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Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

en.community.dell.com

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Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#81
post #8

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

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).

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.)

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#82
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.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#83
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.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#84
post #15

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…

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

I can see it now...

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

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#85
post #38

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.

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.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A square wave has twice the power of a sine wave of identical amplitude. This is why distorting the amplifiers (especially digital clipping) is so much worse for speakers than overpowering the speakers. This is a very well known fact in audio circles. Playing metal at full volume is not as damaging as playing anything intensely digitally clipped at full volume. Yes, Dell is putting on shitty speakers on their laptops…

>A square wave has twice the power of a sine wave of identical amplitude.

1.41 x

>Playing metal at full volume is not as damaging as playing anything intensely digitally clipped at full volume.

The output of the amplifier really ought to be bandwidth limited either as a natural consequence of the components used or explicitly with a filter. It is silly to spend power on things that can't be heard.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#88
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

You haven't kept up with the times. Here Nigel Tufnel is introduced to Marshall amplifiers that go all the way to 20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwuZePiQHLI#t=170

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#89
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I have to say, there may be a UI issue here as well. I think this is fixed in the latest releases...

How? Has the non-OSX VLC UI changed recently without my noticing, or is it a change in max volume or something?

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#90

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.

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.

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