We loved many aspects of XPG’s Intel-designed Xenia 15 laptop, but the audio is a dog kennel of bad audio and everything we’ve come to expect from a typical gaming laptop today. When you play a sound that is supported by the Waves NX speakers and shift your head slightly, the audio tracks your head to keep the 3D effect sound focused on your head’s actual position. What’s different about the Waves Nx implementation in Dell’s laptops is the spatialization algorithms, which are tied into the XPS 15’s and XPS 17’s webcams. The company touts it as transaural playback, which is a fancy way to say algorithms filter and shape positional audio over the speakers to trick your brain into thinking a sound is behind you.
One audio feature that I’ll describe as interesting, but not quite all there, is the Waves Nx head tracking feature. The Dell and the support a unique head tracking feature that watches your head position and moves the sweet spot as you move your head. I actually preferred to listen to music on the XPS 15 9500’s speaker system, rather than using a portable Bluetooth speaker with my phone.
Sure, you think that’s just a bunch of marketing hooey we’ve long been fed by manufacturers who believe seeing a sticker sells hardware (and it usually does).
