Auzentech X-fi Bravura 7.1 Sneak Peek - Page 29

Quote:

Originally Posted by hohesc123 

OK, so far, I've tried the OPA627AU, these do sound a bit better than the standard OP-AMP of the card, plus they improve the bass characteristics a little bit, IMO.

 

What other OP-AMPs would you recommend? Maybe the OPA2111SM or even the metal can version of the 627, the OPA627SM?

 

Btw, I plan on upgrading the headphone-out only. ^^
 

 

The OPA2111's are my favorite so far.  Since I messed up on my LME49710HA and my LME4720HA I won't have an opinion on them until they get here.  The 627 are ok.  I'll put one on the sub but I prefer the 2111's on the front and headphones.
 

Thanks for the replies!

@thezfunk: May I ask which headphones you use?

I'll  try to get a standalone headphone amp in the next few days (max 200€ / $280). Preferably one with an integrated DAC (USB or SPDIF input). Do you have any suggestions on which amps I should try?

I searched the forums yesterday and found that the Maverick D1 is widely used. Any opinions on this one?

Quote:

Originally Posted by hohesc123 

Thanks for the replies!

 

@thezfunk: May I ask which headphones you use?

 

I'll  try to get a standalone headphone amp in the next few days (max 200€ / $280). Preferably one with an integrated DAC (USB or SPDIF input). Do you have any suggestions on which amps I should try?

I searched the forums yesterday and found that the Maverick D1 is widely used. Any opinions on this one?

I use the Equation RP-21's.  It was a good fit based on my varied headphone use. (music, games, LAN parties, movies).

My new OP AMP's to replace those I fried have arrived so when my new Brown Dog order arrives I will soldier those up, correctly this time.

Hello!

I bought a Bravura about a month ago and I use it with my Sennheiser HD 435. Now I'm considering upgrading my phones and the Beyerdynamic DT770 caught my eye.

However I have some doubts about which versions (32, 250 and 600 ohms) perform properly without an additional amp. Also I'm not interested in getting new OP AMPs (by now).

Thanks

I just received and installed Linear Technology's LT1364 op amp.  I have installed them on the headphone and front channels.  I like their transparency.  They seem to bring bass more forward than other op amps I have tried.  More so than the OPA227.  I am trying to decide if I like that or not.

Guys,

There are two sets of drivers for Bravura. With DTS and Without DTS but Windows 7 Certified.

I only use 2.1 system. Which should I use?

the one without will do fine, dts is for digital surround.

I got the Bravura yesterday; unused; a replacement for onboard ALC888 and a trusty SB Live! Value.

First off, the installation was anything but easy -- because of the way my Asrock A780GXE motherboard is designed. It's got an integrated video chip, and the chip's heatsink is sat right behind the PCI-E 1x slot; there's about one inch between the slot and the heatsink. The Bravura's butt extends a couple of inches from the slot, so there was absolutely no way of having both the heatsink and the sound card in at the same time. Prying the heatsink off the motherboard took about half an hour, it had those white plastic screw replacing things that snap into place when you push them into the screw hole. I had no idea how to get them out properly, but did manage to get it done eventually. After this, the Bravura went in. The downside is that if the BIOS ever defaults to the integrated video chip, like if I do a BIOS reset, the motherboard will probably fry since the chip has no cooling now.

Apart from my motherboard acting up, there were a few things that seemed off about the Bravura, physically. It's a bit too tall for the PCI-E slot; the front panel where you screw the card into the case was hovering about a millimeter above the grill of the case, so the whole card was a bit wobbly and I didn't dare screw it in fully in fear of breaking something. This may just be a bad 1x slot on my motherboard, though; I didn't see any other obstructions. The second thing I noticed was that some of the opamps seemed to have been put in a bit carelessly, as two of them were clearly listing to one side. I tried carefully to push them properly into their sockets, but they wouldn't go so I left them as they were. I'm not sure if this affects the sound, I only ever use headphones and the opamp for that was put in right.

No problem installing the Bravura drivers on 32-bit XP, no software troubles at all.

As far as sound goes, well....... it's not bad. My first and main impression is that the soundstage is wider than what onboard or the Live could give. It has more clarity; but also feels a bit thin, a bit harsh -- not warm, you could say. Granted, my phones aren't top-shelf science: AKG 271S, AKG 314P earbuds and Senn MX460 earbuds, but with these three the Bravura did feel a bit cold (I'm using Mode 3 with all the phones). Maybe it will settle, and I'll probably try some different opamps along the road anyways. In any case, the card sounds very clean and has mad amounts of volume to give.

