Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3517/t/19492918.aspx

by mikecane • 12 years ago

490 218 12 years ago

en.community.dell.com

robinhoodexe• 12 years ago

What the...?

guard-of-terra6• 12 years ago

This is stupid. They are making speakers that can't withstand some cases of within-the-bounds PCM signal.

If we had a normal society anywhere on earth they would be sued to the ground there.

Ma8ee• 12 years ago

Speakers are built to be able to withstand short peaks with high power to reflect the dynamic in the music or your movie. This is what is abused to be able to play loud sounds continuously. You could take the possibility to do that away, but then you would of course also remove some of the dynamics out of the music.

But of course, the people that burn their speakers this way don't care about dynamics or evidently about sound quality if they press their computer speakers like this. Can't sound not even a little good.

philliphaydon2• 12 years ago

Not sure if you've ever owned a Dell laptop, but I'll never buy one again. On a couple of occasions I have tried to play DVD's on them and cannot hear people talking with the volume up. Put headphones on and its too loud. Dell speakers are junk.

iSnow• 12 years ago

If it was a fundamental problem like you indicate, then every manufacturer would be hit by it, from Apple to Lenovo. It rather seems a problem of Dell using shoddy components and/or not issuing a driver that protects the speaker from the amp.

guard-of-terra6• 12 years ago

"Speakers are built to be able to withstand short peaks with high power"

And they should be built to be able to withstand any valid signal.

KaiserPro3• 12 years ago

Thats what limiters are for. The whole point of hard clipping is that +256 or -256 (or the 16bit equivalent) is below the point at which your speakers, amps, cabling or anything else starts to melt.

Speakers/amps should have DC protection builtin.

jokoon2• 12 years ago

If DELL is right that would mean even if I craft a sound file with a very high amplitude, play it with another software, it should not damage the speakers.

I would have thought windows could limitate the amplitude of the sound sent to the hardware, maybe VLC is somehow bypassing this.

Seems like an odd issue though.

Jare• 12 years ago

That kind of amplitude abuse is the equivalent of pounding very hard on the keyboard for long periods of time - it will break sooner than it would normally have, and can rightfully be considered abuse. However, voiding the warranty simply because of VLC installed is, again, the equivalent of voiding the keyboard warranty simply because you are a bodybuilder.

Ok enough metaphors.

tunap• 12 years ago

"Ok enough metaphors."

Not so fast, I see no car metaphor yet. And there is no comparison of Dell's practices to those of Hitler or the Nazis, either. We are far from 'enough' metaphors, my friend.

shawnz• 12 years ago

If I am understanding this correctly, a specially crafted mp3 file, played in Windows Media Player or similar, could cause the same symptoms that Dell is indicating VLC could create. Surely that would be considered a totally normal operating condition that the speakers should be tolerant against. It may be heavy use, but does that mean it is abuse?

jbk7• 12 years ago

Yes, exactly. Use Audacity to increase the volume and play with WMP to get the same result.

dpe829• 12 years ago

Likely not an mp3 because most of the super high frequencies that result from digital clipping wouldn't be encoded in an mp3. Most encoders do a low pass filter as their first step (getting rid of most of the problem) and then smooth out the rest of the waveform when compressing it.

It's possible, however, to create raw PCM that will destroy a lot of consumer equipment if played long and loud enough. VLC basically gives consumers a way to do that and labels it a feature.

EpicEng2• 12 years ago

If the card could not overdrive the speakers (i.e., if the system were designed properly) it could not be a problem.

mikeash10• 12 years ago

The fact that it's being driven internally is a major difference.

Imagine if this was some crazy keyboard which could actually press keys automatically using a motor. Then imagine if the drivers and hardware allowed you to destroy the keyboard by pushing the motor too hard. This would be obviously crazy and the ability to write userland software that destroys built-in hardware should not result in a denied warranty.

pera• 12 years ago

Next logic step: playing DUBSTEP voids your speaker warranty

zimbatm• 12 years ago

Not speaking of Dell's behavior but VLC should maybe add a warning to the settings when the user goes over 100% if it damages the speakers.

naner• 12 years ago

The VLC creators claim the player cannot be used to damage speakers.

That and hard clipping is obvious and sounds awful, so it should be apparent you're doing something wrong.

jbk7• 12 years ago

VLC cannot damage anything more than any other player using the Windows APIs.

