Helios 500 Headphone Sound terrible

I received my Helios 500 i7 today and I can't for the life of me get the headphones to work properly.

I'm using a Hyper X Cloud II headset, plugged into the 3mm input. I don't have the USB connection (left it in the UK). I'm not sure if this is the reason it sounds terrible. It also doesn't show my headset on the devices, i'm guessing this is because it's in the 3mm input and not the USB?

The sound is stupidly bassy, i've searched all over the internet and looked at loads of forums posts but can't find anything that's helping.

I've installed the latest realtek drivers and no luck with this either. I've also seen people using Realtek HD Audio Manager but I also don't seem to have that. Does anyone know how to fix this? It sounds absolutely horrible.

Thanks

Accepted answers

ven98

I suspect it is because you don't connect it to USB. Probably the headset requires more power than what a single 3.5mm jack can provide and this why the USB adapter is there.

All comments

ven98

I suspect it is because you don't connect it to USB. Probably the headset requires more power than what a single 3.5mm jack can provide and this why the USB adapter is there.

Razamax

@StuartCrees, when you connect your HyperX Cloud II through a USB port, the sound goes over proprietary HyperX USB drivers and the USB control box connected to the cord has a DSP amplifier inside it, this is why they sound a lot better than if you just connect them directly with the 3.5 mm audio jack on the Helios 500.

I agree with you that the sound quality out of the Helios 500 3.5 mm audio port is terrible and you only notice how terrible it is if you have a comparatively high end headphone connected to it, I am using the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro by the way. I figured out that the reason the sound is so terrible is because there are two independent sound enhancers installed on the PC. WaveMaxx audio and Acer True Harmony. So, the sound goes through two sets of presets, which is not a good idea. I fixed my sound problem by uninstalling predator sense and then configuring WaveMaxx to my desired sound setting. Now everything sound amazing.