But something that's really embarrassing, I think, for a card in this price range is that as soon as I load up a Youtube video and go fullscreen, the sound starts to crackle. It may or may not be a grounding issue; running Prime95 to stress the CPU's cores to 100 % doesn't affect the sound at all. I haven't gotten around to switching the grounding pin on the card yet, but I'll do that a bit later and see if it fixes things. (Another thing that causes crackling is just scrolling this Head-Fi page up an down really fast. I occasionally get a pop when switching tracks in foobar, too.)

Not a bad card overall, the sound is very crisp (apart from what I said above) and I'm sure there's a way to get it to sound a bit warmer with a new opamp; but it does come off a bit cheap with its bent chips and interference problems. Also, I don't think the manual or their website said anything about how the insulator thing should be installed or what it does, which is a bit unfortunate, but then again I may just have missed it.

Well, (and sorry to spam the thread,) I looked into the interference problem a little bit more. Grounding switch did nothing, nor did clearing out cables around the sound card, and I already had the video card in a more distant PCI-E slot to begin with. The problem occurs only in Youtube videos when fullscreen (but not in a window), when opening/scrolling websites and in certain video cutscenes in games. Games are otherwise not affected and movies work fine.

However, the Youtube problem went away when I enabled hardware acceleration for Flash. Sooo... the crackling might have something to do with software-based drawing onto the screen when a large portion of the screen is affected. Could just be an unsuitable motherboard, I guess.

I'd also like to note that the AKG K 314 P earbuds are awesome, much clearer and "quicker" than the Senn MX460 that I have. The 314P have always been my favorite buds in the sub-20 € category, but a month ago their price went from 20 to five euros here in Finland, it's absolutely ridiculous. I advise anyone who can spot them for that price to give them a spin, I'm pretty sure AKG or someone affiliated is getting rid of stock.

Hello all,

Did some more testing with my Bravura.

The web browsing noise seems to be a Google Chrome issue since Opera and K-Meleon (Mozilla-based) come out clean. Also, if I reload a page in Chrome and wait, the sound will crackle, but if I press reload and switch to another tab, the sound is fine even though the page is reloading in the background. This does suggest that Chrome's 2D rendering engine is doing something different compared to Opera and Mozilla, and also that the Bravura noise thing has something to do with drawing things onto the screen when not in hardware-accelerated mode.

I was halfway into filling a ticket for Auzentech but decided not to bother with it; I can always use Opera when I need pristine audio during web surfing. Of note, though, is that my system is AMD-based, from the motherboard down to the video card, and Auzentech seems to only recognize the cracking problem in NVIDIA systems.

As for my impressions about the Bravura after I've had some time with it, it's ok. For comfort reasons I mostly use earbuds for my sound needs, so there's not a big difference between the Brav and the onboard ALC888. I recently compared them against each other again, and the Bravura does sound a bit clearer + its initial harshness is pretty much gone. It's definitely an improvement over onboard, but for earbuds I'm guessing a cheaper Xonar might have given more value.

The Bravura really makes me wish I hadn't sold my AKG 501s, but what can you do.

Greetings PSONE.

How did you find out that Kaspersky was the problem?

I'm having this same problem when installing the bravura 2010 driver but have no idea as to the cause.

The older driver installs fine.

Also.....the PCI audio 3d configurator loads up ok but any changes I make in the "effects" tab dont make any difference whatsoever

to the sound. 

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated....Thanks.

I am having a new issue with my Bravura.  It started a few weeks ago just after the new driver update came out but I had not upgraded yet.  I noticed that periodically the sound would go all tinny and hollow and I would get static from my rear speakers.  This happens simultaneously on all channels, including the headphone and mic/line-in.  Sometimes it corrects itself after a few seconds but most of the time to get it to end I have to restart the application that was outputting sound.

This happens more frequently the longer the computer has been on.  I then tried upgrading to the newest drivers and that didn't help at all.  I have a ticket in with Auzentech but it's been over a week and I have gotten no response.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thezfunk 

I am having a new issue with my Bravura.  It started a few weeks ago just after the new driver update came out but I had not upgraded yet.  I noticed that periodically the sound would go all tinny and hollow and I would get static from my rear speakers.  This happens simultaneously on all channels, including the headphone and mic/line-in.  Sometimes it corrects itself after a few seconds but most of the time to get it to end I have to restart the application that was outputting sound.

 

This happens more frequently the longer the computer has been on.  I then tried upgrading to the newest drivers and that didn't help at all.  I have a ticket in with Auzentech but it's been over a week and I have gotten no response.

I think I have figured it out.  Without too much involved explanation it has to do with the new 260+ Nvidia drivers and running BOINC with a GPU work unit.  I am not sure who to complain to.  Nvidia?  Auzentech?  Einstein@home?  I know one thing...nobody at Auzentech replied to my ticket and it has been over a month.
 

Anyone who has a Audio-Gd HDAM around should put it onto the the Bravura. Believe me, this thing eats every OPA and creates a entirely different sound signature.