NeliX4• 12 years ago

Yes it does. It makes too simple for non-techical user to make the signal distorted. Distorted signal can damage a speaker, even in low volume. It's irrelevat to blame "the others do it too".

I've seen it happen many times in meetings. 1. Presenter shows a video and volume is low. 2. Presenter adds volume from VLC to 200% and sound signal gets distorted. 3. Sound is awful, no-one can hear anything and people are doing nothing to fix it, because they think that speakers are broken.

Please VLC, fix your player so that it has good sounding limiter on the "output". It's not difficult.

chc• 12 years ago

Whether it can damage the speakers depends on whether your sound system is defective. Dell deliberately ships defective speakers and doesn't cover the defects in its warranty. But it's not like the speakers will notify VLC of this fact, though.

Aardwolf2• 12 years ago

Shouldn't instead Dell make the speakers not be able to get physically damanged by software?

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

It would probably either cost more or the speakers would have a lower peak volume.

I don't think it is a wild compromise to make some assumptions about the sounds people will play through the speakers (and it's not like a spec relating the max energy/time is going to help most shoppers).

Aardwolf2• 12 years ago

Well, it's also a wild compromise to say the warranty is void by installing popular software. If they would instead say, the warranty is void if you go above such and so threshold for such and so long (no matter with what software), that would make sense, but this, just seems a cheap way of making the warranty unexistent.

Anyway, a moderator from Dell replied that you can contact him if Dell refuses to give support just by seeing VLC installed, so maybe it's better than it seems.

KaiserPro3• 12 years ago

Thats like saying that you can't have 100% for more than 2 seconds because it would cause instability.

Speakers shouldn't melt because of software (unless there is dodgy firmware.)

TylerE• 12 years ago

(and it's not like a spec relating the max energy/time is going to help most shoppers

Actually, speakers are speced in terms of RMS wattage...which is exactly that.

jijji• 12 years ago

sounds like buggy speaker hardware or firmware. How about don't use Dell laptops to play audio?

zephjc2• 12 years ago

What kind of person uses crappy laptop speakers for media consumption?

collyw• 12 years ago

far too many people do, and many annoyingly listen to music through the crappy speakers on their phone, usually in public.

zephjc2• 12 years ago

Then if they blow out their crappy speakers, maybe that will leave them with no recourse but to plug their headphones in

g123g• 12 years ago

Even HP has the same policy which I found to my dismay three years back.

donatj• 12 years ago

VLC is incapable of increasing the actual power past 100%, all that is being done is the waveform is being modified to be louder within the allowed constraints. If this wrecks the speaker, any other non-VLCed sound could just as easily, and the speakers are therefore underpowered for the laptops internal amplifier. Class action sounds in order.

GeneralMayhem• 12 years ago

Class action, and also direct action on the part of VLC for slander (if the VLC project is in a position to have lawyers available).

anaphor4• 12 years ago

Also many mastering engineers do the exact same thing to make the music "louder" because the record label/artists demand it. Maybe Dell should start making popular rock/pop music void the warranty as well.

Roboprog• 12 years ago

But, mine goes to 110%! (with apologies to Spinal Tap)

ferongr5• 12 years ago

Well, mastering engineers rarely heavily clip audio (ok, Death Magnetic, but that's an exception rather than the rule). What they do is apply heavy dynamic range compression. Even in cases the signal clips lightly, it probably won't do much damage (if at all) since the peaks are transient.

On the other hand, a movie with lots of low frequency content (explosions and stuff) whose audio is clipping will damage the small full range speakers since most of the audio energy is concentrated at the very low frequencies (where the signal has a lot of power) and the peaks are long.

jbk7• 12 years ago

As the main developer of VLC, we know about this story since a long time, and this is just Dell putting crap components on their machine and blaming others. Any discussion was impossible with them. So let me explain a bit...

In this case, VLC just uses the Windows APIs (DirectSound), and sends signed integers of 16bits (s16) to the Windows Kernel.

VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded. This is just like replay gain, broken codecs, badly recorded files or post-amplification and can lead to saturation.

But this is exactly the same if you put your mp3 file through Audacity and increase it and play with WMP, or if you put a DirectShow filter that amplifies the volume after your codec output. For example, for a long time, VLC ac3 and mp3 codecs were too low (-6dB) compared to the reference output.

At worse, this will reduce the dynamics and saturate a lot, but this is not going to break your hardware.

