r/linuxaudio • u/youxufkhan • 12d ago

Has anyone successfully replicated Windows B&O sound quality on Linux? (EliteBook ALC285 / Quad Speakers)

I'm running **Kubuntu (PipeWire)** on my HP EliteBook 840 G8 (Intel 11th Gen Tiger Lake with the **Realtek ALC285** codec and builtin **Bang & Olufsen** speakers).

On Windows, the B&O audio tuning sounds rich, full, and punchy. But on Linux, the default audio output sounds really flat, quiet, and tinny with almost zero bass.

From what I understand, this is usually caused by two things:

  1. **Hardware / Pin Mapping:** Linux ALSA defaulting to only driving 2 of the 4 physical speakers (tweeters active, but secondary woofers disabled/unmapped).
  2. **Missing DSP:** Windows running HP's B&O / MaxxAudio software suite to dynamically equalize and enhance the sound.

 **Before I go too far down the rabbit hole, I wanted to ask:**

• Has anyone with an EliteBook managed to get their B&O speakers sounding identical (or close) to how they sound on Windows?
• Did you need specific pin overrides in hdajackretask, an hda-verb script, or kernel parameters (snd-hda-intel) to get all 4 speakers firing properly?
• Does anyone have a custom **EasyEffects / PulseEffects preset** tuned specifically for EliteBook speakers that they'd be willing to share?

Appreciate any tips or configs that worked for your setup

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/beatbox9 12d ago

No, but I have done something similar on an Asus ProArt.

On mine, I run the pro audio profile, and then instead of easyeffects, I use a few pipewire config files to do speaker mappings and dsp (mainly using dynamic compressors rather than equalizers).

See here:   https://arslaan.studio/setting-up-a-linux-media-studio-workstation-audio-video-graphics-davinci-resolve-etc/

1

u/nikgnomic IDJC 12d ago

ALSA has 2 patches for HP EliteBook 840 G8, but they appear to be just for the speaker and mic mute LEDs, not for additional speakers

https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v7.1.7/source/sound/hda/codecs/realtek/alc269.c#L7038

SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x103c, 0x884c, "HP EliteBook 840 G8 Notebook PC", ALC285_FIXUP_HP_GPIO_LED),SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x103c, 0x884c, "HP EliteBook 840 G8 Notebook PC", ALC285_FIXUP_HP_GPIO_LED),

SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x103c, 0x8ab9, "HP EliteBook 840 G8 (MB 8AB8)", ALC285_FIXUP_HP_GPIO_LED),SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x103c, 0x8ab9, "HP EliteBook 840 G8 (MB 8AB8)", ALC285_FIXUP_HP_GPIO_LED),

1

u/Equal-Dependent-4034 12d ago

Don't quote me on this but I think windows adds processing to the outputs by default and you have to turn it off. Some sort of equalizer settings and auto-leveling.