I want to hear realistic sounds

[deadman_uk]

Originally Posted by poo

OK guys - he has got the point. Now lets provide some answers OK?

First - forget holophonic

Second, ASIO: When I asked google "what is asio?" it told me to tell you...
Basic explanation:
http://www.tropicalcoder.com/ASIO.htm
A little more detail:
http://www.soundblaster.com/resource...id=53937&cat=2

Master google also suggested you try harder... not sure why it said that...

Ok I've downloaded something called "ASIOSigGen" and another thing called "MStreamPlayer". ASIOSigGen lets you generate pink noise and sweep waves, and other things .. all of which I have no idea. Here is a screenshot...



MStreamPlayer appears to be a media player. When listening to music on it, I hear no difference between this and something like Winamp. Here is a screenshot.



I am really lost with this AISO thing, I have no idea what I'm doing. Instructions would be appreciated.

As far as holophonic sounds being the realistic sounds you are after, take a few moments to think about it. When you hear a band play music, is that kind of sound that you hear? DO you hear it 3 dimensionally(ish)? DO you hear a band move around like they are in a room? Or do you hear the sound come from a stage towards you. I think (to some degree) it depends on the music you listen to. Some music played in acoustically designed venues can sound as though it surrounds you - and perhaps this is the effect you are after.

Like you said, it depends on the music. I just want clear sounding music which is good quality. Downloading 4 or 5 FLAC files, I have come to the conclusion that FLAC is nice. Playing an MP3 at 192 bitrate and playing the same song in FLAC format.... I do hear a slight difference in 4 of the 5 songs. However at 320 bitrate, I hear no difference at all.

If you prefer winamp, try DFX pluggins. I don't like sound enhancement any more personally

I don't know if this is the same but I downloaded an enchancer for winamp and played around with it. I don't really like it. Sure it makes my music sound different but in most songs, its adding effects I don't want. There are a few dozen presets to load but nah, in most causes the songs sound worse.

I now run Winamp with the equalizer off. I have even downloaded Foobar and compared with Winamp, there is a VERY TINY improvement in Foobar between 2 of the 5 songs I tested. Foobar is probably the player I will use from now on. I don't appreciate the minimal monotone interface though. I will have to find some skins for it.

I noticed that when I had cheaper equipment it sometimes made the sound nicer. This is not intended as some sort of cheap insult BTW - I still am a believer in some cheap gear sounding as good as the expensive stuff in some cases...

Oh I completely understand. I have £75 headphones, a £60 sound card and a £100 pair of speakers. I understand I could get much better hardware but to be honest, it's not worth my money. I could spend thousands but I won't.

I still get the impression that you have not tried alot of what has been suggested on these pages though - let us know what your thoughts are on what you have tried so far - might make things more interesting...

I checked out the Milwaukee Symphony link but I either have to buy the CD from Amazon or pay a small fee to download MP3 files, so I left that site.

The links to the external computer converters are not of interest. I don't wish to spend more money.

The suggestion of re-ripping my CD collection doesn't apply to me since I don't own a single audio CD.

The link to modifying my sound card is interesting but not for me. I can not solder, and I am far out of my comfort zone physically modifying my sound card.

The legally downloadable binaural thread is interesting, a spent a long time listening to samples but only a few stood out to me. I haven't viewed everything in this thread though.

I haven't visited the http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/ link yet, this is something I will do later this evening.

I want to get this ASIO thing implemented but I am still very confused.

Originally Posted by LeonvB

Were those recordings any good, as in: better sounding to you?

[jilgiljongiljing]

If you havent tried ASIO4all yet, give that a shot, I distinctly remember it worked with my external creative soundcard. just google ASIO4all and follow the link, download it and install it. It will show you list of audio devices on the top lef t of the interface, enable the device you want to use, in your case the XFI, it should highlight in green. I usually disable the other devices just to make sure.

Then open Foobar, go to file->preferences. (Before this, google asio for foobar and download the dll file for enabling ASIO in foobar, put that in the components folder in your foobar install directory and restart foobar)

In preferences, go to output, ASIO devices, and say add new (this whole section wont show up if you dont do the previous step). Then you will see a window that will say ASIO4all and show you the channels on your card. Select a left and right channel and hit ok. Then in the output screen you have to select the ASIO4all device, hit apply and ok. You should be good to go.

