The laptop I'm using at work here is a Dell with a Pentium M and "SigmaTel C-Major Audio", so I think it's just built-in. I've set it to maximum performance levels for sample rate and hardware acceleration and there are no other adjustments possible as far as I can tell. It didn't make a difference; sound is still highly compressed, so it does okay until there's a lot of treble at the same time. I don't care about equalizers or anything, I just want it to be able to create proper analog sound waves from a digital source!
I'm gathering that I just need a decent sound card. What doesn't make sense to me is how they can make something that reads CDs, converts from digital to analog with high quality, and sends the analog out to included headphones for $40, yet they still don't include decent audio capability on most computers!
I know that my computer at home does actually have a sound card, but it has never sounded good. I'll see what I have on it and if any adjustments are possible when I get back to Canada (I'm down in Texas on a rig near Galveston at the moment). Maybe it was never properly installed by Dell? I'll try the install disk too to make sure. The sound quality of my computer never concerned me much because I don't listen to music on it at home with my Paradigm system close by, but it would be nice to get it working better so I can actually tell if an MP3 is decent enough to bother putting on a CD-R.
And yes, I have tried listening to music on computers other than Dells!