VLC does not (and cannot) modify the OUTPUT volume to destroy the speakers. VLC is a Software using the OFFICIAL platforms APIs.

The issue here is that Dell sound cards output power (that can be approached by a factor of the quadratic of the amplitude) that Dell speakers cannot handle. Simply said, the sound card outputs at max 10W, and the speakers only can take 6W in, and neither their BIOS or drivers block this.

And as VLC is present on a lot of machines, it's simple to blame VLC. "Correlation does not mean causation" is something that seems too complex for cheap Dell support...

Maybe Dell should advise against playing Metal music and should only allow Céline Dion music, because Metal saturates more...

EDIT: more details...

PS: they even provide a BIOS update for the fix... So, of course, VLC was the issue... http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/04/KCS/Kcs...

speeder• 12 years ago

Any other manufacturer do that? (someone mentioned HP below)

I am a VLC fan (thanks! I wish I was skilled enough to contribute to the project) and right now using a ASUS laptop, I want to know what manufacturers I should NOT buy from next time (I bought this ASUS because I tried to buy from DELL and their site was buggy and did not closed the transaction... good to me their site was buggy!)

jbk7• 12 years ago

Any other manufacturer do that?

We heard about HP and Dell doing that, and ONLY in the version they shipped to India or South-East Asia (Do they ship worse components there?)

I wish I was skilled enough to contribute to the project

There is a very high chance that you are skilled enough, to be honest.

fnordfnordfnord10• 12 years ago

Low quality speakers and a poor hardware design. It isn't even a challenge to match amplifier output to speakers in such a way that the amplifier can't break the speaker. There are easily a dozen cheap ways to make this work properly that don't rely upon a probably non-existent WMP based solution.

VLC does not, and cannot modify the OUTPUT volume to destroy the speakers.

That would be remarkable.

And as VLC is present on a lot of machines, it's simple to blame VLC. "Correlation does not mean causation" is something that seems too complex for cheap Dell support...

It sounds like a #BOFH excuse.

slacka2• 12 years ago

Dell may be using poor quality parts. VLC can also make the sound louder than any other media player that I've used while generating destructive square clipping.

The problem is it's too easy to set the volume above 100%. I've done so with the mouse wheel. And I now have a $2000 out-of-warranty laptop with blown speakers.

Fixes could include:

* Not remember settings above 100% between sessions unless an advanced option is checked that warns the user.

* Require a double click on volume slider to go above 100%.

VLC's high volume is a wonderful feature when you're listening to DTS or AAC movies encoded with the volume too low. It's just too easy to be accidentally abused.

slr555• 12 years ago

While it is likely true that most laptop speakers are crap, overdriving the power amp or any condition that causes clipping even at lower volumes can lead to cracked voicecoils which in turn produce distorted sound. In the old days we just used to push in on a driver and you could easily feel the broken voicecoil. clipping = death

stcredzero• 12 years ago

VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded. This is just like replay gain, broken codecs, badly recorded files or post-amplification and can lead to saturation.

I have to say, there may be a UI issue here as well. I blare my speakers with VLC playback something like 5X times more often than QuickTime player or mplayer. I use all 3 with about equal frequency.

jbk7• 12 years ago

I have to say, there may be a UI issue here as well.

I think this is fixed in the latest releases...

brador• 12 years ago

How about detecting Dell Speakers and automatically setting the max volume to 100%, with a notification so the user can give an a-ok if they want to go higher. That way, at least users know and can make a decision. Similar to the Android warning if you set your volume too high that it could cause hearing damage.

I'd prefer to be warned rather than surprised by this!

jrockway2• 12 years ago

VLC doesn't do anything particularly interesting, though. There are plenty of CDs that already apply this filter to the music, meaning there's no way you can play that CD without damaging their speakers.

The problem is simply that the Dell speakers are piles of shit.

DrJokepu• 12 years ago

Assuming the speakers are connected through an audio jack, is there a realiable way of detecting specific speaker models?

jbk7• 12 years ago

How about detecting Dell Speakers

How would you do that?

And no, this is not specific to VLC.

mertd• 12 years ago

That's impractical. VLC is just using the standard OS API to send some sound to speakers. Can you imagine every piece of software checking for every piece of esoteric hardware and having some special behavior?