If you experience popping or clicking, search around for popping/clicking when using ASIO/ASIO4all, you will find some threads/links that show you how to optimize the settings for your system.

Hope this helps

[deadman_uk]

Originally Posted by jilgiljongiljing

If you havent tried ASIO4all yet, give that a shot, I distinctly remember it worked with my external creative soundcard. just google ASIO4all and follow the link, download it and install it. It will show you list of audio devices on the top lef t of the interface, enable the device you want to use, in your case the XFI, it should highlight in green. I usually disable the other devices just to make sure.

Then open Foobar, go to file->preferences. (Before this, google asio for foobar and download the dll file for enabling ASIO in foobar, put that in the components folder in your foobar install directory and restart foobar)

In preferences, go to output, ASIO devices, and say add new (this whole section wont show up if you dont do the previous step). Then you will see a window that will say ASIO4all and show you the channels on your card. Select a left and right channel and hit ok. Then in the output screen you have to select the ASIO4all device, hit apply and ok. You should be good to go.

If you experience popping or clicking, search around for popping/clicking when using ASIO/ASIO4all, you will find some threads/links that show you how to optimize the settings for your system.

Hope this helps

Thanks very much, all appears to work. A few questions though... When I selected ASIO4all, I also had a Creative ASIO option... what is this?

You mentioned at the start to download ASIO4all, now that I have done what you said with ASIO4all, what do I do with it now? It seems Foobar and the foobar ASIO dll are the only things needed?. ASIO4all seems to have lots of settings like IN: (32 samples) OUT: (32 samples), Use hardware buffer, Force WDM driver, Kernel buffers etc... what's all this for?

[Mansize_tissue]

Have a look here.

[jilgiljongiljing]

The above link is an awesome write up on ASIO4all and its uses.

Briefly though, ASIO4all is an universal ASIO driver. Not all soundcards come with ASIO drivers, and some have poorly written ones. Your best bet is to try the Creative ASIO option and then try the ASIO4all one, see if they sound any different.

I dont expect any SQ differences, but performance and efficiency wise, they might be different. Try 'em out.

Also, the link above explains all the fields in ASIO4all and what they do with screenshots.

Edit: And by try both out, I meant adding ASIO devices in the foobar preferences and then selecting the device in the output section. ASIO4all neednt be up and running, once you save the settings in it, you can close it, for most applications, it works with default settings, so you neednt tweak those for now.

[deadman_uk]

Originally Posted by Mansize_tissue

Have a look here.

Thanks very much.

When I move to Vista 64bit next month, do I just repeat the steps or will this not work with Vista?

[Mansize_tissue]

Originally Posted by deadman_uk

Thanks very much.

When I move to Vista 64bit next month, do I just repeat the steps or will this not work with Vista?

No problem. It works in 32-bit Vista for me, so i assume it'll work with 64-bit Vista, too. However, i am not able to play certain file types through ASIO; this is down to a hardware limitation, though, i think. My Corda Move doesn't play nice with ASIO or kernel streaming.

[deadman_uk]

Ok another question if possible....

I am now obtaining a large amount of FLAC files but the filesizes of each song are large. Is there anyway I can reduce the filesize without losing obvious quality? What about recoding them in 320kbp MP3?

[jbloudg20]

Originally Posted by deadman_uk

Ok another question if possible....

I am now obtaining a large amount of FLAC files but the filesizes of each song are large. Is there anyway I can reduce the filesize without losing obvious quality? What about recoding them in 320kbp MP3?

Then you lose the reason for obtaining FLAC. Again, I don't mean to be rude here, but have you searched at all? These are such basic questions.

[LeonvB]

without losing obvious quality

MP3 is a lossy compression algorithm. By definition, you're losing things.
FLAC is a pretty good compression algorithm, it's on par with the other lossless compression programs.
Note: If the files are large, most of the time it means you're looking at good recordings.