HT Omega "Claro Halo" Headphone Only soundcard - Page 4

I can't resolve the new problem I mentioned in my last post, now I wonder am I damaging my sound card?

There is more to the soundcard then just the Opamp. The DAC's also play a large part.. Also, the Halo has socket so you can snap a 8620 in that also if that is your cup of tea. The 8620 isn't the best opamps there is either... There are many other opamps out there that people will say provide better sound then a 8620BR...

I don't think your card is damaged. You have no way of knowing is the imbalance is there in the headphone out or line in. I've also seen slight channel imbalances (0.2 is very slight) from cards I've tested in the past so I don't think it's a major issue. 0.2 db is not something you can hear.

Look at the RMAA frequency graph for the EMU 0404 USB. There is a slight channel imbalance there as well.

In fact, I looked at other graphs on this site (amb) and it seems a slight channel imbalance is common. So I don't think your sound card is damaged.

Here's the claro+ results, it's too high by 0.2 dB on the right channel so I think maybe it's the bloody wire I bought yesterday that's broken lol.

There's a lot of difference between MME and directsound for the 44kHz test so I'll post both, the last tests are MME.

Testing device Speakers (HTO CLARO)
Sampling mode 24-bit, 44 kHz
Interface DirectSound
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB +0.04, -0.13 Very good
Noise level, dB (A) -100.8 Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A) 98.8 Excellent
THD, % 0.0046 Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A) -83.9 Good
IMD + Noise, % 0.033 Good
Stereo crosstalk, dB -92.0 Excellent
IMD at 10 kHz, % 0.040 Good
General performance Very good

Sampling mode 24-bit, 44 kHz
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB +0.12, -0.08 Very good
Noise level, dB (A) -100.4 Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A) 98.7 Excellent
THD, % 0.122 Average
THD + Noise, dB (A) -54.3 Poor
IMD + Noise, % 0.222 Average
Stereo crosstalk, dB -91.4 Excellent
IMD at 10 kHz, % 0.302 Average
General performance Very good

Sampling mode 24-bit, 96 kHz
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB +0.12, -0.18 Very good
Noise level, dB (A) -101.5 Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A) 99.1 Excellent
THD, % 0.0048 Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A) -69.2 Average
IMD + Noise, % 0.041 Good
Stereo crosstalk, dB -91.2 Excellent
IMD at 10 kHz, % 0.051 Good
General performance Very good

Sampling mode 24-bit, 192 kHz
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB +0.08, -0.09 Very good
Noise level, dB (A) -99.4 Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A) 99.6 Excellent
THD, % 0.0052 Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A) -81.6 Good
IMD + Noise, % 0.0066 Excellent
Stereo crosstalk, dB -91.0 Excellent
IMD at 10 kHz, % 0.037 Good
General performance Very good

Need help deciding - Claro Plus or Claro Halo

Hi there - hopefully someone can help me with this. I am trying to decide if I should get a Claro Plus or a Claro Halo. I had some questions pertaining to getting a Halo card:

1. I would need to purchase a 3.5mm Stereo Female to RCA Male Y-Cable/Adapter so I can connect my Logitech speakers to the Halo card (the adapter that is provided with the Halo is a Male connector on the 3.5mm Stereo side, which won't work for me since my speakers don't have a stero input). This may be a silly question, but am I going to lose any sound quality by using this type of adapter?

2. Most of the music I listen to is MP3 based (usually at a decent bitrate - 192kbps or higher). I have seen a few posts on the Internet saying that if you're listening to MP-3 with the Halo, the sound quality is not good at all. What are your thoughts? Is it actually going to be worse with the Halo card vs. the Claro Plus?

3. My headphones are actually Shure earbuds (they cost about $300 when I got them). Will I be able to take advantage of the benefits of the headphone features on the Halo with these earbuds?

Thanks very much for your help.

1. You will not lose any sound quality with a bit of extra cable.

2. Rubbish. I've heard MP3s out of gear that is much better (proper speaker/headphone rigs) than the Claro Halo and decently encoded mp3s (192+) sound just fine.

3. According to the previous comments in this thread, the Claro Halo works well with headphones. If you are going to use headphones I suggest the Halo as driving the Logitech system is easier than driving headphones since the Logitech system has a built in amp. The Halo should be more than adequate to get good "sound quality" from your speakers.

why not PCI-Xpress interface?

How about why PCIe?

PCI has more than enough bandwidth for this type audio, and by making it PCI they increase the number of people who have compatible hardware . There are plenty of people (like me) who are still using AGP/PCI based computers. Even the latest motherboards still have at least 1 PCI slot.

I love the new PCI interface (the E or express or what ever you call it)
It allow much more bendwidth to the card, and as a much "nicer" lower footprint.

Don't know why not many brands have cards for it

You can wait for the ASUS Xonar Essence card with PCIe interface probably. i got this information from another thread.

exactly

and the reason not many people are jumping on the PCIe bandwagon is that there is no gain to be derived from spending all of that R&D money/time, the performance is more than enough on PCI (this has been argued to the ground in other threads), and not everyone uses PCIe compatable systems (even my newest computer, I use a PCI card, it could take a PCIe card, but why do I want to spend another $40-$50 to help some company recoup R&D expenses because the product isn't selling as well, especially when I can save that money, and get the same quality on PCI (which, even my absurdly early adopter motherboard still supports))

I'd rather use PCIe so I can carry the card over to future computers that may not have PCI. The sound card is not something you upgrade very often, whereas the rest of the system, if you like staying on top of things, you may upgrade every few years. That's why the Essence STX looks appealing to me.

You know
Asus has a new card that is like the D2X but with HDMI and so on
Well, I have seen a review of it, and it seem to have a much lower quality sound than the D2X (due to more parts on the card and so on)

I wonder, will the same thing happen here ?

I prefer a more "minimal" design, but with much better SQ.

Like most technology in computers, PCI will probably hang around for a long time. I just browsed through some motherboards on Newegg and they still have parallel and serial connectors. Apart from EPROM programmers and such, has anybody used a serial or parallel port in the last 5 years? I stopped using those two ports even before I stopped using a 1.44 floppy! Anybody remember the joys of having a printer/scanner that used the parallel port?

PCI is here to stay for a little while at least. It'll probably be a few years after people stop making PCI devices that motherboard manufacturers abandon it (unless they are Apple). Gigabit Ethernet and SATA require PCIe, and those two are usually built into motherboards now. The only common use for a PCIe slot are graphic cards, and most people only need one

HT responded to some technical information I asked for and I thought people here would like to know.

When the Claro Halo was first announced, I was skeptical of their claim that the Halo could power any headphone to 600 ohms because PCI is a 5 volt spec. 5 volts is not a lot of headroom for large voltage swings for very dynamic music when using high impedance headphones.

However, after looking at the datasheet for the TPA6120A2 (the headphone amp on the Halo), I learned the this chip requires a minimum supply voltage of 10 volts. So I emailed HT asking them about this discrepancy.

Turns out that the PCI spec has a +12v pin and a -12v pin. The reply I got wasn't 100% clear (to me), but I think the gist of it is that the headphone amp is being powered by both pins and thus has a supply voltage of 24 volts. Even if I misinterpreted what was said in the email, the headphone amp has a supply voltage of 12 volts.

24v should be enough to drive 600 ohm headphones. With this bit of information, I have much more confidence in HT's claims that the Halo can drive any headphone up to 600 ohms. Even if does only have a supply voltage of 12 volts, that is quite close to the 14v of the VHP-2, if such a comparison means anything to anybody.

Also, HT responded to my email in 3 hours. That is very impressive!