Maybe Microsoft could regulate the output for junk speakers, but really, Dell is the one to blame here.

thewarrior• 12 years ago

I wasn't aware of this and now the speaker on my 3 year old Dell Studio doesn't work properly. :(

And here in India I hear people say that you shouldn't install VLC on laptops .. (even if its not a Dell laptop) !!

ksec• 12 years ago

Arh, I remember all sort of speaker problem ages ago. Never got around to figure what was wrong. I suppose this is it.

But does anyone have list of Manufacture that does provide speaker with BIOS Protection?. Does Apple do?

anaphor4• 12 years ago

How would that work? Just detect signals with an abnormally high RMS and block them?

ferongr5• 12 years ago

While I don't support Dell's decisions, digital (and analog) clipping can easily damage speakers driven at what is normally their maximum power they can handle, since the resulting clipped waveform carries a lot more energy than an unclipped one.

guard-of-terra6• 12 years ago

Nobody prevents the manufacturing to put some electronic bits before the speakers to cap the maximum power. Even better, teach the sound card to do that.

svantana• 12 years ago

True, but VLC actually applies soft limiting when set to above 100%, so that hard clipping never occurs. I use this feature alot, it's great for taking down the usually thunderous sound effects in hollywood movies a few notches, while keeping quiet scenes at hearable levels.

tmoertel5• 12 years ago

... the resulting clipped waveform carries a lot more energy than an unclipped one.

Is this claim actually true?

My understanding is that if you take a waveform and clip it, the resulting waveform actually carries less energy (think of the corresponding integral), but more of that energy is pushed into the higher frequencies. It's this – the unexpectedly large amount of high-frequency energy – that kills speakers because their crossover networks push it into the tiny, tiny tweeters, and they are utterly unprepared for it.

lutusp13• 12 years ago

The issue here is that Dell sound cards output power (that can be approached by a factor of the quadratic of the amplitude)

This is correct, and for those who want to know the technical reason, we can look at the Dell speakers (any speakers) as a resistive load (only approximately true). For a resistive load, the power increases as the square of the applied voltage, because the power in a resistor is equal to the voltage times the current, and both the voltage and current are increasing as the audio output level is increased.

In terms of Ohm's Law: P = E^2/R.

dzhiurgis• 12 years ago

Someone should upload video to YouTube with high gain and call it: "This video will void your Dell laptop speaker warranty" :)

Zancarius• 12 years ago

I can see it now...

"Be aware that just having Youtube in your browser history is enough to deny your warranty."

im3w1l• 12 years ago

Void your dell speaker warranty with this weird deprecated firefox-only javascript http://ge.tt/7Qln5fJ1/v/0

Porting it to Web Audio API is left as an exercise for the reader.

grapeshot• 12 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU7EHKFNMQg

orig• 12 years ago

"As the main developer of VLC". Sorry, but no: Rémi Denis-Courmont has contributed 2x more than you did.

jokoon2• 12 years ago

thanks for clarifying !

well I guess their support people are not engineers, only technicians, hope this blows back into DELL PR instead...

joe_the_user• 12 years ago

Back when I worked for a company that supplied crapware for preinstallation, I was given the impression that Dell and the other hardware supplies do lots of testing of their hardware/software configuration but in the most dumb-shit kind of way. The whole configuration is more or less treated like bucket chemistry - if you can get the desired combination to work, that's what you specify and exactly why it works or doesn't work won't be investigated.

The thing about this is that such behavior makes sense when the suppliers are integrators of the product of twenty or fifty or however many suppliers spread around the globe all relentless trying to cut costs (including cutting corners in implementing whatever spec their chips are supposed to satisfy). The integration itself naturally involves putting together the cheapest stuff and seeing-if/hoping-that it will work. So when you have such a fragile chain of elements, just blank-refusing to allow substitutes makes sense in this rather twisted view. Maybe Windows Media Player fails to call the parts of the API that are "bad" and not documented as bad.

Obviously, I'm not saying this approach is justified, simply that sometimes the irrationality is "sincere".

chengiz• 12 years ago

The issue here is that Dell sound cards output power (that can be approached by a factor of the quadratic of the amplitude) that Dell speakers cannot handle. Simply said, the sound card outputs at max 10W, and the speakers only can take 6W in, and neither their BIOS or drivers block this.

