Earphone mic quality is low compared to Windows 10

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nimantha
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Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:54 pm

Earphone mic quality is low compared to Windows 10

Post by nimantha »

Hi, I have bought a new earphone (awei pc-7) since my old one is not working. I can hear the sounds very clearly. But the problem is the mic quality is not good. I attended to zoom calls using earphone and friends told me that my voice is not clear and volume is very low (If I increase the volume in the zoom, It will make the noise high).

I checked this with audacity by recording my voice. When I play the recording, my voice is very low and there was noise ("brrrrr") coming constantly. The volume can be increased if I take the microphone close to my mouth. But this is impractical while working.

I checked the earphone on a HP laptop running Windows 10 (by recording voice in "Voice Recorder" application). I was surprised by the quality of the recording. There were no noise at all and I didn't have to take the microphone close to the mouth. I should mention that my previous earphones worked well with the laptop running Linux Mint. And I didn't even had to bring microphone close to my mouth.

I thought there might be a problem with my laptop's hardware. So I tried using my friend's earphone (AKG) on my laptop. It was working nice and clean. There wasn't that noise and the volume was good.

My inxi -Fxxxrz output:

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System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-86-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.0.5 wm: muffin 5.0.1 
           dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Notebook v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 
           serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: HP model: 8135 v: 31.35 serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: Insyde v: F.1E date: 12/25/2015 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 31.8 Wh condition: 33.4/41.6 Wh (80%) volts: 16.4/14.6 model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 
           type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Unknown 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-6100U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake rev: 3 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 18399 
           Speed: 500 MHz min/max: 400/2300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 500 2: 500 3: 500 4: 500 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:1916 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1366x768~60Hz, 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           chip ID: 8086:9d70 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-86-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 4000 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8136 
           IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: rtl8723be v: kernel 
           port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:b723 
           IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-2: virbr0-nic state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 502.91 GiB (54.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS541010A9E680 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: A710 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 93.37 GiB used: 33.06 GiB (35.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 5.72 GiB used: 2.9 MiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 39.5 C mobo: 29.8 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list 
           1: deb https://typora.io/linux ./
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/geogebra.list 
           1: deb http://www.geogebra.net/linux/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-cli.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg] https://cli.github.com/packages stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/giuspen-ppa-focal.list 
           1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/giuspen/ppa/ubuntu focal main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list 
           1: deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_14.x focal main
           2: deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_14.x focal main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/obsproject-obs-studio-focal.list 
           1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu focal main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com uma main upstream import backport
           2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64,arm64,armhf] http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code stable main
Info:      Processes: 247 Uptime: 9h 48m Memory: 7.68 GiB used: 3.24 GiB (42.2%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 
My amixer output:

Code: Select all

Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono: Playback 78 [90%] [-6.75dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 82 [94%] [-3.75dB] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 82 [94%] [-3.75dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-65.25dB] [off]
  Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-65.25dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 255
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 237 [93%] [-3.60dB]
  Front Right: Playback 237 [93%] [-3.60dB]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 28 [90%] [7.50dB] [off]
  Front Right: Playback 28 [90%] [7.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost',0
  Capabilities: volume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: 0 - 3
  Front Left: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',1
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',2
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',3
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',4
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'Beep',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
  Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 63
  Front Left: Capture 63 [100%] [30.00dB] [on]
  Front Right: Capture 63 [100%] [30.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Auto-Mute Mode',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'Disabled' 'Enabled'
  Item0: 'Disabled'
Simple mixer control 'Digital',0
  Capabilities: cvolume
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 120
  Front Left: Capture 90 [75%] [15.00dB]
  Front Right: Capture 90 [75%] [15.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'Internal Mic Boost',0
  Capabilities: volume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: 0 - 3
  Front Left: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'Loopback Mixing',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'Disabled' 'Enabled'
  Item0: 'Disabled'
Simple mixer control 'Mute-LED Mode',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'On' 'Off' 'Follow Master'
  Item0: 'Follow Master'
I would like to solve this problem and keep using Linux Mint as I love using it.
Your help is much appreciated friends. :)
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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