How to improve audio on your PC

From Windows 11's built-in audio enhancements to dedicated equalizers, there are plenty of ways to boost your PC's sound

Graphics aren’t everything when it comes to your PC. Even if you invest thousands of dollars into the best gaming PC, you won’t be able to fully enjoy the experience unless you have top-notch sound effects that complement high-end graphics. While most audiophiles will agree that the fastest way to improve sound quality is to get some high-end headphones, changing a couple of settings on your system goes a long way in getting a better sound experience. We've compiled some tips to help you boost your PC's audio without spending a penny on new hardware.

These tips are similar on both Windows 11 and 10, although we used Windows 11 for the purposes of this guide.

Before you begin, you should update your PC’s sound drivers. Doing so will ensure all the audio enhancement settings we get into below show up on your system.

Your audio drivers will be updated after Windows finishes downloading them. You are now free to continue on with the rest of our tips.

You can use the volume mixer that's built into the Settings app to modify the volume as well as the output devices of all your favorite applications.

The Settings app also allows you to alter the sound balance of the left and right channels of your headphones and speakers. To do so,

Windows 11 provides live captions and mono audio accessibility settings to improve the experience for users with hearing disabilities.

Mono audio plays the same sound through the two (or more) channels of your speakers, thereby removing any sense of direction. Unless you are hard of hearing in one ear or one of your speakers doesn't work properly, you should avoid enabling this setting at all costs as it can lower the audio quality.

On the other hand, the live captions setting automatically generates subtitles whenever you run an application that plays audio. You can enable it by following our guide on live captions.

You’ll be surprised to see the number of sound options that Windows 11 provides by default. From virtual sound to bass boost, you can change a bunch of audio settings from the Control Panel.

It's worth noting that the exact number of audio enhancements may vary depending on your hardware and drivers. In some cases, you may not see the Enhancements tab even after updating the sound drivers. Don't worry though, we have a few more tips to improve the sound quality.

Spatial sound is a technology that applies directional cues to your headphone's stereo audio to create a three-dimensional sound experience where sound seems to be coming from multiple directions. That being said, surround sound isn’t all that useful if you enable it for games, music, or movies that don’t support it. In fact, it’s known to tarnish the sound quality if you use it on unsupported media.

However, for the limited number of games that do support it, this feature can be a real game changer (pun intended). You can enable surround sound by following these steps:

Windows 11 allows you to pick between three surround sound interfaces: Windows Sonic, Dolby Access, and DTS Surround Unbound. By default, only Windows Sonic will show up since the other two are paid applications you’ll need to purchase from Microsoft Store.

If you want to fine-tune the sound quality, you’d want to look into an equalizer application like Equalizer APO. Here's how to use this open-source app:

By default, Equalizer APO will have a rather bare-bones interface. You can use it as is, but I recommend downloading the Peace extension if you want a highly-intuitive interface.

Once you’ve installed the Peace extension, it’ll boot up as a separate application. You can either choose from a pre-created set of EQ configurations or create a custom configuration for your headset. You can even download a profile that’s specifically made for your headphones by following these steps:

You can also manually alter the values of the frequency bands, their gains, and filters, and even create new frequency bands. Pair that with over 20 sound effects, and the Equalizer APO + Peace combo becomes hard to beat when it comes to customizing your audio experience.

And that’s it! Windows 11 has plenty of options that you can use to boost the sound quality of your system, and you can also experiment with the different spatial sound interfaces to see if surround audio is worth your while. If you face any audio issues after tweaking these settings, you should run the Windows Troubleshooter by right-clicking on the Volume icon and selecting Troubleshoot sound problems.

However, none of the options provided by Windows come close to the customizability offered by Equalizer APO. While the staggering number of toggles and settings may seem overwhelming for beginners, using Equalizer APO with Peace is the best way to fine-tune your PC’s audio.

Ayush Pande is a hardware, gaming, and crypto writer based in India. When he's not writing articles, you can find him tinkering with PCs or benchmarking new components.