In other words, due to increase in amplitude, increasing volume over 100% can break the hardware? I am not trying to blame VLC, just that your statement "At worse, this will reduce the dynamics and saturate a lot, but this is not going to break your hardware" sounds a bit fallacious in the context of your own explanation.

idProQuo• 12 years ago

Just from this comment, it seems like you guys have a pretty interesting problem domain. I'm going to take a look at the VLC repo and see if there's anything I can contribute, thanks for getting me interested!

dpe829• 12 years ago

If you do, I highly recommend The Computer Music Tutorial[0]. It's an older book but provides an excellent overview of how digital audio works.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262680823

dpe829• 12 years ago

But this is exactly the same if you put your mp3 file through Audacity and increase it and play with WMP, or if you put a DirectShow filter that amplifies the volume after your codec output.

Indeed, and doing that destroys audio equipment just as effectively. It's the reason apps like SoundForge, Audacity and others have clip warnings on their level monitors: so users don't create audio data that destroys listeners' equipment.

The problem is VLC gives consumers (who, like you, don't know better) an exceptionally easy way to create clipped audio. Depending on the characteristics of the source, the degree of clipping VLC can create can destroy even pro equipment. If I were an engineer at Dell, I'd recommend denying warranty claims too.

mikeash10• 12 years ago

I thought they warned about clipping because it sounds awful.

There is no excuse, none, nada, zip, zilch, in 2014 for allowing userland software to generate signals powerful enough to damage built-in hardware.

mkesper• 12 years ago

Aside from Dell's crappy hardware, wouldn't it be possible to just compress the sound more so quieter passages would become louder but those passages already near the maximum wouldn't get clipped? That should definitely sound better...

fxsoap• 12 years ago

Dell can't agree with this without having to do a hardware recall or refund people. It is much easier to blame your software (and cheaper by a hundred million of dollars in bad press/computer returns/hardware thrown away/call centers dedicated to this issue/etc etc).

Sad to see behavior like this

noonespecial• 12 years ago

All products eventually approach "if you use this product for anything at all, it voids the warranty". How fast they get there is an indication of the integrety (and managerial health) of the company behind them.

maaaats• 12 years ago

In my country (Norway) we are already protected better by law than the warranty in most cases, so what producers say will void it is often meaningless.

If Dell said VLC was installed so warranty is void, I'd say I want the computer fixed as a "reklamasjon"-case, and so they can't hide between stupid rules like this. This also means that we are allowed to swap RAM, CPU's etc. in our computers without fear of not getting the computer fixed if it later breaks down for unrelated reasons.

intinno• 12 years ago

Yep, happened with me as well in India

mansr• 12 years ago

When the Samsung ARM Chromebook came out, people quickly found that careless tinkering with alsamixer caused the speakers to overheat and melt the case as a result of being driven with a high DC current. A driver update blocked the control causing the damaging signal routing.

orik• 12 years ago

I never realized they fixed that! What great news!

tmzt2• 12 years ago

Do you know what kernel version or distribution fixed that? I've avoided installing a native distribution for that reason.

userbinator6• 12 years ago

They didn't bother to put $0.001 DC blocking capacitors on the DAC outputs? This isn't a "bug in the kernel" or any software, it's a clear hardware flaw.

fnordfnordfnord10• 12 years ago

Be fair, those caps are easily two or three times that much.

serf• 12 years ago

future headline : "Dell revokes hard-drive warranty for installation of software. Cites excess read and write of sectors akin to abuse."

lucb1e• 12 years ago

Anytime I call tech support, I'm running Windows 7 or 8.1 (depending on which they support) with antivirus installed, firewall on, and the latest MSIE. Hardware does not include an ssd unless that's the item I'm calling about. I will also pretend trying to restart my system and router. Good to know I should add Windows Media Player to the list.

x0054• 12 years ago

Don't forget that your laptop hasn't moved from the table where you unpacked it in months, you are located in a hermetically sealed, temperature and humidity controlled room, the laptop has absolutely no software on it other then the software it came with (updated to the latest version, of course), and on normal days you simply turn it on and lightly brush it's casing. Come to think about it, maybe skip the part about turning it on, that could be grounds for voiding the warranty.

Too• 12 years ago

Software updated to the latest version? Big nono. You must use the 4 year old version, that came on a CD-ROM bundled with the computer.

