The default audio experience on a Framework 16 running Linux is very underwhelming. Vocals are muddy and bass is almost non-existent. Good news is that you can install EasyEffects and use any of the few profiles provided on Framework’s own forums, and it does indeed make the audio experience a lot better.

However, I noticed that suddenly my machine was idling on around 20W, when previously it idled around 10W. It’s a lot. It quite literally halfed my battery life.

I don’t think it was just the amount of CPU juice it needed, which seemed pretty low, but that the active usage then affected how the power profiles worked and didn’t allow going into a low power mode when idle, which then made the actual big difference.

I choose battery life over audio quality. It’s not that bad. To that effect then, I can do without EasyEffects on my machine. Besides, I mostly use headphones anyway. That said, I did manage to improve the sound quality a little bit with PipeWire’s built-in param_eq, which requires no separate application or plugin host, and where the EQ and physical speaker both enter the suspended state when idle.