### System details

ASUS ROG Strix G733ZW, Omarchy base install (audio hardware fixup handled by `install/user/hardware/asus/fix-audio-mixer.sh`).

### What's wrong

Out of the box, audio on this machine was completely muddy — enough that I ended up having to build a manual PipeWire + EasyEffects setup (custom EQ, compressor, etc.) just to get it to a usable baseline, and even after all that manual tuning it's still not on par with a stock Windows install on the same hardware. This is a rough first-audio-experience for a "quick install and go" desktop.

Looking at the install script that runs for any ASUS ROG machine:

```sh
# install/user/hardware/asus/fix-audio-mixer.sh
if omarchy-hw-asus-rog; then
  mkdir -p ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/
  cp "$OMARCHY_PATH/default/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/alsa-soft-mixer.conf" ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/
  rm -rf ~/.local/state/wireplumber/default-routes

  card=$(aplay -l 2>/dev/null | grep -i "ALC285" | head -1 | sed 's/card \([0-9]*\).*/\1/')
  if [[ -n $card ]]; then
    amixer -c "$card" set Master 80% unmute 2>/dev/null
  fi
fi
```

and the config it installs:

```
# default/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/alsa-soft-mixer.conf
monitor.alsa.rules = [
  {
    matches = [ { device.name = "~alsa_card.*" } ]
    actions = { update-props = { api.alsa.soft-mixer = true } }
  }
]
```

This applies `api.alsa.soft-mixer = true` to **every** ALSA card on **any** machine that matches `omarchy-hw-asus-rog`, unconditionally — it disables the hardware mixer path entirely in favor of a software volume control, on the theory that it works around Realtek hardware-mixer quirks (per the comment, and per #7458 which covers the ALC285-only unmute logic being too narrow).

The G733ZW isn't a plain Realtek-codec laptop — it has dedicated smart-amp speaker hardware that normally relies on the hardware/firmware audio path for amp protection and frequency shaping. Forcing every card on every ROG model onto a blanket software mixer, with no per-model or per-amp distinction, plausibly explains why the out-of-box sound here was muddy: the fix designed to work around a Realtek quirk on some models is applied indiscriminately and may be actively working against the audio hardware on models with their own smart amp.

### Suggested enhancement

- Scope `fix-audio-mixer.sh` / `alsa-soft-mixer.conf` to the specific codecs/models it's actually meant to fix, rather than every `omarchy-hw-asus-rog` match (same gap #7458 flags for the unmute logic, but it affects the mixer-mode config too).
- For models with dedicated smart-amp speaker hardware (G733ZW and similar), consider not applying the soft-mixer override at all, or shipping a tuned default profile/EQ instead of leaving users to reconstruct one from scratch via PipeWire + EasyEffects to reach basic listenable quality.