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

What is the current status of the vulnerability in VLC Media Player reported by Secunia? I see that there has been some online discussion of this in places outside Hacker News (which I searched the other day for more information about Secunia's vulnerability report).

http://secunia.com/advisories/52956/

http://secunia.com/blog/shooting-the-messenger-372

http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/07/10/1520245/vlc-and-secuni...

I have tried to update VLC Media Player on one machine on my home network, and the update fails, suggesting that the VLC Media Player installation on that computer may already be compromised by malware (which has previously been detected on that machine). What is the recommendation for current VLC Media Player users to make sure that they have a recently updated, reasonably safe installation of VLC Media Player that doesn't open up their computer to other vulnerabilities?

dave809• 12 years ago

wait, so you currently have an infected computer on your home network?

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

Secunia reports that I need to update VLC Media Player on a computer from which I recently removed a lot of malware (with the help of Malware Bytes, of which I have a purchased copy on that computer). I installed Secunia on the same computer, and it has not been able to do its update of VLC Media Player, nor have I been able to get an update of that to install by going directly to the VLC Media Player website and downloading the latest version. That is worrisome.

Would I be better off just completely uninstalling VLC Media Player?

AFTER EDIT: I might have considered a direct answer to my question (whatever the answer was) more helpful than a silent downvote to what was, after all, just a polite response to a question that someone asked me.

AFTER FURTHER EDIT: After some more rebooting of the previously infected computer, the operating system and Secunia both report that VLC Media Player version 2.1.3 is installed, and that is not reported to have any problem by Secunia. So I will leave that alone. The computer from which I usually post to HN, a different computer on the same home network, does not have VLC Media Player installed. I try to keep a close-to-bare-stock set of installed programs on this computer, but other users in my household (= teenage boys who aspire to be hackers) tend to install programs I've never heard of on the other computer on our home network, and my wife, who has other things on her mind, occasionally doesn't notice installations of crapware or adware or bloatware that tag along with legitimate program updates on that computer. So that other computer tends to be the vector for malware attacks on the home network here. Thanks for any further comments participants here have on how to keep a home network safe when not all users follow strict quarantine policies.

jbk7• 12 years ago

The Secunia security issue SA51464 was never proved, never reproduceable and never fixed...

We did a lot of fuzzing with 2.1.x though and we've fixed all the security issues that were reported.

gautamsomani• 12 years ago

I had once faced the exact same issue once in Mar 2009, so all I did was called them again after some time from a different number and using a different name and told them that No, VLC was not installed. And I got my warranty upheld and speaker replaced.

hrjet• 12 years ago

Dell support and policies are utterly broken. I had a Dell Vostro which worked fine except at one time it started emitting fumes when running a CPU intensive task. I was denied warranty because I was running Linux!

Since then I have vowed never to buy Dell.

__david__• 12 years ago

So basically, Dell's crappy speaker/amp design can't handle square waves at full volume. I suppose you shouldn't listen to loud chip-tunes either, then.

userbinator6• 12 years ago

This is particularly amusing to me, as someone who regularly enjoys more... extreme genres of music that features lots of distortion and hard clipping. My no-name cheap Chinese speakers and headphones haven't died because of it, in fact my ears probably have less tolerance than the hardware.

aceofspades19• 12 years ago

I used to work for Dell tech support, and I used to install VLC on customer's machines all the time..woops. At that time there was no rule against it and we generally assumed that software couldn't damage hardware. When I worked there, Dell seemed to have one of the more lenient warranty policies of any company.

beloch• 12 years ago

I bought a Dell M1330 laptop a few years ago and the speakers were crap even by laptop standards. This was fine with me, since I planned to use headphones. Unfortunately, the audio output was just as crappy! It had an insanely high noise-floor! I had to get a USB DAC/head-phone amp to make things acceptable. Lesson learned: Dell sucks at audio.

If the speakers in a consumer device like a laptop can be damaged by maxing the volume then the laptop was not properly designed. This isn't a case of a nutty audiophile mixing and matching unknown preamps, amps, and speakers and managing to blow some cones by cranking it to 11. Dell has complete control over the selection of components in this laptop and, if they cared to, could include circuitry to limit power beneath a point that will damage the speakers. They didn't. Alternatively, they could eschew a limiter and select speaker components beefy enough to handle the maximum voltage that their DAC's can output. They didn't. Bad design.

