Welcome back, in today’s video I’ll be showing you how to improve your headphone
sound quality on a Windows 11 PC or laptop.
The methods in this video should work for any headphones, including wireless ones as
well as other sound output devices such as speakers.
Some of the customization options will differ depending on each headphone and its connection
type, so don’t worry if it doesn’t look exactly like it does on my screen.
We might be able to add things like surround sound or a bass boost to improve the sound
quality.
Remember to leave a like and feel free to subscribe if the video helps, let’s get
into the methods.
We’re going to start by checking that we have our headphones or headset setup correctly.
If you’re confident yours are setup as they should be then feel free to skip ahead a little
to get straight into the ways to improve the quality.
To check, we’re going to look in the sound control panel and we need to go the main control
panel first.
You can get there by searching for it in the search bar.
In the control panel, click on hardware and sound.
Now click on sound and it should open a separate window.
In the new window, first go to the playback tab.
You should see all of the headphones, speakers and other output devices in here.
If you don’t see your device in here, right click on an option and choose show disabled
and show disconnected devices.
To enable your headphones in here, right click on them and then click on enable.
You can set it as the default sound output device in here too with the button at the
bottom of the window.
If you still don’t see your headphones on the list, then click the card onscreen now
to to watch a video of mine showing you how to fix headphones that aren’t working in
Windows.
Leave this window up for now, as we’ll be coming back to it a little later on.
We’re now going to quickly check that there are no issues with the sound on our PC.
Feel free to skip this if you think yours is fine, but it might be worth checking before
we begin customizing the settings.
To do this, we’re going to run the playing audio troubleshooter.
This can be done by going to the main settings page by searching for it and then in the settings,
click on system from the options on the left side, but you should be in here by default.
In the system settings, click on troubleshoot and then on the next page, choose other trouble-shooters.
Now click on run next to the playing audio troubleshooter and choose the device you want
to use and allow Windows to look for any possible problems.
Now that we have looked for and ruled out any issues with our headphones, we’ll now
move onto the methods to improve the quality.
The first method will be to look at the customization options within the main settings page so head
there first.
In the settings, click on system from the options on the left but again you should be
in there by default.
In the system settings, click on sound from the list of options.
In here, look for your headphones in the output section and click on it once to customize
some of the settings.
Within here, you can change things like the quality format, which could potentially improve
the quality if you increase it.
You can also edit the main volume and the volume for the left and right channel separately.
There might also be other settings to customize in here like the option to turn on enhanced
audio or spatial sound.
You can search for the latest drivers at the top of the page which is quite helpful too.
I highly recommend trialling all of the options to see if it improves sound quality and of
course, some will be down to personal preference.
There might be more customization options back in the sound control panel that we left
open before.
If you’ve closed it, the method to get there was the control panel, which can be accessed
by searching for it.
Then hardware and sound, and then sound.
In the playback tab, double click on your headphones.
There will be various different tabs in here that will allow you to change more settings,
but this will differ depending on your headphones.
The levels tab allows you to change the volume and the enhancements tab which may or may
not be there depending on your headphones could include things like the bass boost.
There will be other tabs that will have more ways to customize the sound.
There might even be an equalizer which will be a good way to fine tune the audio quality.
The next method to improve headphone sound quality is to try and update the device drivers.
There’s a chance that the correct drivers aren’t installed, and we can check for any
driver updates too.
To do this, we need to go to the device manager.
You can get there by searching for it in the search bar.
In the device manager, look for the section called audio inputs and outputs and double
click on it to expand it, it should be near the top.
In here, look for the headphones or the sound device you want to update the drivers for.
Double click on its name to bring up the properties window.
Now go to the driver tab, which should be the second option.
In here, find where it says update driver and click on that if you can.
Now choose the automatic option, which should be the top option of the two available.
If there are any drivers that Windows finds, it should install them automatically.
However, it might say that the best drivers are up to date.
A quick thing to mention is that it’s worth checking on the headphones or headset itself
for any options to change the quality.
For example, you might be able to turn on noise cancellation or something similar.
The next method is to get a third-party sound equalizer or audio enhancement app.
If you don’t feel comfortable installing additional software on your PC then you can
skip this method if you want.
There will be plenty of equalizer apps to choose from and most will work in the same
way.
It might be best to research a few and look at which you think provides you with the customization
options you want.
An example of this sort of software would be Equalizer APO.
I’ll leave a link to it in the description, and you can install the version you need for
your PC from there.
After installing it, you will need to restart your PC.
After this load up the editor application.
This will be located wherever you installed the main file to and in here there are plenty
of options to customize the sound.
The default graphic equalizer allows you to play around with the sound channels and once
you save your preferences, you should be able to hear the difference.
You might be able to select surround sound too with the options at the top.
It’s worth mentioning that you might be able to improve the audio quality within the
app you are using.
When you are running an app or game for example, check the audio settings to see if you can
change them to make the audio sound better.
The next method is to try and update Windows.
A newer Windows version might have more ways to customize the sound, as there could be
updated drivers on the update.
To update your PC to the latest version of Windows 11, first go to the main settings
page.
Again, you can get here by searching for it.
In the settings, click on Windows update from the options on the left side.
In here, simply click on check for updates and install any that appear.
Remember to save any work before updating.
Another possible quick fix would be to change the port you use.
Try a port on the back of your PC for example as this could help with the quality.
There should be plenty of USB ports on there as well as the separate headphone and microphone
port, but this will depend on your motherboard.
If you use wireless headphones such as Bluetooth ones, try moving closer to the receiver to
see if that makes a difference.
If it does, try connecting the receiver to another port if it’s a USB adapter for example
to make it closer to you.
Also remove any devices that could be interfering with the Bluetooth connection to get the best
quality sound.
And so those are my methods to try and improve the sound quality of your headphones or a
headset on a Windows 11 PC or laptop.
Click the card on screen now to watch a video of mine showing you ten easy ways you can
speed up your Windows PC.
Those methods should work on nearly all versions of Windows.
Help support the channel by visiting the store – the link is in the description and at
the end of the video.
If you have any questions, then let me know in the comments below and if you did find
today’s video helpful remember to leave a like and feel free to subscribe for more
tips in the future.
Be sure to stick around to see some of my other videos that you might be interested
in.
Thanks so much for watching and I will see you in another video!