Does wet food make cat eliminations stinkier?

My boyfriend is aggravated  that I bought Odin heaps of canned food but no dry bikkies. He says cats should eat dry food because it makes their poo and pee smell better. He's had a cat before and I haven't so he thinks he knows everything and all the research I've been doing is wrong.

Is it true that dry food makes less stink coming out? Odin's litterbox does smell pretty bad after he uses it.

First, thank you for doing some research and wanting to feed your cat the best food possible.
Actually, generally speaking, cat's poo is more smelly on dry food than wet. That said, your cat's poo may be smelly for any number of reasons, including an allergy to something in the new food. I assume he is an indoor cat; if not, he may have worms (though would probably also have diarrhea).
It could be because it is indeed new food to him.
I suggest you (and maybe your boyfriend) read some of the articles posted here.
If your cat has never had wet food before, then you should transition him slowly to wet food. Here is an article that tells you how to do that.

When my boyfriend's cat was fed exclusively dry food, whether it was Whiskas or Blue Buffalo, his poo stank. There was always more of it and he pooped more often (dry foods have more carbs, carbs aren't absorbed as readily as meat-based proteins in cats, so they just get pooped out). Now he eats 100% wet and the smell isn't nearly as noticeable. Poop is poop, and it'll almost always smell to some degree. I noticed it made our cat's poop different - the colour and texture changed, he started pooping less (thus reducing the poop left in the box to stink between scooping), but none of these changes were bad. Not to mention wet food on a whole is better for him!

The pee though! If he's only eating dry kibble, he's likely dehydrated because cats are supposed to get moisture from their food. If they don't, they're already dehydrated, and they don't feel the need to drink water the way other animals do. Just like in people, if you're not drinking enough water, your pee is darker and smellier because it isn't as watered down so it's more concentrated waste. If he's receiving more moisture in his diet, he'll pee more and flush more out of his system. The pee (and pee smell) will be less concentrated, he'll pee more often, and that would reduce the pee smell.

I was facing resistance with my boyfriend, a previous cat owner, as well when we moved in together and I decided the box needed to be scooped more than once a week. From there, it snowballed and now I'm just the primary animal caregiver for everything. I was blamed for exacerbating his cat's chin acne by feeding wet food, and brushed off when I said wet food would help with his cat's constipation problems. All my research was wrong too, apparently! If the articles don't persuade your boyfriend, next time Odin has a vet visit, bring him along and ask the vet right in front of him if wet or dry food is better! As long as your vet isn't stuck in the "kibble cleans teeth" propaganda days, you'll get the reassurance and praise for doing cat diet right.

Pee will definitely smell better on wet food because it's more dilute. There will be more of it, but it won't smell nearly as bad.

Poop will generally smell better on wet food, though much depends on the quality of the food. If you're feeding wet food with a lot of grains and fillers, there may not be much of a difference. Higher-quality food, both wet and dry, will reduce the smell of the poop and reduce the volume.

With previous cats, we started out with Science Diet dry and they pooped a lot and had stinky poops. As we went to better quality dry foods, they pooped less, though it still smelled. With our current cats, we started them on grain-free dry and the poop smelled, though each cat only went about once a day. A year ago, we transitioned them to wet food. On Wellness grain-free canned, we could still smell the poop when the cat first went, but it wasn't as bad. Now they're on Nature's Variety Instinct canned and I cannot smell poop unless I am scooping the box and even then I can barely smell it.

Huge improvement in the way the litter box smells, moving to a good-quality canned food.

Thanks guys! Good to know. He was already on wet chicken-based kitten food at the shelter so wet isn't really new food to him, though I did buy a variety of canned like beef and lamb that I suppose he might not have had before. His poops are well-formed though, so I assume he's taking the protein changes well.

I'll admit I'm not buying a top end wet brand for cost reasons, but from the ingredients list I don't see any grains. The first ingredient is meat and meat byproducts derived from chicken/lamb/beef/mutton, then gelling agents, then vitamins and stuff. Is that okay?

His litterbox is in the bathroom, and I don't know if the small enclosed space makes it seem worse than it is, but Odin really does stink it up...

I'll mix up higher end and cheaper wet foods to save money too. In the end, even cheap wet can be better than dry alone.

We keep both of our boxes in a storage room on opposite walls, but it's about the size of a walk-in closet so it's a pretty small space too. I sprinkle baking soda in with the litter, and leave the box of baking soda open and on a shelf to help with odors. It definitely helps if he's good and consistent with burying his poops too. Once in a while, one of our cats will just move the litter around but the poop will still be sitting on top, and if I'm anywhere like 15 feet from the storage room, I can smell it.

He's not very good at burying poops, that must be it. I've seen him try, and he flicks the litter so far back that it often misses the poop entirely. I'll try some baking soda! Was even thinking of training him to use the human toilet to cut down on stink.