Terrible Audio Quality iMac 27" in Windows 7

What are you playing?
.wav, .mp3, external source?

Do the same files sound normal/OK on Apple OS?

 

I have a slightly newer 27" iMac with Win 7 under Bootcamp and my audio sounds fine. No difference I can tell between Win or Mac OS. Maybe you have a corrupt driver?

 

Same "problem" here. There's nothing really wrong, but in Windows, the audio quality sounds a little lower/muddled - there was no distortion or anything. In OS X, much more clearer, almost like it was higher quality for the same file.

 

I get the same problem too. There's a noticeable loss of lower mids- bass, making the sound seem colder than what should be.

The problem is only for the built-in speakers though. Plugging headphones in still gives me great sound.

Installing drivers did nothing for me.

 

I also have mid-2010 iMac 27" and the built-in speakers sound tinny in Windows compared to Mac OS X. I have always used headphones however so it's not much of a problem for me.

 

I've got the same problem with my iMac7,1. It's definite something with the driver. My iMac uses the realtek audio codec and I've found marginal improvements by updating to their latest driver.

http://www.realtek.com/downloads/do...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

You might be able to get things even better by playing around with their sound equalizer.

 

I'm guessing the realtek driver didn't help much

 

Try redownloading the latest bootcamp drivers and installing them again.

 

Maybe this will help:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3011133?start=0&tstart=0

 

True! I have tried many different versions of realtek drivers. There is really no difference. Even without any realtek drivers, the system still has sound (same crappy sound quality)

So I guess Cirrus Audio driver is the one you should update.

BTW, I got my iMac last year, but through some research, I found this problem exists since last major redesign --- unibody, which is 2009. It is so sad that apple never fixed it, but you know, it is bootcamp. I don't think they care about windows much

 

Yes, not to miss lead, updating the realtek drive helped a bit, but my sound quality is still no where near as good as it is in os x.