have a stereo amp, decent midsize speakers and a sub and the difference is very noticeable.
Many people end up getting USB DACs to bypass onboard audio as the Realtek drivers for Linux are very poor.
Another option would be an HDMI or SPDIF “extractor”. It’s also a DAC, but instead of USB, it takes digital audio from HDMI or SPDIF ports, and provides RCA and 3.5 mm analog outputs. That can also yield better sound quality.
For example, I have digital wireless headphones that connect using SPDIF and they have their own DAC, bypassing the Realtek audio and those sound fine under Linux.
It could be the audio driver on Linux not activating a subwoofer or doing something not ideal with HDA pins. Years ago I had a HP laptop with subwoofer and on Linux I used hda-verb to set something with pins to activate it after boot (there’s an ALSA GUI tool and other stuff that’s easier nowadays)
I also heard that installing proprietary audio codecs from RPM Fusion improved someone’s overall audio quality; I’m not too sure on specifics but I’d also install RPM Fusion non-free stuff for full multimedia functionality across the OS.
If the computer on Windows had an audio suite like Waves/Maxx then that would be harder to replicate on Linux if you’re used to that (likely have to use a Equalizer tool like above and hand-tune things to your liking)
but the strange part was when I install the Fedora 42, for 10 to 15 min, I didn’t have any issues with audio. When I restarted again the laptop I realised that the sound is trash.
the sound work, but sound sounds very bad, as I said later, if you use another operating system (windows) it sounds perfectly. I tried to do what the guys above said, but being a driver problem…
Windows could be doing some Dolby sound processing. But I assure anyone who reads this that EasyEffects is really, really good for sound processing. You need to learn it though, and there are hidden things like turning up Wet Levels and lowering Input level and increasing Output level to get the effects to shine. (And watch your output decibels for each effect/plugin and the master). But once you get it going, it’s the bomb.
I don’t even have all effects that I like on right now, and the sound I get is incredible! It’s very important to set the processing correctly, otherwise, you will not get any effects even if you add them in.
EasyEffects is basically the only option. I’m having difficulties though. It’s easy to get distorted treble and bass even with minimal adjustments. Adjusting input and output levels helps with the distortion but lowers the final volume too much. I just can’t get an entirely satisfying quality of sound no matter how much I tinker with it.
The same hardware booted to Windows 11 sounds good. I can crank up bass and treble to absurd levels without any distortion and without having to worry about input and output, wet and dry levels.
EasyEffects is decent but an average computer user shouldn’t be concerned with wet and dry levels and just adjust the sliders without excessive tinkering, without having to worry about distorting or clipping the sound.
It’s really easy to set up EasyEffects, you can ask Grok to help you for free too. Once you get a hang of it, setting up the effects from scratch is literally five seconds. Windows will never give you any control over how good your music can sound. I could never get this amazing bass out of Windows, this much crispiness and this much stereo surround.
You can also save your effects in easyeffects as a preset, and then store it for whenever you need to just set up your easyeffects and load the preset up. (The presets are stored in ~/.local/easyeffects/output/yourpreset.json).
Yes, you absolutely can. Bass and clarity are my main issues with Linux and EasyEffects, it just doesn’t sound as good as it does on Windows. Even if there was no native Realtek control panel with an EQ, there is FxSound which sounds amazing, EasyEffects can’t touch it, despite of all its complexity, though yeah it could be Linux driver’s fault in the end.
I’m curious to get a DAC or SPDIF extractor to see how they’d sound, since my wireless headphones that connect with SPIDF sound good on Linux. It’s the analog output (the lone one that works, LOL) that sounds bad.
My stereo amp doesn’t have a digital input, unfortunately.
There have been some past bug reports involving Realtek audio where the sound was distorted or too quiet, so you’re definitely not alone. However, when someone says “it sounds bad,” it helps a lot if we can get a little more detail — for example:
Is the sound distorted or muffled?
Is it missing treble or bass?
Does it happen in all apps or just in browsers?
Headphones vs speakers — any difference?
That kind of detail can really help us narrow things down.
Also, you might hear suggestions like using Easy Effects as a workaround. Just to be clear — it’s not a fix for the root cause. It’s more like applying post-processing to an already distorted signal. It can help reduce the symptoms, but the underlying issue (likely driver or firmware related) will still be there.
If you’re open to it, we can walk through some non-invasive checks first — and we’ll keep things as simple as possible.
I have audio problems too, since the upgrade to Fedora 42.
The sound is slightly distorted - and volume goes up and down by its own - randomly.
The issue is reproducible with Spotify (Flatpak), Bandcamp (website via browser) and local FLACs played with Decibels.
For me it started before the update to 42 and it is still present up to today (quite a long time). I am using Silverblue, Bazzite and on Bazzite no sound related problems - sound menu in settings do not change randomy. : (
I’m not sure if it’s related to Fedora 42, but I also have distorted Audio with my ALC4080 sound chip. Now this chip seems to be kind of crap and many users in online forums report problems with it even on Windows.
When I play audio with sampling rates which are not 48kHz the audio sounds either distorted (on 44.1kHz) or like noise (on 88.2 and 96 kHz). On Windows 11 24H2 all modes sound normally.
As a workaround i configured wireplumber (in /etc/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/) to always use 48kHz sampling rate which sounds fine:
Just wanted to add that I am also having sound issues since upgrading from Fedora 41 to 42 workstation, although I think mine is limited to bluetooth audio only.
Using Raptor Lake-P/U/H cAVS lapop (Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 11).
It’s a shame because I am so grateful to finally see a fix for sound on external monitors constantly resetting to highest volume after the monitor turns off (to save power etc when idle), but feels like trading that fix for bluethooth sound issues.