If Dell did the math and decided the number of users noticing permanent speaker damage would be small enough that the reduced part costs would outweigh the price of the resulting warranty service, that's their decision. However, they should be on the hook to fix damaged caused by their cheap/poor design.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Seems pretty bogus, sure you can damage a speaker hooked directly up to some audio source, but there so many components between the DirectSound API and the speaker that making a system that can be damaged using the OS API's seems quite lame.

altero• 12 years ago

Maybe am I too big nerd, but who would send laptop for repairs without wiping out harddrive first?

sklivvz1971• 12 years ago

In professional audio (and even amateur radio) one always puts speakers rated for 1.5x the nominal output of the amp. At least. This makes sure that whatever the input in the amp, the speakers are safe.

If Dell doesn't build audio properly, how can they blame the users? They really have some gut...

lcrs• 12 years ago

I was always taught the opposite rule for PA amps - they should be rated higher than the speakers, as per http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dWILAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA118&dq=..., http://www.sweetwater.com/insync/power-amp-buying-guide/#mat... or similar. The reasoning being that a lower power amp would have to run flat out, and clip, which pushes a lot of energy into the HF drivers. Safer for the tweeters to have a more powerful amp which is not run into clipping, even if some peaks exceed the cabinet's rated power.

The VLC volume control has always terrified me, I wish it would have AGC or at least a soft limiter when pushed above 100%. I've seen people watch films with it cranked up to 200% and the system volume turned down to compensate :(

omerh• 12 years ago

I Killed my speakers on Dell Latitude 6330 when increase the volume to 200% (i got them replaced cause its my work laptop)

lucaspottersky• 12 years ago

Yeah, my speakers have blown up too... damn Dell and their cheap shit.

bmoresbest55• 12 years ago

This is insane. It's like saying LibreOffice can ruin your HDD, keyboard or some other BS that they can come up with. I have a Dell XPS M1530, it is five and a half years old and I remember the speakers blowing out in 2009. I got them covered under the warranty no problem. I know I am in the minority when saying that I like Dell and their support, I have had other problems and they have had no problem fixing them. This my start to change my mind...

pistle• 12 years ago

Who could stand to listen to audio from those crappy speakers, let alone at such a saturated loudness on said crappy speakers?

Glyptodon• 12 years ago

Dell owners should file a class action for use of defective speaker components.

AndyKelley• 12 years ago

I'm proud of the fact that soon my audio streaming library will be able to void Dell warranties too!

https://github.com/andrewrk/libgroove/issues/45

retrogradeorbit• 12 years ago

Audio engineer here. All this means is the speakers in Dell laptops are crap.

acomjean• 12 years ago

This is why I use VLC. On the white polycarb apple macbooks the audio is really quiet. VLC made it useful by allowing me to turn the audio up louder (up to 200%). No damage to speakers here.

mikeash10• 12 years ago

I'm surprised that I can't find any mention of the fact that this behavior is simply illegal, beyond the blatant technical stupidity. The Magnuson-Moss warranty act in the US prohibits voiding a warranty simply due to the use of third-party parts, unless those parts can actually be demonstrated to be the cause of the problem. The mere presence of a part is not enough. They'd have to show that your use of VLC actually caused this failure, and since I doubt they're keeping the sort of logs that can show that, they have no case.

Companies like to talk about "voiding the warranty" for all kinds of stupid stuff, and consumers don't know their rights so they often get away with it, but what the law allows is considerably more constrained.

JetSpiegel• 12 years ago

Wait, people use laptop speakers?

xerophtye2• 12 years ago

Random question, if my speakers get blown, and I uninstall VLC before taking in my laptop for repair, does that mean the warranty will cover it?

(Yes i suppose that is morally wrong, but so is blaming VLC for your own bad designs)

razzmataz• 12 years ago

Is this true of the Latitude series of laptops? Or just the XPS? I would think the Commercial grade hardware would be a bit tougher.

ctdonath• 12 years ago

Possibly relevant anecdote...

I once acquired an audio geologic recording of the tragic Christmas Eve tsunami in Indonesia. It was an interesting listen, with a lot of bass/sub-base frequencies. Played at what seemed a reasonable listening volume, it managed to destroy my iPod headphones. Seems some sounds can be inherently damaging to less robust equipment when seemingly operated well within sensible limits.

(The replacement of said headphones cemented my appreciation of Apple: at a time Apple wasn't selling headphones alone, upon my consternation of not being able to buy a set, a clerk ripped open a random box and handed me new headphones gratis.)

Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

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