Graphic Cards RTX 2060 - Query about Sound Quality over ARC

soulweaver

soulweaver

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Disclaimer: I am an idiot with fewer brain cells than amoeba has fingers.

Processor: i3 -12100
MoBo: B660M
OS: Win 11
Gfx Card: Zotac RTX 2060

I have a PC which has an RTX 2060 driving the display. It is attached to a soundbar over ARC. The issue is that the sound quality is perceptibly poor. Even when I compare it with the same set-up over the motherboard's HDMI port and with several of the Mini PCs I have. It is poorer than the sound I get over BT from a cheap tablet.

The motherboard does not have Optical Out and the Soundbar does not have a 3.5mm input (only HDMI, Optical, USB and BT). I know Nvidia drivers are to blame, but I wanted to know if there is anything that can be done without on hardware.

If there is a software solution, (I already use FXSound) I will be too happy, or if there is an inexpensive (say around 5k) work-around that does not involve too many wires then I might be up for it. For instance any USB to Optical dongles and such like which will work.

Looking forward to expanding the breadth of my ignorance! Thank you in advance.
 
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If you don't need the ARC, you can just plug the 2060 directly to the display and use another HDMI cable from the motherboard to the soundbar right?

Edit: Looks like that might not be possible based on this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/f9aga0

Edit 2: Would something like this work instead, to direct 3.5mm output from the motherboard into the USB input of the soundbar: https://www.amazon.in/CARE-Charger-Players-Headphones-Speakers/dp/B0CPLTGC6J/ ? (not sure about potential quality loss here)
 
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kvn95ss said:
Why not just get a USB Bluetooth adapter (assuming your motherboard doesn’t already have BT built in) and then connect to the sound bar?
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This, yes, but I have BT keyboard connected and there is the issue of lag. And when I am playing games, for some reason, things get worse.
edept said:
Edit 2: Would something like this work instead, to direct 3.5mm output from the motherboard into the USB input of the soundbar: https://www.amazon.in/CARE-Charger-Players-Headphones-Speakers/dp/B0CPLTGC6J/ ? (not sure about potential quality loss here)
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This looks like it is going to work, but the same thing, I am concerned about quality loss too. It is cheap enough to try, but I am a little afraid about disappointment.

edept said:
If you don't need the ARC, you can just plug the 2060 directly to the display and use another HDMI cable from the motherboard to the soundbar right?
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This is the first thing I tried. It was messy, and it still means I am routing audio via Nvidia which means I have the same issue of poor quality.

Do you think this will work better?
 
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GPU sounds are not always the way you expect of high quality etc. Primarily GPUs are for providing great graphics exp. But the funda of bundling AIO has confused the poor user & so his expectations!
I have used many GPUs but I always prefer to use motherboard audio as there's a dedicated sound chip + pure & true 7.1 exp. is what you get.
 
kvn95ss said:
My brother in Christ, spend the money to get a better keyboard lol. Maybe something like this? You'll have a lot better typing experience. You can use the dongle with your desktop and bluetooth for any other device you want - https://www.amazon.in/Portronics-Mechanical-Bluetooth-Multi-Device-Multi-colour/dp/B0D2V26XLR
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The issue is not the keyboard. I meant, there is a lag between the video and audio when playing stuff via BT. All my keyboards are mechanical, and I sometimes build my own too.

@nRiTeCh I mentioned as much, I wanted to check if there was a solution to my particular issue , ie the soundbar not having the inputs and the Mobo not having the outputs.
 
soulweaver said:

Do you think this will work better?
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Quality wise, this might be decent. I've never actually used USB as an audio input into anything, so while I can see this sound card operating the way it should when plugged into a PC or a console, I'm not sure about whether it would direct audio out via USB when plugged into your soundbar. If you've tried anything like that before, you'd know more than I do, or maybe another member can chip in about that.
 
Isn't the audio from the GPU just pass through, with no processing? It shouldn't have any bearing on the sound quality.
 
ch@ts said:
Isn't the audio from the GPU just pass through, with no processing? It shouldn't have any bearing on the sound quality.
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Thats what I highlighted. The audio output cannot be compared with that of a dedicated soundchip/card either externally installed/slot or the mobo ones. Its just a nominal ones.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't audio over HDMI/DP entirely digital (PCM bitstream at the very least)? HDMI isn't supposed to carry analog audio, and would simply pass-through the digital data to the device, be it a soundbar/tv/monitor. The DAC on the other end then has to convert the digital audio to analog.

This to me sounds like something else is wrong, maybe some software (or even the nvidia control panel/windows audio backend) is doing some audio processing, re-sampling or trying to use windows spatial audio (disable it in sound settings).
 
Like many others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with your 2060
There is something else that is off - eARC followed by ARC should give you the best poss SQ you can extract out of your system and downgrading it to a BT connection or anything else would ne just ridiculous....
Check and validate your settings thoroughly first
 
There seems to be nothing wrong with the settings @superczar. When I remove the card and use the system with the mobo's HDMI, everything sounds fantastic. I have done everything my two neurons and the internet could toss-up!
superczar said:
downgrading it to a BT connection or anything else would ne just ridiculous....
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Couldn't agree more, hence the search.
 
soulweaver said:
There seems to be nothing wrong with the settings @superczar. When I remove the card and use the system with the mobo's HDMI, everything sounds fantastic. I have done everything my two neurons and the internet could toss-up!

Couldn't agree more, hence the search.
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There are just a few options i can think of
If i were you, i'd first try the card with linux just to validate that its not a hardware issue

Also, when you say that the AQ is poor, can you post a sound clip or describe what the issue is.
I would check for the sampling rate received by the audio unit (easy on a AVR but not sure if a SB can show this) and also fully vaildate all the output sound settings.
I would also validate the output format being used by windows - and scale it down to the lowest bit depth to begin with and scale upwards from there
 
superczar said:
I would check for the sampling rate received by the audio unit.
Click to expand...

superczar said:
I would also validate the output format being used by windows - and scale it down to the lowest bit depth to begin with and scale upwards from there
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Any ideas on how this could be done?

superczar said:
Also, when you say that the AQ is poor, can you post a sound clip or describe what the issue is.
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Everything sounds muddier. The bass is not as tight or as deep, the vocals are not as clear.
 
I have tested extensively, thanks to pulling out my old hardware and all, I can confidently say that NVIDIA is the culprit here. I have since removed the GFX card and compared the sound, and there was a clear difference between the sound via Onboard HDMI vs via the GFX card. I then installed a friend's Radeon, and the difference was even more start.

I then tested with a couple of MiniPCs (Intel, Radeon, Mac) and each one had a different sound signature (Radeon and Mac were the best), but all of them were better than the sound from RTX. The sound was inexcusably muddy from the RTX.

During this time I realised that Samsung Smart Monitor has great video upscaling and sound drivers. I played video files off a pendrive plugged into the Samsung M70D and even 10bit 1080p files looked better than 4k streaming from NetFlix. And the sound was on another level altogether.
Click to expand...

If I have missed something else, please do let me know so that I can keep things in mind when I am testing.

I hope this helps someone!
 
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